GENRE: Voices

The recent weeks have been difficult for Bengalureans. Bad roads and potholes we were already used to, especially around monsoon; but this year, the situation got worse. Garbage seems to be piling up once again. The biggest shock came when several buildings collapsed, just like that. Thankfully there is no loss of life, but it exposed the cracks in our system and made many of us wonder if all the unchecked growth is coming back to haunt us. While most citizens are outraged, very few express frustration publicly. A small subset of them want to ‘do something’ to ‘fix things’.…

In November 2019, the erstwhile chief minister of Tamil Nadu inaugurated a pedestrian plaza in T Nagar’s shopping area of Pondy Bazaar with much fanfare and promise. The project, under the Chennai Smart City Mission, was designed to give priority to pedestrians over the rush of vehicles that usually dominated the streets. Along with this came the promise of clean streets and better parking facilities. Of course, it also implied that there would be no inconvenience caused to the residents in surrounding areas. However, almost two years into the project, many issues which were initially thought of as teething troubles,…

On October 22nd, Citizen Matters hosted a tweet chat with Kaveri Medappa, DeliveryBhoy (an anonymous Twitter handle of a former delivery worker), and Abhishek Sekharan to discuss the issues delivery workers deal with on a daily basis. Kaveri is a researcher at University of Sussex, she is known for her work studying the experiences of delivery workers in Bangalore. DeliveryBhoy is an anonymous food delivery worker who brings focus to poor working conditions of gig workers in the country. Abhishek Sekharan, is a Researcher with Centre for Internet and Society CIS India doing interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies…

On October 1st, a day before Gandhi Jayanti, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a sequel to his flagship and equally lauded and critiqued programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission. The aim of  Swachh Bharat 2.0, added Modi, is to make “urban areas garbage free”. He stressed that in the second phase, “the garbage mounds in cities will be processed and removed completely. We are processing about 70% of the daily waste; the next step is to take it to 100%.” Swachh Bharat 2.0 will also focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilising the principles of 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), scientific…

“Bad for shop assistants, good for shoppers. That is the obvious inference from the upheaval in retailing that is leaving shopping malls and high streets…” says The Economist (March 13, 2021). The article goes on to admit that it may be an over-simplification of the crisis in retailing and how consumers will continue to crave for human attention and help when they shop. The bigger question, however, is ‘will retail-linked jobs disappear totally’? Or will they become more complex and nuanced? When the Indian economy opened up in the late 1990s and car brands started flooding the market, one of…

I started commuting to work by cycle in 2011, to avoid the stress of getting stuck in traffic jams on the Outer Ring Road (ORR). Surprisingly, I found that cycling was not as hard as I imagined it to be. Slowly, my frequency of cycling increased, and while the traffic jams on ORR, Whitefield and Sarjapura Road peaked too, it hardly affected me. I was riding a 23-km round trip everyday to work, come what may! Cycling brought immense flexibility and freedom to my schedule. Now, due to COVID and the work-from-home option, the number of commuters including cyclists have…

Once upon a time, Hyderabad was the ‘City of Cycles’. Ask old timers and they will tell you how the streets were full of cyclists, a complete contrast to the congested mess of cars and motorised vehicles that have taken over all roads, big and small. In olden days, it was much safer for cyclists too, because there were fewer motor vehicles on the roads and therefore, the risk of cyclists meeting with serious or fatal accidents was low. Things, however, have changed drastically now. As the Bicycle Mayor of Hyderabad, I am in close touch with the cycling community…

The nutritional status of growing children has always been a matter of great concern the world over. Even during normal days, several factors influenced the dietary intake of school going children. Like their socio-economic status, eating practices, the family’s likes and dislikes, regional menus. It’s not only the qualitative and quantitative food intake that varies. A lot depends on dietary habits. Some families eat together while some eat in isolation. Meal timings vary from family to family. Availability of nutritious food throughout the year in every part of a country like ours is another challenge. Every child has his own…

There is nothing ‘smart’ about a phone whose manufacture involves large-scale evaporation of waterbodies, destruction of large forest areas, production of radioactive waste and poisoning of potable water sources. There is nothing particularly ‘wise’ about humans sacrificing their planet to the fleeting pleasures of tweeting, liking and uploading images via their smart phone internet round-the-clock through enormous heat producing, energy guzzling data centres. This pushes the planet towards the impending irreversible destruction caused by rising global temperatures. The planet is dying. Reducing energy consumption is absolutely necessary to apply the brakes on rising temperatures. It has become the norm to hold industrialists and…

பண்டைய காலந்தொட்டு இன்று வரை மிதிவண்டிகள் மக்களால் அன்றாட போக்குவரத்திற்கும், உடல் பயிற்சிக்கும் பயன்படுத்தபடுகின்றது. இதனால் வரும் பல பயன்களை பின்வருமாறு பட்டியலிடலாம். மன ஆரோக்கியம் மேம்படுதல், பயணங்களில் பல புதிய மனிதர்களையும், புதிய இடங்களை சந்தித்தல், கவன குவிப்பு மேம்படுதல், நம் நுரையீரல் பலமடைதல், தேவையற்ற உடல் பருமன் அறவே நீக்கபடுதல், உடல் தசைகள் பலமடைதல், நோய் எதிர்ப்புத் திறன் கூடுதல் போன்ற பல. தலைக்கவசம், மிதிவண்டிக்கான பிரத்தயோக உடை அணிந்து பல ஆடவரும் பெண்டிரும் சாரை சாரையாக அதிகாலையில் விரைந்து செல்லும் காட்சியைக்காண சிலருக்குத்தான் நல்வாய்ப்பு கிட்டுகின்றது. நெதர்லாந்து நாட்டின் ஆம்ஸ்திடராங்கை தலைமையாகக் கொண்டு உலகமெங்கும் செயல்படும் பிவைசிஸ் எனப்படும் தன்னார்வல அமைப்பு “மிதிவண்டி மேயர்கள்” என்று சிலரை நியமனம் செய்திருக்கின்றது. 2030க்குள் உலகிலுள்ள மனிதர்களில் 50 சதவிகதமாவது அன்றாட போக்குவரத்திற்கு மிதிவண்டியை பயன்படுத்த வைப்பது அவர்களின் குறிக்கோள். தென்னிந்தியாவில் சென்னை, பெங்களூரு, ஐதராபாத், மும்பை போன்ற நகரங்களில்…