GENRE: In Focus

For decades, buses have been the public transportation of choice in Chennai. But recent numbers indicate that this might be changing. With increase in fares, growth in number of private vehicles and alternative modes of transport, it's now a case of buses missing the people of Chennai. A report by the Ministry of Road Transport highlighted that in 2015-2016, MTC carried the highest number of passengers per bus per day at 1270. However, a variety of reasons has led to a steep drop in ridership in the city buses over time.  Bus ridership over time  The MTC has been one…

Amaravati was promised as a dream come true – a utopia. However, the city, which was being developed as the new capital of Andhra Pradesh, now stares at a bleak future — after the pullout of major investors, as well as the lack of political will due to change of government in the state. Less than 150 days ago, in April 2019, just days before the simultaneous elections in Andhra Pradesh for state legislative assembly as well as Indian parliament, the then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu was announcing that Amaravati would be among the five best capitals of…

For Vineet Gautam, the tall deodar tree in the backyard of his heritage home Mayvilla, had become a threat to his life and property. A massive landslide caused by incessant rains had washed away 80-100 metres of common road in the vicinity of his 1928-built home, dangerously tilting the massive tree. Having spent a night of anxiety and fear in his home, Vineet moved his family to a safer location the next morning, and had to spend three days to convince the municipal corporation to cut down and remove the tree. Vineet Gautam was fortunate as the civic authorities responded…

In India’s IT capital Bengaluru, sprinkled within its concrete jungle, are shady peepal trees adorned with serpent stones, bells and sacred threads, standing majestically atop gated, raised platforms. Often a pit-stop for tired travellers or an informal gathering place, these culturally-important open-air tree shrines or ‘kattes’ and temples, with their assemblage of native tree species, offer immense scope to enhance the green infrastructure within rapidly growing megacities, suggests a study. Offering a glimpse into the city’s native trees, the study documents 121 such species thriving in 69 sacred sites in Bengaluru, spread across 36 temples and 33 kattes, a sizeable…

For months now, various studies and reports have talked about the high level of water stress across Indian cities. The alarm bells reached a crescendo when Chennai ran out of water recently, and media ran multiple reports on India's looming urban water crisis. Many solutions have been proposed but the most fundamental—the need to price water as an economic good—is rarely investigated.  Water is invaluable; none of us can live without it. And so, historically, we've thought nothing about how we use it. Government after government, with a monopoly over the supply of water, has tried to control water supply.…

The Surat fire tragedy in a coaching centre which claimed the lives of 24 students has impacted coaching centres in Bhopal as well. A fire safety inspection ordered by Kalpana Srivastava, Divisional Commissioner, found that none of the coaching centres had even basic fire safety facilities. The four inspection teams found that in the 250 odd coaching centres in MP Nagar, the city’s busiest area where a majority of the coaching centres are housed, and other localities, many did not even have a fire extinguisher or a fire alarm system and were ill-equipped to deal with any unforeseen emergency fire…

Co-authored by Dattatraya T Devare and Saurabh Ketkar There’s a saying by Gustavo Petra, Former Mayor of Bogota, Columbia that is often seen on social media posters and discussions on mobility. Petra says, and rightly so, “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, It’s where the rich use public transportation.” Perhaps the most critical element of any major city is its public transportation network. It is akin to the veins and arteries in our bodies, taking people from their homes to their destinations, to help the city build and grow. Without this crucial link, an…

Mahalakshmi street at T Nagar. Harrington Road in Chetpet. Station Border Road at Chrompet. The story is similar in all these localities. Once serene residential neighbourhoods, they now host a number of commercial and institutional establishments.  Let’s take the case of Mahalakshmi Street in T Nagar. A private bank is being operated from this primarily residential locality, which has no infrastructural support for commercial establishments. There is no designated parking space. Residents came to know about the bank only when it was being constructed.  It is not the conversion alone that is attracting eyeballs, but also the fact that residents,…

Six-year-old Bittu, a resident of By Lane 3 of Nabin Nagar in Guwahati, misses school frequently during the peak monsoon season. “My younger son Bittu recently suffered serious skin ailments after he got wet in the rains,” explained his mother Purnima Das, “When I took him to a neighbouring clinic, it was diagnosed that he was suffering from a kind of superficial fungal infection. The consulting doctor advised me not to let him come in touch with clogged rainwater. But our lane gets flooded every time there is a downpour. Hence, I do not let Bittu go to school during…

It will perhaps be a long time before Chennai can witness any spell of heavy rain without getting jitters over the nightmarish memory of December 2015. The 2015 floods that devastated the city exposed the state of urban planning in the city. The lack of resilience to natural disasters remains one of the greatest concerns of the people of one of India’s largest cities.  What should be noted is that certain parts of Chennai experienced greater flooding than others and this impacted rescue and relief efforts. Poor urban planning, coupled with an expanding population that requires more space, leads to…