GENRE: In Focus

At least one pedestrian life in Hyderabad was lost every other day in 2019.   In total, 602 pedestrians lost their lives on the roads of Hyderabad between 2017 and 2019. More than half of them (52.4%) were hit by vehicles while crossing the road. A few others were victims of road crashes as they went about their morning walk, or while waiting for a bus or other modes of transport by the side of the road. And at least 14 children, all under 10 years of age, got hit by vehicles while playing by the roadside during this period.  The…

On August 24, five months after Cubbon Park was made traffic-free, the Horticulture Department said that traffic would be allowed here again. This was despite BBMP passing the traffic-free Cubbon Park proposal on June 30 and the impassioned appeals of citizen groups like Heritage Beku. For years, activists have been striving for a pedestrian-friendly Bengaluru but evidence suggests there is a long way to go. With its ill-equipped infrastructure for pedestrians, Bengaluru has the third-highest number of pedestrian fatalities among the top eight Indian metros. Pedestrian injuries and fatalities also account for the majority of road accidents in the city.…

“Getting a customer who can afford to pay at least Rs 50 for a night is a big deal now. A week ago, I had a customer who offered only Rs 30, but I could not deny him. Every single penny counts today,” 32-year-old Christina, a transgender and sex worker in Chennai, tells me. The threat of coronavirus has acutely affected the livelihood of transgender persons in Chennai. The city is home to around 4,000 trans people, most of whom have been rendered jobless and penniless ever since the nation went into lockdown. The only financial aid that the community…

This article is part of our special series Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change in Tier II cities supported by Climate Trends. In May 2018, 51-year old Shail Bala Sharma, an Assistant Town Planner (ATP) was shot dead at Kasauli –a popular hill station and cantonment in Solan district, known for its quaint colonial buildings and landmarks. She was out to enforce a Supreme Court order to demolish half a dozen illegal constructions in the town, mainly hotels, lodges and guest houses. Hotelier Vijay Singh, whose hotel was slated for demolition, allegedly opened fire on her and the accompanying town and country…

Having set a four-year time-frame to achieve the target of 25 per cent electrification of new vehicle fleet in Delhi, the Arvind Kejriwal government may have just bitten off more than it can chew. Despite the slew of incentives offered -- waiver of registration fee and road tax and subsidy of Rs 1.5 lakh for new electric cars and up to Rs 30,000 for electric two-wheelers, e-rickshaws and freight vehicles, widespread public acceptance of electric vehicles is uncertain. Though the e-vehicle policy announcement on August 7th, based on wide-ranging consultations with experts from across the country and study of EV policies…

“It has become a matter of routine for me to go to the police station once in every ten days,” says an inconsolable Kavita (name changed). Since this March, she has been desperately pleading with the cops at the Maduravoyal Police Station, asking them to do what it takes to ensure justice for her 10-year-old daughter. Kavita's daughter was raped and killed by their 29-year-old neighbour five months ago.  The girl who woke up in the middle of the night to go to the loo, which is detached from their house, never came back to sleep next to her mother. …

In 2002-03, G Krishna Prasad, weekend farmer and Director of the organic farmers' collective Sahaja Samrudha, spotted a plot growing ragi in Bengaluru’s Lavelle Road. Older Bengaluru residents like him still have a special affinity for ragi. The sight took Krishna back to the 80s when he had surveyed rural Bengaluru to document the traditional akadi system of growing multiple crops simultaneously. “The food system in Bengaluru was centred around the ragi-based cropping pattern,” Krishna says. Ragi was not grown alone, but "along with mustard, jowar, tur and castor as the intercrops. Mustard and castor (that are used to make…

[In Part 1 of this series, we saw that around 5000 trees are proposed to be axed for the 'Bangalore Surrounding Roads Project' but certain discrepancies hint that the actual number could be higher. In this part, we look at the project's impacts and why citizens are worried.] "I was in Hesaraghatta the other day and an electrician asked me why I wasn't protesting tree felling on the Nelamangala-Doddaballapura road, just a little distance away from there. He asked me, don't the ministers and bureaucrats need air and water too?" says Mahesh Bhat, photographer and faculty at the Srishti Institute…

Since the start of this year, there's been much discussion about the ‘Bangalore Surrounding Roads Project’, for which thousands of trees around the city would be axed. The Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL) had proposed this road-widening project to decongest the city's peripheral roads, and to better link different parts of Bengaluru Urban and Rural to the Kempegowda International Airport. Six roads, spanning a total length of nearly 155 km, are to be widened for the project. Though these roads are mostly outside BBMP limits, the tree loss would have severe, long-lasting impacts for the city. But there's been…

For the first time, the demand for cycles in Ahmedabad has overtaken supply. One of the happy fallouts from the civil mess that COVID-19 has caused. Ahmedabad is now reporting over 100% hike in average sales, with most new models being pre-booked. “All kinds of bikes from pleasure to professional, including mountain, hybrid and kids bikes have seen a huge spike in demand,” said Aditya Sharma, an administrator with the Decathlon Cycling community. “For the first time, people have to wait for the model or colour of the bike they want.”  “We are out of stock of many models,” added…