Blogs

India is in the middle of the 2020 monsoon season and the Indian Meteorological Department has forecast a normal monsoon. But regional rainfall variations have already flooded rural and forest regions in Assam and Bihar. With heavy rains also occurring across many cities, the tension is ripe about urban areas....

Amid the financial crisis that emerged during the months-long lockdown to limit the spread of Covid-19, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in a letter to the Centre late April, sought a bail-out package for the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Company (TANGEDCO). As of FY 2019, the...

It is the monthly immunization day, and Salma Khatun is waiting for the boat to come take her across the Brahmaputra to Ramhari Char. She holds in one hand an ice box, filled with vaccines she will be administering later that day, and on the other, an umbrella, to protect herself from the fierce summer sun. Salma is a nurse at the only health center in Ramhari Char, an unelectrified island village, one of the many scattered throughout the vast Brahmaptura. In the absence of electricity and storage at the village, health workers like Salma travel to the mainland on the first Wednesday of...

When was the last time you walked through the market without being conscious about other people walking close to you or the last time you took a stroll to a neighbourhood park without thinking about the hygiene around? When was the last time you thought of going for a walk without worrying about being asked to maintain apt social distance from your family members?

Earlier this year, the COVID-19-induced pandemic brought the world to a standstill. We have since come a long way from being locked inside our houses, to slowly getting used to the new normal while working towards...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 600 Indian medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) in the textile and garment business are churning out 4.5 lakh personal protective equipment (PPE) kits every day, according to recent reports quoting Union Minister Smriti Irani. Similarly, mask production per day is in excess of two lakh and small enterprises are now aiming at exporting the surplus. Over the past two months,...

This blog was originally published in Mint on 14 July.

A little over 100 days since the covid-19 pandemic brought India to a standstill, damaging lives, livelihoods and the economy, a glimmer of hope has finally appeared. After months of lockdown, the economy is showing some signs of recovery.

In the coming months, as we step out of the lockdown, our focus will be on rebuilding livelihoods through an economic...

Cities throughout India and the world are now in the process of recovering from a never-seen-before complete lockdown that was implemented as a safety measure against the ongoing novel coronavirus induced pandemic. This was necessary to maintain physical distance, leaving empty streets around the world as we sat indoors, wondering what we were missing out on. Cities across the globe are now working towards reimagining streets to accommodate the new normal in a post-COVID...

India witnessed a vast exodus of informal sector workers in the last few months. This has opened a can of worms questioning the role of these workers in India’s growth story. Urban India depends largely on the informal rural workforce that migrates to cities in search of livelihood and helps build these ever-expanding cities. While the informal workforce contributes significantly to creating and building our cities, there work continues to be undocumented. The situation exploded particularly badly when, in March India instituted a highly controlling lockdown and subsequently...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated societal and economic challenges. Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India have been particularly hit by the pandemic, subsequent lockdown and exodus of migrant workers that followed the lockdown. While the economy is slowly opening, a key concern for MSMEs is that they may not be able to operate at full capacities. On the occasion of the 2nd edition of International Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day, we must find ways to unlock their potential to achieve the...

Responding to rapid urbanization and growing congestion, several Indian cities have invested in metro rail networks to provide sustainable and affordable mass transit that can cater to large volumes of people. However, a majority of metro systems have not been able to reach their projected ridership. This shortfall has been attributed to a lack of comprehensive first-and last-mile solutions to connect homes, offices, and other activity centers with metro stations. In 2016, 70% of potential Bangalore Metro users cited poor first- and last-mile connectivity as a reason for not using it,...