GENRE: In Focus

Come the first signs of winter and 50-year-old Saleema, a resident of Panthachowk area of Srinagar, visits her 10-acre orchard for two hours daily to collect fallen leaves of the different variety of trees there. She also cuts small tree branches to keep with the leaves. Saleema along with her two daughters, Sab 15 and Iqra 13, then begin the process to turn the leaves and tree branches collected into a kind of coal to be used in fire-pots, popularly known as Kangris, a traditional heating pot which Kashmiris use to fight the bone chilling winter cold. Thanks to the…

Dadul, a security guard at a construction site in Mira Road, returned to Mumbai from Allahabad a month ago. "I went back to my village by truck, paying Rs 3,000, at the start of the pandemic. All I was given from the government at the time was Rs 1,000 and some ration because of the 14-day quarantine. But I was scared of another lockdown, so I stayed back in my village, until recently." he says. Dadul is not aware of any relief announced for construction workers through the lockdown, and he is not alone in this. In the early months…

This is the second of a two-part story looking at how women construction workers are disproportionately affected by air pollution and other work place related issues. Read Part I here Women workers in the construction sector, whom the Mahila Housing Trust spoke to in connection with a report they are working on, said they preferred construction work over other occupations for a variety of reasons, one being the higher daily wage rates it offers as compared to other occupations. According to a woman construction worker from Bakkarwala, “we prefer to work at construction sites since we get a daily wage…

Every year, rains in Mumbai claim lives and leave behind destruction to infrastructure and the city’s economy. Excessive flooding in the city is only increasing. The 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned us about rising sea levels in Mumbai in the coming years, and, towards the end of the century, the city is set to see a 4.6 degree celsius rise in mean temperatures.  In January 2022, the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) released a report on emerging trends of climate change in Western India. The report provides trends for western…

Residents of the NCR town of Ghaziabad, which is part of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, have learnt one important lesson in recent years. That public health is an issue that residents have to solve for themselves through their RWAs, or other people’s associations. There was a distant hope, in vain as it turned out, that the new budget would at least mention public health, especially in the poll bound states. Not surprisingly, even though polling in this assembly segment is on February 10th, no poll manifesto as yet has promised anything that will improve the environment for better health. Administered by…

Sprawling, manicured lawns in neighbourhood parks, golf clubs, hospitals, and the airport may seem like oases of greenery. But the fact that they are green deserts -- negatively impacting soil fertility and displacing food crops such as finger millet, pulses, paddy -- is often overlooked.  These are some of the findings in a 2018 study by Dr Seema Purushothaman, Sheetal Patil, Raghvendra Vanjari, A R Shwetha and Dhanya Bhaskar, from Azim Premji University, titled  ‘The Other side of Development – Green Carpet or Green Desert?’. The study was conducted in the rural peripheries of North Bengaluru. About why the study focused…

Jacob D’Souza, 63, a resident of Matunga and a school bus operator for schools in Mumbai, once owned four buses and operated independent bus services in five neighbourhood schools in and around Sion Koliwada. Two years into the lockdown, he is left with just one bus and struggles to make ends meet with that. Within a year of the lockdown, financiers seized two of his buses for defaulting on loan repayment. “My buses were confiscated despite my sound credit record of paying all my dues on time,” said Jacob. “They didn't care that I had no income due to the…

This is the first of a two part story looking at how women workers in the construction industry are disproportionately affected by air pollution and other work place related issues. Women workers in the construction sector, the second largest employer of women after agriculture, are disproportionately affected by issues like air pollution. Not only at their work place but also at their homes. Many women construction workers suffer from illnesses like breathlessness but delay treatment due to the lack of options before them. “There have been no studies carried out about the health impact of construction activities on the workers,”…

Last year, Chennai experienced intense rains and flooding yet again, bringing the city to a standstill for days. Excess flooding in the city has been associated with poor planning and urban development projects over the years. Rapid urbanisation in erstwhile agricultural lands and wetlands, and increased concretisation have altered the natural flow of rainwater. This is what has often led to debilitating floods.  Existing infrastructure to manage flooding has been criticised by city dwellers and environmentalists for incomplete construction, lack of topographic study before implementation, and lack of linking drains to natural channels.  A growing concern is the fact that…

“Sun’s out, snakes out!” exclaimed Shuayb Ahmed, and Yatin Kalki as they jumped to action. Ahmed, an independent snake rescuer, had received a frantic call from a woman who spotted a snake – claimed to be a juvenile spectacled cobra – in her house in Bengaluru. The team quickly geared up for the ‘rescue’ – an empty pillow case, a snake hook, a hollow pipe, and a flashlight. “Timeliness is key,” Ahmed said, as he hurried to the vehicle. On reaching the house, Kalki went about locating the snake, while Ahmed checked for access points from where the snake possibly…