Blogs

Every drop of water is precious in western Rajasthan. This sun-baked swathe of arid land is dotted with ‘dhanis’, or small settlements comprising of 50-100 people and a few thousand of their domesticated animals. Remote villages such as Kisangarh and Girduwala, located close to the India-Pakistan border are a part of the Thar desert ecosystem, characterized by sandy plain and dune landscape interspersed with grasses and hardy bushes such as ‘aakdo’ and ‘thor’. This region receives less than 100-200 mm rainfall in a good year and depends solely on groundwater for sustenance.

Until...

The impossible has already happened and slowly, it is becoming the new normal. With cases of COVID-19 reaching 4 million mark in India, cities continue averting public transport and big investment project like metros and monorails. Also, public spaces are closed to citizens and recreational activities are becoming prey to social distancing norms, affecting a common urban commuter. Amid this all, there is one ray of hope. The pandemic has resurrected cycling. With social distancing becoming the new norm, cycling seems to be the one stop mobility solution for all commute troubles. Though...

Article 21-A of the Constitution of India guarantees the right to elementary education for all children. But accessing this basic right comes at a cost for many children, who risk their lives daily as they travel to school. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among children up to the age of 18 in India. A 2019...

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

Rampant urbanization and climate change are twin triggers causing severe and frequent urban flooding across India. Traditional grey stormwater infrastructure such as gutters, storm drains, collection systems and pumps, are designed to quickly move urban stormwater away from the built environment. But every year we see recurring cases of...

Cycling is thriving, both as a mode of transport and as a way of staying healthy during the COVID-19 crisis. Local government’s response has varied across the globe, some lowering speed limits, some building pop-up bike lanes and others...

This article was originally published on News18 on 28 July.

While announcing a stimulus package of INR 20 lakh crore ($260 billion) in his address to the nation on May 12, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to make use of the opportunity provided by the COVID-19 pandemic to attract investments and manufacturing jobs. Given that cities will likely be the predominant focus of...

From developed to developing countries, the businesses are shifting away from a narrow focus on profit to an inclusive approach that benefits the planet and the people. These innovators are taking sustainability as the starting point and developing businesses that focus on societal impact.

In South Asia, some of these entrepreneurs are looking toward the land, which has suffered from decades of degradation. Their mission is to heal this damage and build strong rural economies. The opportunity is big: nearly 140...

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...