Blogs

On January 30, 2020 within two weeks of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring a pandemic worldwide, India reported its first COVID-19 infection. Subsequently, the first lockdown was announced on March 25. Close on its heels followed a mass migration of workers from parts of the country. This resulted in the displacement of nearly 10 million rural migrants and shortly after, the loss of millions of jobs. At the time of writing, India has more than 1.2 crore total reported cases and also has the world’s highest number of recoveries. Worldwide, there are over 13 crore cases, with US...

Many countries, subnational regions, and companies have recently announced carbon neutrality or net zero emission targets. The world as a whole needs to become carbon neutral by the middle of the 21st century to limit global warming to 1.5C.

For India, development is a priority, but India’s subnational...

With the Indian government making persistent efforts for deeper penetration of the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry in the country, the automobile market is on the verge of transitioning to electric vehicles. It is committed to a goal of making 30% of the vehicular traffic electric by 2030. However, the discussion around EVs inexorably drifts towards charging infrastructure. The two potential models...

The Union Budget 2021 laid out an elaborate financial package to develop metro rail lines across cities. While more metro lines are being envisioned with a focus on building back the economy, post-pandemic mass transit infrastructure also needs to be leveraged to sustain the growth of jobs and urban economy. One such clear opportunity lies before the Mumbai Metro.

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Over the past two decades, extreme temperature events have increased in frequency and severity around the world. The number of people exposed to heat waves has increased by approximately 125 million across the globe. It is estimated that 39% of the global work hours lost due to acute heat were in India alone amounting to 118 billion hours. In fact, cities like Singapore have developed a...

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are a global epidemic. Every year over 1.35 million people across the world lose their lives due to road traffic incidents. According to the World Health Organisation’s Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018, RTIs are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29. They continue to be a major developmental issue in India as well. As per the Accidental...

This blog was originally posted on NIUA.org

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit health, livelihoods, and the economy across India. It is an added threat to the risk that climate change poses to development and shared prosperity. Similar to the pandemic, the impacts of climate change, especially extreme weather events, are also felt disproportionately by the poor and the marginalized. During the lockdown, when Cyclone Amphan hit the east coast of India and Cyclone...

This blog was originally posted on NIUA.org

The air quality in most Indian cities is quite poor with a high concentration of PM 2.5. 21 of the most polluted top 30 global cities are in India. In recent decades, increasing urbanization, vehicle population growth, insufficient infrastructure to support municipal solid waste management, and biomass burning for cooking have aggravated the situation further in urban areas. Presently...

Tamil Nadu has the highest installed capacity of wind energy in India, with 9.3 GW as of March 2020. The state has witnessed major strides in wind energy generation, with large scale project development commencing from the mid-90s. These Wind Power Plants (WPPs), installed at the outset of wind tapping, were located at wind-rich sites. These have now reached the end of or close to the end of their stipulated lifecycles. Most of these early machines are of low capacities (<500kW) and smaller hub heights (25-30m), resulting in underutilization. These aging turbines often result in low...

This blog was originally posted on NIUA.org

United Nations’ data shows that the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050. The data further adds that close to 90% of this increase will take place in Asia and Africa (Nations, 2018). As more people are now living a city-based life, challenges of...