City: Kolkata Citizen Matters

City Buzz: Lockdown returns to several cities | Shortage of crucial COVID-19 drugs in Mumbai | Delhi to start interstate buses…and more

July 12, 2020 News Desk

Check out latest COVID-19 updates and other news from our cities over the week gone by

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.

City Buzz: BMC gears up for Mumbai monsoon | Kolkata stops flights from six cities | Citizens oppose Hyderabad Pharma City… and more

July 6, 2020 News Desk

Catch some of the most important weekly updates from cities across India.

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.

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?

City Buzz: Kolkata to open non-essential shops | Citizens protest over water in Aurangabad | New rules for Bhopal shops…and more

June 1, 2020 News Desk

Key news highlights of last week from Kolkata, NCR, Bhopal and other cities

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.

City Buzz: Cyclone Amphan batters Kolkata | Drive-through COVID testing in Chandigarh | Mobile mortuaries in Mumbai… and more

May 25, 2020 News Desk

Even as the country continued to witness alarming spikes in COVID-19 cases, a devastating cyclone hit east India. News highlights of last week from the cities

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.

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.

City Buzz: Delhi burns | New list of most polluted cities | Delhi-Dehradun in 2.5 hours…and more

March 2, 2020 News Desk

Take a quick recap of the important news from our cities over the week that went by.

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.

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.

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.

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.