Environment | Citizen Matters

Does nature stand a chance in this urbanisation frenzy?

July 13, 2017 Smita Mitra

Indian cities need serious, sustained focus on the various components that can improve and nurture their ecosystems. While a few individual and community driven projects raise hopes, a lot remains to be done.

Debate over GST on sanitary napkins: What are we missing?

July 12, 2017 Shree D N

A recent comment by a Kannada actor defending GST on sanitary napkins and terming them as a western imposition sparked off a furious debate on social media. But have the shrill arguments clouded the nuances of the issue?

Why these Kolkata morning walkers have reserved their Sunday mornings for protest!

July 10, 2017 Somendramohan Ghosh

The 192-acre Rabindra Sarobar is a beautiful green oasis in the heart of Kolkata and a favourite of many old timers in the southern part of the city. But reckless urbanisation and callous maintenance is taking its toll, leaving many regular visitors deeply distraught.

Novel ecosystems: How our cities are changing nature

July 6, 2017 Smita Mitra

Looking at urban spaces as ‘novel ecosystems’ – emerging ecologies that have no historical predecessors – can change how we think about afforestation and conservation efforts.

Where a dumping ground is a tourist attraction!

June 30, 2017 UNDP India

A half-hour drive from Goa, the small municipality of Vengurla is recycling 7 tonnes of waste generated daily and earning money from plastic sold to contractors for road-building in nearby areas.

Swachh rankings: Why Alappuzha with its award winning system is in the bottom 100

June 20, 2017 Navya P K

The Alappuzha model of waste management was presented as a zero-waste model at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015. Yet the city stands at a dismal rank of 380 in the recent clean city rankings. Navya P K finds out why.

In Pune, citizens take on responsibility for mitigating water crisis

June 7, 2017 Aarti Kelkar Khambete

At a time when the city is struggling in the face of unplanned growth, Pune citizens come together to save water resources and set examples for sustainable use of water.

Where does Hyderabad’s Wonderla get its water from?

May 16, 2017 Anshika John

All those water parks and rain dances that the urban citizen enjoys, where do they source their water from? The answers may be disquieting, as this Hyderabad research project shows.

It’s a flower, it’s a weed – it’s an ecosystem!

May 13, 2017 Daniel Phillips

The Global Urbarium project, an evolving, multi-city celebration of spontaneous urban vegetation, seeks to awaken all to the magic of weeds that we have always ignored or even rejected.

What Delhi’s new civic bodies could do to clean the air

April 24, 2017 Yashaswini Mittal

As the national capital elects a new municipality, here’s a look at what the city government could do to tackle its air pollution problem.

Across India’s cities, volunteers map trees

April 22, 2017 Akshatha M

While governments have promised tree census many times, the real data is coming from citizen-led initiatives. What are our city folks upto? And will it make a difference?

Little hope for clean air in Delhi as crop burning likely to continue

April 13, 2017 News Desk

Denial and lackadaisical attitude in implementing the environment ministry’s Graded Response Action Plan to combat air pollution in Delhi puts citizens at risk, say experts.

This World Water Day, here’s an SOS call for you!

March 22, 2017 Odette Katrak

With a spiralling demand-supply gap, the water problems of every Indian city are set to assume nightmarish proportions unless immediate action is taken. We must each do our bit on a daily basis and it is so simple if you know how!

Bengaluru looks underground in attempt to avoid water Doomsday

February 25, 2017 Patralekha Chatterjee, Citiscope

Innovative Participatory Aquifer Mapping project seeks to educate residents about precious groundwater and also involve them in sharing information about borewells in their communities.

Empowering local communities to take care of our beaches

February 4, 2017 News Desk

An interactive and exploratory session, titled ‘A Tide Turns’, at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on February 6th to look at community-led monitoring of shoreline changes