GENRE: Voices

A harrowing tale from last year was my attempt to find shelter for a homeless, mentally ill man, Kumaresan, during the height of the pandemic. My many attempts finally secured a place for him at a shelter run by the NGO, The Banyan. Kumaresan’s story had a fruitful outcome, or so I thought, until recently.  After a few weeks had passed, some of my friends told me that Kumaresan had returned to Perambur and he could be seen on the streets again. As I had not personally come across him, I did not believe them and continued with my routine.…

Dead bodies floating in the Ganges and washing up ashore in neighbouring Bihar is just one in the long list of gory stories that we have been witnessing in recent weeks. Frantic calls for help from people struggling to find a hospital bed, oxygen, blood plasma, medicines and even places for cremation or burial, continue to flood social media platforms, even as the cost of saying the final goodbye becomes too steep for many. And while citizens have come together to create resource pools, sharing leads and contact numbers, cross-checking and circulating them, union health minister Harsh Vardhan claims there…

Business Standard newspaper conducts a B-school Summer Project Competition every year, sponsored by Crompton Greaves. B-schools from around the country are invited to send what they consider their ‘best summer internship project report’. As readers know, most two-year MBA programmes have a compulsory 6-8 week industry internship. This often carries a full credit or two, so students and faculty take it very seriously. Business Standard gets around 150 reports [one per school] from  B-schools spread all over India. These are reviewed by a knowledge partner and 15 of these are then selected and sent to a jury panel for review.…

The rapid spread of the COVID virus in India is worsening by the day. As is its management. Thousands are dying and lakhs are getting infected every day. Desperate cries for oxygen or a hospital bed from relatives and friends of COVID patients are flooding social media. Open the morning papers and what hits you are pictures of sick patients and their families gathering at the gates of hospitals. It has become a literal ‘life and death’ struggle. For even after death, bodies have to wait for space at cremation and burial grounds. This is definitely a war-like situation, where…

கொரோனா தொற்றின் 2வது அலை ஒரு வித தீவிரத் தன்மையுடன் பரவி அனைவரையும் அச்சுறுத்திக் கொண்டிருக்கும் இவ்வேளையில், மீண்டும் ஒருமுறை இயல்பு வாழ்க்கை பாதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. தொற்றின் தீவிரம் சற்றே குறைந்து, ஊரடங்கு விதிமுறைகள் தளர்த்தப்பட்டு, ஒரு புதிய இயல்புக்குத் திரும்பிய சிறிது காலத்தில் அசுர வேகத்தில் பரவி, அதிகளவில் உயிர்பலியையும் ஏற்படுத்திவருகிறது கொரோனா என்னும் இக்கொடிய தொற்று.  இந்த சவாலான காலகட்டத்தின் போது சேவைக்களத்தில் முன் நிற்பவர்களில் இந்தக் கட்டுரைக்குரியவர்களும் அடங்குவர். நாம் ஆர்டர் செய்யும் உணவினை நம் இருப்பிடத்திற்கே குறித்த நேரத்திற்குள் கொண்டு வந்து தரும் இவர்கள் நகரவாசிகளின் வாழ்வில் ஒரு முக்கிய அங்கம் வகிக்கிறார்கள்.  ஸோமாடோ (Zomato) மற்றும் ஸ்விக்கி (Swiggy) போன்ற நிறுவனங்களைச் சார்ந்த ‘டெலிவரி பார்ட்னர்கள்'  என்றழைக்கப்படும் உணவு விநியோகிப்பவர்களின் நிலை குறித்த ஒரு சிறிய ஆய்வுதான் இது. இவர்களில் இளைஞர்கள் மட்டுமன்றி, நடுத்தர வயதுடையர்களும், பெண்களும் கூட இருக்கின்றனர். Read more: Meet the…

On a day Karnataka’s Covid number crossed 50k, with 50% of it coming from Bengaluru alone, the attention was else where. All thanks to the sting operation conducted by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, MLAs Ravi Subramanya, Satish Reddy and Uday Garudachar, all from the ruling party, on 4th May 2021. Was anyone surprised that there was corruption in bed allocation? I wasn’t. Was corruption really the focus of the sting operation? You tell me. Seventeen workers out of the 206 employed in the COVID war room were fired for being Muslim. A smear campaign Among the arrested so far, a…

School seems a memory of the remote past. The play dates have stopped too. Add to it a general sense of foreboding, constant restrictions and in some cases, illness and death witnessed in very close circles. Children, both my own and among friends and family I've spoken to, are terrified with what's going on. They're also lost and confused. First, they're afraid of catching the virus themselves. My 8-year old keeps smelling things all day to ensure he hasn't lost his sense of smell. If he feels hot (it's summer), he asks us to take his temperature. If his legs…

"Three decades ago, the lanes of Chennai were adorned with a thick canopy, the shadows of which protected us from heat," recalled V Latha, a retired BSNL employee. "Today, that green canopy is gone to make space for tall, concrete buildings, leaving us exposed to the harsh sun." Latha, who is associated with organisations like the Sabari Green Foundation and Senior Citizens Forum, was speaking at a webinar organised by Citizen Matters Chennai on April 30th, titled 'Why does Chennai feel hotter than ever before?' Travelling down memory lane, Latha reminisced about those bearable summer years during the 1980's when…

A group of individuals and members of civil society organisations including Whitefield Rising, Bangalore Apartment Federation, and Sochara, have written to the Karnataka Chief Minister, BS Yediyurappa, highlighting major issues in COVID Management, with suggestions and asks for immediate steps. Here's the letter Dear Shri Yediyurappa, Bengaluru urban and rural is in an extremely serious state with a large number of COVID patients in need of medical resources, from hospital beds, to oxygen infrastructure to ICUs and ventilators. Volunteers and family members of patients are making desperate calls and sending messages to find sources to help those in need. We…

The usually quiet police station of Kumbalgodu, located on the outskirts of Bengaluru enroute to Mysuru, saw some unusual activity a few weeks ago.  A group of about 50 residents of the neighbourhood had landed up to file a complaint.  Residents at the Kumbalgodu Police Station, March 2021. Pic: Nikhil Tiwari The trigger was a major fire that had broken out on the banks of the nearby Vrishabhavathi river and which had spread dangerously close to their homes. This was just the most recent in a series of fires that have been noticed on the river's banks over the past…