GENRE: In Focus

The onset of Mumbai's monsoon is loaded with a lot of speculation. Its arrival is forecasted as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) tracks the seasons’ advance from the south. The forecast also indicates the quantity of rainfall expected across the months of June-September, leaving aside the rainfall pattern, which is harder to predict in advance. Mumbai receives an average 2,500 mm of rainfall in the monsoon months. The city depends on this rain to fill the lakes that supply water for the year. And while this year, Maharashtra expects to surpass its average by 6%, the focus will ultimately be…

Harshal Modi, a resident of Mumbai, has been using his scooter to travel to his factory everyday. After the state government reinstated the local trains, he hasn't switched back to using them, citing issues with last mile connectivity from stations. “It is more convenient to travel by scooter because there’s no issue of waiting for an auto to reach the station and vice versa. It takes such a long time to get an auto in Mumbai,” says Modi.  As the population of India's cities continues to develop rapidly, there has been an increase in the number of commuters making many…

Ashok*, a first generation graduate hailing from Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu, secured a job at a leading IT firm over a decade ago in Chennai. With the state capital being a dream destination for many from rural Tamil Nadu, he landed in Chennai with plenty of hopes and dreams.  As years passed, he gained experience but also realised that the pay scale for his role was much lower than what a professional with the same level of experience would get in Bengaluru and other metro cities. With nearly 12.5 years of experience, Ashok now works in a start-up IT…

Chennai’s potential in terms of harnessing rooftop solar energy is widely spoken about. The city has a rooftop solar potential of 1.38 GW, according to an April 2018 study by Greenpeace India. The domestic or residential segment by itself can account for a capacity of about 586.46MW which is 42.6% of the city’s solar energy potential.  While the picture seems promising on paper, Chennai is nowhere close to making use of the potential of rooftop solar energy in the residential segment for various reasons. In part 1 of the series, we brought to light how realtors in Chennai are flouting…

As Bengaluru's schools reopen fully for the new academic year, students are struggling to cope. The school shutdowns over the last two years have led to learning gaps, emotional problems and dropouts. Sushma Chandrappa, a domestic worker, says her daughter attended her private pre-school for only four months in the last two years. "Her LKG classes had started four months before the 2020 lockdown, and she attended only those," adds Sushma. Further, the pandemic reduced Sushma's wages and her husband, an auto driver, lost his income completely. They were unable to pay school fees or ensure smartphone access to their…

Jaspreet Sachdev is a mother to eight-year-old Jasman, who has autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). After two years of online learning, he is back to school after the Maharashtra government allowed offline classes to begin in February. Jasman loved going to school and was really fond of his teachers and peers. School kept him busy and happily occupied for a major part of the day. But when schools started in February, Jaspreet had multiple meetings with Jasman’s teachers about some behavioural issues such as impatience, aggression and inability to focus, all of which had worsened during the COVID…

On April 24th, the popular account @RoadsOfMumbai held a poll on Twitter asking a simple question, ‘Will wrong-side driving ever end in Mumbai?’ The response was overwhelmingly negative; over 80% of respondents believed they would just have to live with it. The poll came nearly two months after the Mumbai police started a crackdown on traffic violations and road obstructions. They were particularly targeting offences of driving on the wrong side of the road and parking of defunct vehicles, ‘khataras,’ on the road. From March 6th to May 15th, the police claimed to have registered 12,390 wrong-side driving cases and…

In Part 2 of this series, we wrote about how over a thousand families forcibly evicted from the Ejipura slum in 2013 are yet to be rehabilitated. At the time of their eviction, these residents were promised alternative accommodation at a new EWS (Economically Weaker Section) quarters in Sulikunte, along Sarjapur Road. The new quarters were built in 2017. But less than 400 families live there presently, almost a decade after their eviction. The reason: the city corporation BBMP lacks clarity on who the deserving beneficiaries are. As per BBMP's records, 792 out of the 900 flats in Sulikunte have…

Bengaluru has registered above-average rainfall to date. This also correlates with the washing away of road surfaces resulting in more potholes being exposed. The usual blame games then begin among the authorities. However, there are parts of Bengaluru where this pattern rarely happens. One such area which has consistently bucked this trend of rains leading to potholes, and having good roads in general, is Electronics City - Specifically, the areas managed by the Electronics City Industrial Township Authority (ELCITA). How does Electronic City ensure good roads? As any urban planning expert would tell you, issues like poor drainage or bad…

Rows of colourful plastic pots lined up before tanker lorries and a sea of people waiting near hand pumps had become defining images of Chennai’s water crisis in the summer of 2019. While the city has seen good monsoons and sufficient water in storage in the years since, little has changed in terms of regular supply for many residents of low-income communities across the city. “The water crisis we face is an all-seasonal issue and summer only worsens our living conditions,” says L Kamala, a 32-year-old resident of Pulianthope. She starts her day as early as 5 am. She cooks…