GENRE: Report

What you see in the picture above is not just a classroom. This houses an entire school from first grade to seventh grade with 27 students right in the heart of Mysuru city. A few years back this government school had over 300 students. Since 2005 Pratham’s Annual Survey of Education reports (ASER) have been showing dreadful learning performance of our future generation every year. Every one knows that the emperor has no clothes, but we are not ready to implement the needed reforms. India's education sector, for all practical purposes, has collapsed. Ironically, at a time when we want…

In the last four years, promises to build hostels exclusively for north-eastern students across cities in the north and south have drawn mixed reactions. Some hail the move as an assurance of "safety," while critics slam it as "divisive". Meanwhile, amid divergent reactions, the first hostel built for female students from the north-eastern states, under the scheme mooted by the NDA government at the centre, is said to have been completed, and will be inaugurated in Bengaluru's Jnana Bharathi campus "soon." This was disclosed in a recent announcement by Dr Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER). The hostel,…

A private car should ideally carry four to five people. But a recent survey in Udyog Vihar Industrial Area in Gurugram showed that it carries only 1.6 persons on average. The survey was conducted by the IT company Nagarro among over 2600 of its own employees. Among the survey respondents, 42 percent were using private cars to come to office, contributing to the infamous congestion in the city. The majority of them did not carpool. A quarter of the car users sometimes parked their cars on the street next to office, which could also congest the road. Another 19 percent…

Continuous trolling, sarcastic celebrations, and even a mock ‘inauguration by the Prime Minister’ -- there is no end to the many creative ways in which Mangaluru residents have been venting their frustration over the incompletion of this 900-metre flyover in their city that lies unfinished for close to a decade now. The Pumpwell flyover that lies at the intersection of NH66 AND NH55 was ideated to absorb the excess load of the intercity and highway traffic, but for nearly 10 years since the issue of the Letter of Approval (LOA) for the project, it has only added to traffic woes…

“We, the women of India hereby commit to building a nationwide movement cutting across region, religion, language, caste and ideology to demand political power for women. All for one and one for all.” This pledge taken on December 8th by about 150 women assembled at Hotel Chalukya in Bengaluru resonated in the hearts of many more invisible people who were not in the room, including women political aspirants and people who want to see more women out there ruling the country and the states. The nonpartisan, crowd-funded collective of people, India Women’s Caucus, aimed at improving representation of women in…

No treatment, no vote, is the battle cry from Jodhpur, about to go to polls in end-November. As the incidence of dengue fever rises, awareness and anger against the government is shooting up. The Dengue virus is a global citizen, but loves cities, especially India's dirty towns. This year, it seems to be partial to urban Maharashtra, which reported 4,667 cases by September 30, 2018, according to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP). This was followed by Odisha with 3,883 cases, Kerala (3,660), Andhra Pradesh (3,314), Himachal Pradesh (3,303) and Rajasthan (3,022). The virus also seems to like the southern…

A gentle mist spread over the lapping waves of the Tambrabarani or Thamirabarani, as the skies broke into a morning smile. The river did not look as if it was flooded or in full flow, as it lazily gurgled and swirled over pebbles, while small fish sometimes leapt in quick flashes. A pearly hue was just beginning to infuse the waters as the morning rubbed out sleep from its eyes. But by then crowds of people had already gathered -- bending, and taking three dips as part of the ritual "bath" for which they had travelled for days, and changed trains…

On 11th October the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs notified a land pooling policy under the 2021 Master Plan for Delhi, to address the large scale housing gaps in Delhi. Through this policy, Delhi is set to get 17 lakh new affordable housing units, with a capacity to accommodate 76 lakh people. This policy signals a change in the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) model of land acquisition and development to a ‘land pooling model’, where the private sector and land owners are both partners in the development. However, while the policy is a first step, the release of land…

Many of us have seen birds depicted in sketches and paintings, but Vidhya Sundar of Bangalore decided that her passion for birdwatching would find expression in another traditional art form...that of rangoli. Last year, Vidhya had made rangolis of birds for the month of Margazhi (Dec 15 to Jan 15) when all kinds of rangolis and kolams are created. Her success with the art encouraged her, this year, to follow the colour chart prescribed traditionally for the nine days of the festival. She selected the birds that would follow the colour scheme, and also chose elements from various photographs from…

In March 2009, the Rajasthan government approached the erstwhile union government, seeking central assistance for setting up the Jaipur Metro Project. Nine years later, a performance audit of the first phase of Jaipur Metro by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) reveals how this urban mobility project was pushed through with undue haste. This has raised questions over why certain due diligence protocols in the planning phase were undermined. The CAG performance audit tells us that in April 2009, the Union Government advised the Rajasthan government to prepare a Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) in order to conduct a…