Blogs

This is the second blog in our three-part blog series, that explores key insights and learnings of the Grand Challenge and electric bus procurement in urban India. Read the first blog in the series here.

The Grand Challenge is a giant stride towards the electrification of India’s public transport, paving the way for accessible, affordable, safe, and clean public transport. Under the Grand Challenge, the state-owned Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL) announced one of the...

भारत में लगभग 6.4 करोड़ छोटे व्यवसाय समुदाय हैं, जो भारत की अर्थव्यवस्था की रीढ़ भी है। यह 11 करोड़ से अधिक लोगों को रोजगार प्रदान करते है एवं सरल घरेलू उत्पादमें लगभग एक तिहाई योगदान करते है। इस लेख के माध्यम से एमएसएमई में अक्षय ऊर्जा के विकास तथा उसके महत्व पर ध्यान केंद्रित किया जा रहा है, ऐसी स्थिति में जब कोविड -19 प्रतिबंधों के आर्थिक प्रभाव से एमएसएमई समुदाय कमजोर पड़ गया है, और बदलती हुई वास्तविकता से उबरने के नए तरीके खोज रहा है।

पिछले नवंबर, COP26 में प्रधान मंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने देश के लिए 2030 तक नवीकरणीय ऊर्जा (आरई) के 500 गीगावॉट का लक्ष्य रखा है और साथ ही 2070 तक...

The transport sector contributes to a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major contributor to the climate crisis. At present the sector’s carbon emissions’ share in developing countries might be low, but it is expected to spike as higher disposable incomes afford people more personal vehicles.

In India, the transport sector has witnessed a year-on-year growth of 5.9% Compound Annual Growth...

Clean construction practices not only improve air quality but also serve the construction sector, and the country’s economy, by limiting the need for penalties and bans.

Globally, air pollution is one of the biggest environmental risks to health, claiming over 1.67 million lives in 2019, in India alone. Breathing poor quality air also impacts the economy. The fatalities in 2019 resulted in a...

This three-part blog series examines one of the many systems Mumbai relies on during the monsoons. The first photo essay, in the series, is a description of a walk along the Mithi river, illustrating the condition of riverbanks and challenges in maintaining the river as a flood mitigation measure.

Mumbai’s perennial struggle with routine waterlogging and catastrophic floods is the result of several limitations in the city’s storm water drainage system. This includes its reliance on its riverine ecosystems of which the Mithi River is a key component.

The Mithi is an...

An underlying threat to India’s people, climate and economy, land degradation has affected almost 30 per cent of its total land. As more than half of this degraded land consists of either farmlands or forests, it is directly affecting lives of more than 700 million people who either depend on agriculture or forests for their sustenance. Restoring these farmlands and forests is not just critical for supporting livelihoods of these farmers and forest dwellers, but also for building India’s...

India is an agrarian economy with a need to ensure availability of fertilizers for productive farming operations and food production. It is also the world’s second largest consumer and third largest manufacturer of fertilizers. Fertilizer production in India has witnessed a surge over the years, from having an annual production of...

This year India witnessed an early intense heatwave where around a billion people were exposed to temperatures more than 40 degrees C in the month of April itself. But heatwaves are so much more dynamic and complex that traditional methods of reporting them, purely based on absolute air temperatures, might be insufficient. Heat has a dynamism spatially, temporally, and in its interaction with materials. Hence its measurement must also be dynamic. And not just the heatwave but its effects have several dimensions as well, with respect to human health, economic activity etc. It is, therefore...

This is an updated version of the article that was first published on Gaon Connection on June 3, 2022.

Earlier while traveling to my native village in the interior of Assam to meet my grandparents, I used to wait for the Barak Valley Express train at the New Haflong railway station. I always admired the lush greenery and scenic beauty in and around the station. A few weeks ago, in May 2022, I was shocked to see...

Well-designed, well-maintained and accessible public spaces, such as gardens and city squares, are critical to our well-being. There is ample research to indicate that investing in inclusive public spaces helps create livable and equitable cities. However, these spaces, which have the potential to bind communities and be the lungs of the city, are often woefully neglected in Indian Cities.

Undertaking the transformation of public spaces requires political...