Governance

They run into multiple pages. The “lockdown relaxation” notifications that greet citizens of Karnataka every week or other. But even with this prodigious verbiage, they fail to impart any clarity on what is sought to be conveyed. This lack of clarity can be observed in local WhatsApp groups being full of questions like “But does this mean I can’t do this ?” in the days following publication of the notification. Graphic credit: Anirudh Koushik (Click to view full image) The problems in these notifications can be divided into four main categories: The "Spock" category ("Illogical, Captain!" for Star Trek fans)The…

The Mumbai civic body – Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) also known as Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) provides municipal services to the city. Divided into 24 administrative wards, it is headed by the Mayor, who is the city’s first citizen and the ceremonial head; and the Municipal Commissioner, who works as the chief executive authority. While the 24 wards are decentralized for the convenience of the city's administration, each ward has its own ward office and ward officers (Assistant Municipal Commissioners). Presently, Mrs. Kishori Pednekar is the Mayor and Iqbal Singh Chahal, a 1989-batch IAS officer is the Municipal…

With COVID, lockdowns, unemployment, heartbreaking journeys of migrant workers back to their villages, news of illness and death making headlines every morning, this year has taken its toll on all of us. Hunkered down in our houses, distanced from family, friends and colleagues, we had few reasons for cheer. But even amid this seemingly incessant gloom, we found some inspiration from the citizen engagement and impact that we saw in several spheres. Though the government failed us consistently and abysmally, warriors among us arose to take control of the situation. Men and women across the country organized toolkits, Twitter drives…

With everything in short supply — hospital beds, ICU beds, medicines, vaccines and even crematoriums and burial sites — desperate patients and citizen groups who were getting no help from the state appealed to the courts hoping they could force the government to get its act together. The Supreme Court and some High Courts also took suo moto notice of the situation and passed orders stressing upon governments’ responsibilities and actions to be taken. One significant, if controversial, step taken early by the Supreme Court was to take cognizance of issues on COVID-19 pending before six High Courts, Delhi, Bombay,…

The COVID pandemic has exposed our hollow development strategies aimed at achieving the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs), to which India is a signatory. This hasn’t just brought to the fore the need for revisiting our strategy to move forward for a better and equitable world harmonious with nature. At the same time, it has also thrown light on how the present processes will not help in achieving any landmark advancement in attaining close proximity to the sustainable development goals. Instead, what we are witnessing is a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. To elucidate further, here are a few critical areas that require immediate intervention if we…

Vandhaarai Vaazhavaikum Thamizhagam ( Tamil Nadu is a land that provides livelihood to those who arrive here) has been an old adage about the state. A state welcoming migrants from all over the country and the world. Susheel Kumar of Deogarh in Jharkhand may not agree, though. Susheel, one of the many migrant workers in Chennai, has been in the city since 2017. With the fierce onslaught of COVID in the second wave and the resulting lockdown, the Alandur manufacturing unit where he worked shut down. “I am leaving as I have no income here now. I have been doing…

Cities, past and present, have been often created in the image of its rulers. Indian cities, in particular, have been witness to the rise and fall of dynasties and empires, reflected in their ever shifting character. However, amongst all its grand constructions for the people, there exists within the urban fabric a continuous patchwork of creations by the people.  While the concept of a planned city traces its roots to ancient civilisations like the Indus Valley, Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations, the scale of modern cities is unprecedented. Burgeoning populations and rising densities created the need for a visionary document to…

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…

Mumbai's handling of the pandemic has earned accolades from several quarters, including from India's Supreme Court, which suggested that New Delhi emulate Mumbai civic body’s response to COVI19.  In the second wave of the pandemic, which in Mumbai started on February 10 and showed up on its dashboard on Feb 11th, registered a mortality rate of 0.4% (until April 30).  BMC Commissioner Iqbal Chahal claims that this could be one of the lowest mortality rates in any city in the world.  Mumbai  has registered 14,574 deaths till May 22, 2021 since the onset of the COVID19 last year. COVID19 fatalities…

Karnataka’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), the scientific adviser to the government on COVID management, had predicted a second wave in January and February of 2021. While the TAC’s prediction was off by a couple of months--in UK and USA, the second wave had wreaked havoc in the final months of 2020--they did forewarn the State government that a faster spreading and more debilitating second wave of the pandemic was just waiting to happen. And it did. In the end April 2021, the State was clocking approximately 50,000 cases per day with capital Bengaluru alone averaging 20,000 cases per day.    The…