OPEDS

Fifteen lakh trees. A place in the Guinness Book of Records. The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has been on overdrive, promoting its new project to plant 15 lakh trees in spaces created in its new layouts. 240 acres have been earmarked across BDA’s faraway layouts. The saplings are to be planted across lake and nala buffer zones, parks and public spaces in new neighbourhoods like Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout, Banashankari 6th Stage, and Dr Shivarama Karanth Layout, according to the BDA Chairman N A Haris. While such massive tree plantation exercises are by themselves questionable, there is also the question of a…

Selomi's text arrived at 7 am. "Let's leave by 8.30. The traffic will be brutal otherwise." We both live about 10 kilometres from the government office we had been going to every day for the last two weeks. The nearest metro station is four kilometres from our homes, which means forty minutes to reach it, twenty on the metro, and twenty-five on foot from Vidhana Soudha to the office. An hour and twenty minutes each way, assuming nothing goes wrong. In Bengaluru, something always does. By the end of the second week, we had the routine down. Coffee in a…

Nearly a decade ago, while I was working on the Revised Master Plan for Bengaluru (RMP 2031), a senior planner remarked: “Only the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has the legal right to plan for Bengaluru.” Today, that assertion is unravelling in a tussle between the newly formed Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and the BDA over who should plan for the city’s future. What is more troubling is that Bengaluru’s current master plan, the RMP 2015, is based on surveys from 2003, nearly two decades out of date. The Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act (KTCPA) of 1961 requires revision every…

Indian cities are struggling to breathe. Air pollution is a year-round governance challenge. In 2024, 35 of the 50 most polluted cities globally were in India, with PM2.5 concentrations above 66.4 μg/m3. This is at least 13 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and at least 1.6 times the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in India. Citizens continue to bear the brunt of worsening air quality, and urban local governments (ULGs) are at the forefront of the problem, being primarily accountable for their citizens' first mile. While they do have a role to play in addressing this threat,…

Recent media reports have highlighted the presence of bacterial contamination in drinking water samples collected from several locations in the Bhagirathpura area, Indore. The reports point to a few possible reasons: leakages from nearby septic tanks, soak pits, sewage pipes or drains, and poor septic tank design. Other possible causes could be ageing and corroded water pipes, and cracks or leakages in the distribution network.  However, intermittent water supply is also one of the most critical factors behind such incidents. In these systems, pipelines are often empty or partially filled, and may operate under negative pressure at certain times. These…

Across megacities, workers in gated communities are subjected to checks at entry and exit points. Often excessive and intrusive, these include bag searches, confiscation of items without a gate pass, and, in some cases, pat-downs of workers — practices justified as deterrents against theft. During an anonymous survey, we spoke to 20–30 residents and domestic workers across Bengaluru, and a few communities in Chennai and Mumbai. Respondents across these cities reported “visual cues” of suspicious behaviour that corresponded with these searches. While respondents in the surveys reported no pat-downs in their communities, some employers and domestic workers informally flagged pat-downs…

Walk through any city, and you'll encounter Nature-based solutions (NbS) everywhere: urban parks providing respite from hot streets, wetlands filtering stormwater, and trees along busy roads reducing air pollution, among others. This green infrastructure, however, is often viewed through a narrow lens—as mere providers of shade, picturesque spaces, or recreational spots.  This limited perspective has harmful consequences. When development pressures mount or budgets tighten, these natural assets become expendable and are often removed without proper analysis of their multidimensional benefits. This is where quantifying the benefits of NbS becomes essential. By measuring and monetising the value these solutions provide, we…

Municipal elections rarely make global headlines. Yet the recent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City reverberated around the world. Far more than a leadership change in one city, it signals a profound shift in how urban politics is imagined, contested, and won in the centre of global capitalism and the largest urban centre of the United States. At its heart, it was a referendum on who gets to claim the city: the affluent few who see the metropolis as a portfolio of assets, or the millions who call it home. Mamdani’s victory, as the child of…

As a child growing up in Chennai, then called Madras, the two things that made me happiest were a trip to the beach and a ride over the Gemini Flyover. Yes, what seems mundane now was a magical experience in the 1980s. Built in 1973, the Anna Flyover was Chennai’s first and the longest in the country at the time of its construction. It remained the sole flyover until 1993, when nine more came up. Today, with over 42 flyovers and more in the pipeline, Chennai is often referred to as the “City of Flyovers.” But are flyovers truly the answer to the city’s…

The Shakti Yojane has recently crossed 500 crore tickets in the two years since it was launched by the Karnataka government in June 2023. The scheme offers free rides to women (including transwomen) in ordinary public buses, as long as they have a valid ID. Despite the milestone, the Shakti scheme has been at the forefront of political debate in the state. Opposition parties have labelled it a ‘scam’ that “betrays the people.”  A common argument is that male passengers are disproportionately burdened by Shakti, as they have to pay for tickets while women’s travel is fully subsidised.  This criticism…