Blogs

This blog first appeared on NIUA.org on July 28, 2021.

Adapting to climate risks is imperative for cities. Cities are the epicentre of life-shortening pollution, dwindling water supplies, deadly heatwaves, natural disasters, and climate change. Indian cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and...

This is the second in a series of blogs on hydrogen, which will involve discussions around range of electrolysis technologies currently available at commercial and laboratory levels. Given the rising global consensus towards the transition towards a green hydrogen economy in coming decades, availability of commercially operable electrolysis technologies will act as a backbone of hydrogen deployment across sectors. Maturity of electrolysis technologies would also be critical in facilitating India’s 450 GW RE target, given electrolysis’s ability to manage duck curve challenges through...

This is the first in series of blogs on hydrogen, which will involve discussions spanning across the value chain from production through to the cross-sectoral applications of hydrogen and its ability to decarbonise array of sectors. The announcement of the launch of National Hydrogen Mission by the Prime Minister on India’s 75th Independence Day, further solidifies the strong momentum hydrogen is gaining across the country....

This blog first appeared on The News Minute on June 22, 2021

Pedestrians, the most vulnerable and oft-ignored of road-users, suffer the most in road crashes. Between 2015 and 2018, nearly 73,000 pedestrians were killed in crashes across India. In 2019,...

With the pandemic a state of all pervasive geographical immobility has prevailed for a while now. There has also been an increased dependence on delivery of essentials goods. The pandemic has adversely impacted the workforce, testing capacities of the existing systems. During this ongoing crisis, home delivery options have become the “new normal” in domains like healthcare, food, grocery, and logistics services delivery, and are expected to grow further in 2021. As per reports, online food and grocery retail...

This article first appeared in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs on April 23, 2021.

Persistent issues in urban India’s water infrastructure have necessitated the rollout of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM-U), a comprehensive and holistic approach to achieve a water-resilient future for India.

Rapid urbanization in India poses extreme water risks, including scarcity and pollution, creating obstacles...

This is third in the ongoing series of blogs on Urban India Going Underwater. Read the first and second blogs here.

In the last few years many Indian cities have started working on interventions aimed at flood-proofing and stormwater management at various scales. Bhopal’s green-blue smart city plan, Delhi’s...

This is second in series of blogs on Public Private Partnerships in city bus services in India. Read the first one here.

Use of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to introduce and scale bus services is becoming common in Indian cities. PPPs help combine public sector’s expertise in planning and managing bus services and private sector’s capabilities to access finance and introduce cost-effectiveness in bus operations and maintenance. As discussed in...

This is first in a series of blogs on Public Private Partnerships in city bus services in India.

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in city bus services in India have been prevalent for many years now, but they have gained momentum in the last two decades. The renewed adoption of PPPs started when several small and medium sized cities, that lacked technical and financial resources, initiated bus services for the first time. PPPs emerged as a way for these cities to combine public sector’s expertise in planning and managing a bus service with private sector’s capabilities to...

This blog was first published on Scroll.in on June 3.

Cycling must become an organic part of long-term urban development plans and be integrated with various modes of public transport.

Despite it being the most environment friendly, healthy and low-cost mode of travel, cycling, for many upper-class urban Indians, is merely another way to keep fit. However, for a sizeable number of people who employed in...