GENRE: In Focus

Many Indian state governments have experimented with subsidised canteens over the last few years. The most recent addition to this has been the Karnataka government launch of ‘Indira Canteens’ in Bengaluru this month (August 2017). According to media reports, the canteens in most states have been very popular, a fact borne out by the long queues often seen outside these. Intended for the urban poor - mainly the destitute, elderly, unemployed, migrants and the working poor - these canteens usually serve food for Rs 10 or much less. The concept of subsidised food canteens became especially popular after the success…

It was a cloudy evening in mid-August. It had started drizzling and the dark clouds indicated a heavy spell of rain. It seemed like the South West monsoon would finally show mercy on the water-starved city of Chennai. As I walked on a narrow street that leads to Whites Road in Royapettah, my path was blocked by a water tanker, and tens of women and hundreds of pots thronging it. There was utter chaos on the street packed with houses on both sides. The women were fighting, yelling at each other and trying their best to grab their chance to…

The development of “smart” cities was one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first initiatives upon taking office in 2014. Launched the next year, the stated focus of the Indian government’s Smart Cities Mission is “on sustainable and inclusive development, and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a lighthouse to other aspiring cities.” However, as the Mission’s portal candidly acknowledges, “There is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means different things to different people.” Given the myriad interpretations of that term in this rapidly urbanizing, hugely diverse country, it comes…

Every Saturday morning Srinivasan, a retired revenue officer, and Ganesh, also a retired government employee, sit in a tiny room in one of the old buildings in a narrow lane of Bazaar Road in Saidapet. For the entire day, they sit there, receiving grievances and applications from the citizens who throng to the office from Chennai and surrounding areas. This is the office space of Satta Panchayat Iyakkam (SPI), where the SPI has been conducting their Saturday grievance redressal sessions over the last five years. These grievance meetings primarily focus on assisting people in availing government services and to help…

“How many Government Hospitals are there in Bengaluru? Could you please tell me few names?” I asked a female worker at St Johns Hospital, Bengaluru, who had a big smile on her face and looked approachable. “Umm, Victoria… Vanivilas… Jayadeva… there are a lot of them” she answered. Armed with what I could glean from Google and my limited knowledge of Kannada, I was on a quest: to locate health services for women in government hospitals in the city. We had attempted the same earlier in Delhi as part of a mapping project for Hidden Pockets, which locates services around…

It has been a year since Dr D Karthikeyan took charge as the Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation. Within a few months of him taking charge as the commissioner, he was accorded the additional responsibility of holding the Special Officer’s post in the absence of a council which ended its term last October. GCC is not new to Karthikeyan. It is for the third time that he is serving as the Commissioner of the Greater Chennai Corporation. In a quick chat with Citizen Matters, the Corporation Commissioner speaks about some of the significant issues bothering the city. Excerpts from the…

In an essay, ‘A Tale of Three cities and the search for Dharma’, sociologist and author Arshia Sattar examines the three cities depicted in the epic Ramayana. Ayodhya, the human city, Kishkindha, the monkey city and finally Lanka, the rakshasa city, each governed by codes of behaviour depending on who resides in them. As she puts it, in the cities, “ways of being and doing are determined and unalterable”. The ‘codes’ in each city are remarkably different, each allowing for a different kind of morality and way to live. The only similarity between them is that each upholds a certain…

Independence Day 2017 turned out to be a bright, sunny, yet cool, day – a typical Bengaluru day, it would appear.  Yet, that morning we woke up to a rapidly flowing river outside our house that had completely submerged the main road leading into S.T. Bed Layout, Koramangala. A few hapless souls could be seen wading against the tide in at least a foot of water. Our compound was flooded, too. And murky water had entered many houses in more low-lying parts of the neighbourhood. A walk around the area a little before noon on Tuesday revealed that some roads…

Even as legal proceedings continue over the issue, in June the Housing and Urban Development Department of Tamil Nadu notified rules and guidelines for the regularisation of unauthorised structures under all urban local bodies in the state. The rule allows the regularisation of unauthorised buildings built before July 1 2007, upon payment of a penalty amount to the municipal authorities. While the Greater Chennai Corporation is yet to open the online application process for house owners who have violated the building byelaws, there seems to be growing dissent against the government decision. And this dissent among citizens may, in all…

Located along the borders of Chennai, Chitlapakkam Lake was a source of freshwater that was used by the residents of Chitlapakkam and nearby areas. With the urbanization of the neighbourhood, the lake has become a receptacle of garbage and debris. Chitlapakkam Rising, an NGO, along with the local Residents’ Welfare Associations and other NGOs, namely the Environmental Foundation of India and Arappor Iyakkam are trying to save the lake which has lost more than half its original area. As a step towards that, a social audit conducted by Harris Sultan of Arappor Iyakkam with the help of the Chitlapakkam Rising…