GENRE: In Focus

[This article was co-authored by Rakesh Kumar Sinha. Rakesh holds a PGDCA from CMC, Delhi and a Certificate in Computing from IGNOU. He has worked as a research assistant in Policy and Planning Research Unit of Indian Statistical Institute.] On Sunday 08 December 2019, 43 people lost their lives in a tragic fire in a Delhi small-scale manufacturing hub. Most victims are young migrant labourers from states like Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.  It was reported that factories were located illegally on residential premises, and an electrical short circuit possibly caused the fire. At least five of the 43 victims were minors, with…

Ward committees are supposed to make citizens the co-decision makers in governance of their ward. The idea is to entrust citizens with ward-level planning, budgeting and monitoring of BBMP services/schemes, and to leave corporators to focus on broader systemic issues of the city. But a recent study by Sensing Local Foundation revealed that the ward committees in Bengaluru were mostly ineffective. The foundation studied ward committees across 22 wards over four months, from July to October. The researchers found that while citizens were keen to attend the meetings, corporators often didn’t turn up, and the ward committee members didn't resolve issues…

For the transpeople of Pune, November 20 was an important day. “We have come here for all the transpeople who lost their lives to transphobia,” said Rishi, a trans-rights activist, on this “Trans Remembrance Day”. “We want to observe this in public, these tragedies took place in public and it is only right that we are here and we are being seen”.  If you have lived or travelled around Pune you will have heard of and visited the shopping area of Tulsi Baugh, just four minutes’ walk north of Budhwar Peth, the city’s red light district. Many transwomen have their…

On October 4th, 33-year-old Vyas (name changed), an IT professional, fell and broke his right knee when his scooter bumped into a pothole. The surgery afterwards, recurring hospital bills, physiotherapy, expenses for medicines, scooter repair etc have drained him of over Rs 4,34,323 so far. And he is still bed-ridden. Vyas has been sending emails to one government department after the other, hoping for compensation. But there’s been no response. The reason? BBMP has never had a mechanism to compensate victims of pothole accidents despite the high number of victims. So far, compensation has been purely at the ‘discretion’ of…

Man and animal are being deprived of their daily requirement of meat, as a thoroughly exasperated Justice S. Raghuvendra Rathore of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) summarily ordered the closure of Bhopal’s only licensed abattoir at Jinsi. Justice Rathore also directed the police SSP to provide all assistance to the Bhopal Collector to implement this order. The government-run abattoir situated in Jehangirabad area at the city centre, had been facing protests from people residing and working in nearby areas for a long time, primarily complaints against the foul stench emanating from it. There have also been complaints over meat from…

Farmers, drivers and street food sellers in Guwahati are the occupations most vulnerable to climate change impacts in the northeastern city, while doctors are the least vulnerable, found a study that blends society and science for clues that can aid urban planning. Global climatic models and climatic predictions fail to explain the impacts on a very small scale, challenging planners and decision-makers in providing location- and ecology-specific solutions. Plugging this gap by incorporating people’s voices – like this study by IIT-Guwahati has done – is especially necessary for cities like Guwahati that have rapidly and silently expanded, barging into eco-sensitive…

On November 27th, a tweet by Ashok Khemka, principal secretary of the Science and Technology Department, caught the attention of netizens and media, though one cannot call it entirely surprising. A senior IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, Khemka was already known to be Haryana's second-most transferred bureaucrat (52 times in his 27 years of service) and shared news of his 53rd transfer through this tweet. https://twitter.com/AshokKhemka_IAS/status/1199625574173462528 Khemka, born in Kolkata** and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, shot to limelight through a series of exposés, including the Robert Vadra DLF land grab scam, Sonepat-Kharkhoda IMT land scam case and Garhi…

The new chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray may have granted interim stay pending review on the development of the Metro car shed inside the Aarey forest for now, but the battle to save Aarey – the 4.8 lakh trees that the forest is made up of --  is far from over.  Though work on tree cutting and the Metro car shed inside Aarey was already under a stay ordered by the Supreme Court since the en masse overnight cutting of over 2141 trees on October 5th, the state support for Aarey comes as a huge boost for the Save…

The new chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray may have granted interim stay pending review on the development of the Metro car shed inside the Aarey forest for now, but the battle to save Aarey – the 4.8 lakh trees that the forest is made up of --  is far from over.  Though work on tree cutting and the Metro car shed inside Aarey was already under a stay ordered by the Supreme Court since the en masse overnight cutting of over 2141 trees on October 5th, the state support for Aarey comes as a huge boost for the Save…

Shankari Halder finally dreamed of steering her life in the right direction when she became a commercial cab driver in Kolkata, early this year. The 36-year-old was one among the 10 women who were trained to operate a first-of-its kind cab service in Kolkata. Christened as Pink Taxis, these 10 cabs were launched primarily with the aim of providing a secure and safe commute environment for women, who often find it risky to travel in cabs driven by male chauffeurs. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee flagged off the first fleet of 10 taxis painted in pink and white from Nabanna, the…