GENRE: In Focus

On a foggy morning on December 4th, when night temperatures in Srinagar had plummeted to minus 3.4 degrees Celsius, Adil Ahmed, a labourer with Jammu and Kashmir-based Hassan Road Construction Company (HRCC) Ltd, was busy digging a road at Lal Chowk, the heart of Srinagar city. Ahmed, a resident of the Charar-e-Shareef area of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district had decided to stay back in Srinagar in winter to earn some extra bucks for his sister’s marriage slated for April next year. “At present, I am part of a project under Srinagar Smart City in Lal Chowk area,” says Ahmed. There…

I have lived on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) for 15 years now. It has shaped my life to such an extent that it is one of the narratives I use to recount my time in the city. Orienting myself with the everyday changes on this road has shed light on my place as a resident, commuter, voter and more importantly as a citizen - a part of a larger whole. With the announcement of the environmental clearance application for the Peripheral Ring Road (PRR), it seemed prudent to look back on what the journey has been like on the…

Kumar*, a food delivery gig worker rode back home after midnight on his scooter a few weeks back. Suddenly, a few cops stopped him on the way, captured his photo and then let him go. "Why are you taking my photo? I have my driving license and other documents, and I am also wearing my helmet," he asked them, flabbergasted and confused. But they did not respond. Little did he know that the Chennai police might have used their facial recognition technology (FRT) to see if his photo matched that of a criminal in their database. This has been one…

Weeks before her daughter was born, a heavily pregnant Chandni Bibi boarded a train to Murshidabad in West Bengal, from where she had another hour’s journey to her native village. Had she decided to deliver her baby in Mumbai, she would have to navigate the waist-high tidal waters that flooded the area around her home twice every day. A single room built of wood and sheets of scrap metal in a slum, her home stands on uneven wooden and bamboo poles driven into the soft soil where land meets the sea.  Among an estimated 6,000 homes built on the coastal…

It is a balmy Wednesday morning. Having arranged the chairs in rows and set the required vaccines ready on a wooden table, Selvi G, the Urban Health Nurse (UHN) of Valasaravakkam Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) in Chennai, awaits mothers scheduled to come in for the immunisation of their children. As the first of them arrive, Selvi gives them a heads-up that it is only normal for the child to cry after the injection and there is nothing to panic about. She tells them not to rub the injected area and to administer the medicine which will be given to…

A mangrove is a shrub that grows along coasts and has roots that are usually found underwater. Mangroves store ‘more carbon per unit area than any other ecosystem on Earth’, and aid in the fight against coral bleaching. They act as natural barriers against storms and rising seas, saving ‘more than $65 billion worth of property damage each year’, according to conservation.org. They thrive in subtropical nations since they are adaptive, and are the best option for mitigating the effects of climate change, be it sea-level rise or the frequency of natural disasters such as cyclones and storm surges. However,…

As station after station is built along the nearly 119 kilometres of Namma Metro under Phase 2, it is crucial to review the design of the existing infrastructure and analyse it through the lens of inclusivity and accessibility.  Any city comprises a diverse group of people with varying needs, and all public infrastructure must cater to different user groups such as persons with disabilities(PwD), trans persons, the elderly, parents with young children, etc.  The Metro Rail policy 2017, a central level policy that has to be adhered to at the state level, lays down guidelines requiring Metro infrastructure to ensure…

It is a promise all three parties in the fray made - clearing Delhi’s landfills, the three main sites being Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Okhla. Now it has fallen on the winner of Delhi's municipal elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), to fulfil that promise. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has specifically promised to get the three landfill sites cleared over the next five years; the first one to be done by 2024. Waste management overall, not just clearing the landfills, had figured prominently in the manifestos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress too. The latter had described the Ghazipur…

A room of one's own is considered a basic necessity for a good life. But having one's own space to work, study and rest and a guarantee of privacy are a dream that is seemingly unattainable for many in Chennai. At a time when the city's real estate price seems to be skyrocketing, there are still many families who live in a single room in Chennai, without a proper roof and any ventilation. For these residents, the dream is not to build or buy a big multi-storey house, but merely call a space home where they can stretch their legs…

On November 8th, 28-year-old Aftab Ameen Poonawala was arrested for allegedly strangling his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar. They had had a violent argument. He cut her body into 35 pieces, kept them in a 300-litre fridge. Over the next few days Aftab disposed of the pieces at various places in Delhi’s Mehrauli forest area. While this incident — the Delhi Fridge case, as it is being referred to — has received relentless media focus, an increasing number of such gruesome crimes, often labelled crimes of passion, has been reported in the recent past. Family disputes and the breakdown of relationships…