GENRE: In Focus

For 17-year-old Jareen Saifi, school is the highlight of her day. Born with multiple disabilities including speech impairment, she eagerly signs to her mother asking if they can go to school. For the past five years, she has been attending the Girls Senior Secondary School in New Delhi’s New Friends Colony — a mainstream institution with a relatively high proportion of children with disabilities. The school offers a special educator, resource room and speech therapy, all of which are crucial for her. The school’s playground is close to her classroom and that is where she truly lights up.  But the…

At Bengaluru’s first Dry Waste Collection Centre (DWCC) in Domlur, heaps of waste in segregated piles dominate the landscape. Drivers of collection vehicles and waste pickers work through the piles, segregating waste in challenging conditions. These centres were established to promote decentralised waste management and improve the livelihood of waste workers. Yet, a decade later, waste pickers continue to struggle without formal employment status, volatile resale prices for recyclable waste, a shortage of quality waste and fragile job security. Workers at the Domlur DWCC come from various backgrounds. For some, waste picking is a generational occupation — A Krishna, the…

In August this year, over 2,000 sanitation workers from Central and North Chennai staged a peaceful protest against the Greater Chennai Corporation's (GCC) decision to privatise waste management services in Zones 5 and 6. Their demonstration was met with force and allegations of police brutality, just one day before Independence Day. Sanitary workers protest against the privatisation of waste management in zones 5 and 6 in Chennai. Pic courtesy: Sakthivel/Vyasai Thozhargal Over the years, GCC has outsourced solid waste management to private firms in 13 out of its 15 zones. The latest was in June this year, which approved the…

As the monsoon continues to wreak havoc in Mumbai, residents of Appa Pada, living along the slopes of the Malad hillocks within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), are among the worst affected. As soon as the rainy season begins, they find eviction notices pasted on their doors. The Forest Department also erects banners warning residents to vacate the area because of monsoon-related hazards. These notices seem to absolve the government of any responsibility in the event of an accident.   Appa Pada continues to be susceptible to landslides, posing danger to the hillock’s inhabitants. Despite this, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation…

In many parts of Bengaluru, cows foraging through heaps of garbage is a common sight. One such long-standing blackspot is in Jayachamarajendra Nagar (JC Nagar) near Benson Town. Neela, who runs a grocery shop right opposite the dump, says it has been there since she moved in three years ago; others claim it has existed for over a decade, while some residents say they’ve seen it all their lives. The locality, a low to middle-income settlement with narrow lanes, does not receive door-to-door garbage collection. Instead, a tipper truck waits at a fixed spot where residents must bring their waste…

Sponge parks are quickly becoming a prominent element of Chennai’s flood mitigation efforts. Spearheaded by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), the project now boasts 78 sponge parks in the city, under the Sponge City initiative. While these structures are designed to manage surface runoff and prevent urban flooding, a closer examination reveals significant deviations from the holistic, nature-based designs that typically define a sponge park. Unlike the sponge park in Porur (Dr MS Swaminathan Wetland Eco Park), that integrates nature-based design and ecosystem restoration, most GCC-implemented sponge parks function more like glorified rainwater harvesting systems. The critical question remains: Are…

“The impact of childhood trauma still haunts me. I was a very extroverted child, but as I began to feel different, I became introverted. This took a serious toll on my self-esteem,” says Shivv Pandey, a trans man and Bengaluru-based activist. Like Shivv, many transgender individuals carry unresolved trauma into adulthood, with limited access to even basic mental health support. As they struggle to survive in a hostile society, their mental health remains neglected, overlooked in policies, support systems, and even within their personal lives. In an earlier article, we highlighted the lack of psychological support for transgender youth in…

“When I reached out to my college counsellor, I was told I was just experiencing hormonal changes and was influenced by my surroundings and the media. It was a deeply traumatic session. I had asked for support, but all I received was dismissal and ignorance,” says Adi Goswami, a trans man and People Consultant at Bengaluru-based firm Zinnov. Adi regrets asking the counsellor for help before transitioning, while pursuing his undergraduate studies in a reputed, previously all-girls college in the city. Like Adi, many transgender students experience isolation, and the lack of mental health support in their institutions may also…

They form the backbone of the country's seafood export industry, worth over ₹60,000 crore. However, Chennai’s coastal communities, especially fisherwomen, remain mostly invisible in policy and pay. Enduring punishing 15-hour days under sweltering heat, they clean, dry, and sell fish for just ₹200 to ₹300 a day. They work on blistering concrete without shade, toilets, or access to safe drinking water. Prolonged exposure to these conditions puts them at risk of sunburn, dehydration, dizziness, eye damage, and kidney issues. These health problems remain largely unaddressed. At sea, rising water temperatures and pollution continue to push fish further offshore. This forces…

Several Marathi poets have captured the beauty of the month of Shravan: the gentle, short spells of silken raindrops, playing hide-and-seek with the sun, and etching rainbows in the sky. After one and a half to two months of dark skies and consistent rainfall in Mumbai, Shravan, when it starts around August, is seen as a time for Mumbaikars to enjoy the rains, as the monsoon wanes in intensity towards the end of the season. At least, that used to be the case.Over the past couple of years, however, rains have started to visit Mumbai at the beginning of June. Then it…