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HomeCity: Kolkata

City: Kolkata

Kolkata cycle ban
Commute

Why Kolkata must reconsider its bicycle ban

September 2, 2021 Debapriya Chanda

The ill-thought out Kolkata bicycle ban not only defies environmental logic, but also hits the livelihoods of the working classes in the city.

Infrastructure

Why homeless families living under Kolkata flyover don’t want to go anywhere, come COVID or cyclone!

July 10, 2020 Puja Bhattacharjee/PARI

Living on the streets with all its dangers and risks has made people like Sabita fearless about pandemics and cyclones. Few inclemencies match the storms they have battled for survival.

Environment

Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata attain 95% of clean air targets during lockdown

July 3, 2020 News Desk

The lockdown period helped researchers understand the effects of human-generated emissions; this could tell policy-makers how they may achieve what the NCAP has targetted in the coming four years.

Environment

Why Kolkata’s post-cyclone reforestation spree has failed to cheer environmentalists

June 26, 2020 Gurvinder Singh

Several thousands of trees were uprooted as Cyclone Amphan battered Kolkata. Since then tree plantation drives have been rampant. What are tree experts saying about these?

Economy

No baaraat, hence no band or baaja: In Kolkata, ban on social gatherings cripples many livelihoods

May 29, 2020 Gurvinder Singh

Wedding photographers, musicians with small bands, local caterers and many others, who depend on events and social gatherings for their earnings, talk of the sufferings that COVID-19 has brought upon them.

Economy

COVID-19 underlines crisis in jute mills in Kolkata suburbs

April 21, 2020 Gurvinder Singh

With no jute bags available, farmers switch to plastic bags to pack and transport their harvest as Bengal’s jute mills remain shut because of the pandemic. Its labour force is left in limbo with unpaid wages and little prospect of getting back to work.

Society

How digitisation has silenced the typists on their Remingtons outside Calcutta High Court

March 24, 2020 Gurvinder Singh

Once ubiquitous outside the Calcutta High Court, today only around 25 typists operate on the footpath outside the Court. But with increasing digitization, they too will soon fade away.

Civic

Families fight for fair rehabilitation after Kolkata’s decades-old Tallah basti is demolished

February 15, 2020 Smita Khator/PARI

Families evicted from Tallah basti in north Kolkata to make way for bridge repairs find themselves in temporary transit sheds, far removed from the lives they were leading. Their main demand is proper rehabilitation  – a permanent place to live from where they won’t be thrown out.

Waste Management

Kolkata plans its first biomining project at Mollar Bheri landfill on eastern wetland

January 21, 2020 Mou Chakraborty

The Rs 21-crore project will be implemented in 55 acres of land near Mollar Bheri, a shallow fishery located in the East Kolkata Wetlands, that has seen a 12-feet-high mountain of waste build up over the years.

Society

How released female prisoners in Kolkata are trying to build a new life

January 14, 2020 Gurvinder Singh

Shunned by families, often deeply scarred and traumatised by experiences in prison and ostracised by society at large, women convicts can rarely expect a normal life in the city after release. These cases from Kolkata, facilitated by state and NGOs, however raise hope.

Commute

Eight months after launch, Kolkata’s ‘pink taxis’ hardly in the pink of health

November 30, 2019 Gurvinder Singh

The pink taxis launched in Kolkata in February 2019 meant to provide a safe commute option for women. They also promised to open up a new world for the 10 women drivers chosen to drive the fleet. Today, not only are they not making enough money, their days are filled with challenges on the roads and off.

Environment

“Just two hours of disturbance”: Ugly truths and uncomfortable questions post Chhat celebrations in Kolkata lake

November 5, 2019 Mou Chakraborty

The NGT has long banned all festivities and rituals in Rabindra Sarovar, a national lake in south Kolkata. Yet what transpired during Chhat Puja clearly points to the futility of such orders in the absence of political will and awareness among masses.

Environment

Can Kolkata’s ‘national lake’ save itself from Chhat Puja celebrations this year?

November 1, 2019 Mou Chakraborty

Despite an order from the National Green Tribunal, efforts to stop Chhat Puja celebrations in Rabindra Sarovar — a 192-acre biodiverse, green sanctuary in the heart of the city — have been futile in previous years. This year the municipal corporation is closing access to the lake area for the two days of the festival, but will it help?

Environment

Students begin crusade to save East Kolkata Wetlands

October 17, 2019 Mou Chakraborty

Young students from the neighbourhoods of the East Kolkata Wetlands, along with students from city schools, are getting ready to join hands and work towards saving this “wetland of international importance” as designated by the Ramsar Convention in 2002.

Waste Management

As Kolkata begins Durga Puja festivities on Mahalaya, environment gets a raw deal

September 28, 2019 Mou Chakraborty

2500 plus community pujas. Lakhs of revellers. The Durga Puja celebrations in Kolkata are magical, but harsh and unforgiving on the environment. Unfortunately, thoughts and plans on greening the celebrations appear to be at a very immature stage still.

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