GENRE: Report

Battling the COVID crisis in Pune, on paper, is an impressive team of high level city officials. Their war room is the Pune Smart City Command and Control centre set up by the Pune Smart City Development Corporation Ltd (PSCDL). Recent visits to the city by NCP President Sharad Pawar, his nephew, deputy chief minister and Guardian Minister of Pune, Ajit Pawar and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray have only drawn into sharp focus the city’s struggle to contain the virus and the grim reality of many patients being turned away because of non-availability of hospital beds.  Pune’s high level COVID…

“No one likes to beg, people have started looking for other work; they will not continue to beg,” says a determined Tasvir, trying to mask the suffering and struggle of months and trying to find hope in the bleakest of situations. But does his community really have alternatives? Tasvir belongs to the ‘Pardhi’ tribe, members of which are scattered across Bhopal and its fringes. In an earlier article, we had described how the COVID-induced lockdown had brought them face to face with hunger and malnourishment, making them entirely dependent on the charity of civil society organisations. Deprived of their livelihoods and…

Providing basic services like water to the residents of a city is the responsibility of the municipal corporation. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is keen to fulfil its responsibility and has made arrangements of tanker water in order to supply water to areas such as Sus, Pashan, Narhe, Uruli Devachi, Phursungi, Bavadhan Budruk, Lohegaon, Hadapsar and Mundhawa which have been newly added into the city boundary.  PMC, unfortunately, does not have a supply system infrastructure in these areas. The Corporation owns a few tankers but these are not enough for the job, so it takes the help of private tanker…

The lone Cafe Viibee nestled amidst a rubber plantation, in Kakkanad, Kochi has been silent for months now. With just a few mobile tables and chairs, this cafe had been a buzzing hangout space, frequented by a young crowd of professionals or students in and around the area, but has been closed ever since the COVID-19 pandemic led to a nation-wide lockdown.  Co-owner, actor Byon V K says, “The expectation was that the lockdown would last for a month only, but now after all these months, we have to get back to business somehow. Earlier we did not have home…

Through the years that saw it transition from being an industrial nerve centre to the country’s best-known hub of coaching centres for all kinds of competitive and other exams, Kota has seen a lot of action. But COVID-19 has brought the city to a screeching halt. Once known for its flourishing manufacturing units, the local economy suffered a large negative ripple effect with the closure of its biggest unit JK Synthetics in 1997, which rendered 5000 people jobless. Other units like Oriental Power cables, Rajasthan metals and Samtel Group soon followed suit. With the shutdown of government-owned Instrumentation Ltd in…

Having a strong community group and active citizenry helps in many ways. Most importantly, it helps you tide over difficult times. We at Wagholi Housing Societies Association (WHSA) have always believed in these principles and fostered the same feeling among residents. Throughout the pandemic, we have stood together, taking care of each other’s back. WHSA has become a strong representation and support platform for various grievances and civic problems of Wagholi residents. From potholes to COVID-19 relief, the Association has helped its residents with every civic issue.    The global community is undergoing one of the toughest times in the history…

Residents of Patna still get goosebumps remembering last year’s ordeal by flood. “There was no drinking water, no food at home, we had to spend the entire night on the roof top,” recalls Mithlesh Kumar a resident of Rajendra Nagar. “The next morning, jawans of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) reached our house and evacuated us by boat.” Much of the city had remained flooded for three weeks last year. The situation was worst in Kankarbagh area when water from the gutter entered homes causing a major health scare. “Human waste was floating in our house,” said Amitesh Sharma,…

They are a part of Shimla’s invisible corona warriors, the 260-odd sanitation workers who maintain the hill town’s 280-km sewerage network. “For the world, corona may be a novel virus, but we are exposed to infections and other health hazards every day,” says Attar Singh, a sewage worker, “though we do take due precautions to stay safe.” This, as they try and keep Shimla’s 2.3 lakh citizens safe from infections that lack of proper sewerage infrastructure and treatment can cause, including COVID (as recent news reports suggest). Thankfully, Shimla town has not had a single positive case so far. Attar…

Odisha has just added another first to its credit. While others are only talking about putting money in the hands of people, chief minister Naveen Pattnaik announced an Urban Wage Employment Initiative (UWEI) scheme to help the informal work force in the state’s 114 urban local bodies. The initiative envisages immediate execution of all labour intensive projects in the ULBs in the state, with an allocation of Rs 100 crore, including Rs 10 crore to the Bhubaneswar Municipal corporation, to be spent on wages of workers working on these projects during April to September. The state government’s Urban Development and…

They are just a statistic, as they have been for decades now. The survivors of Bhopal’s killer gas tragedy. And if the deadly gas made them and their children victims of lifelong illnesses, the coronavirus threatens to literally kill them off, by denying them what little medical treatment they were receiving at the only hospital specifically set up for treating gas victims, the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC). On March 23, a government order suddenly turned BMHRC into an isolation and treatment centre exclusively for coronavirus patients. The treatment of 80 gas-affected patients admitted there was abruptly stopped…