On foot and pedal

Smart but pricey

Automated Meter Reading (AMR) is being touted as a cash cow for India’s water service providers, most of whom have dismal records of revenue collection. Instead of a meter reader knocking on the door, an official walks or drives by with a handheld device that automatically reads meters via a radio frequency within a stipulated radius. That’s the promise of AMR meters. Last month, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) invited bids to supply and install 300,000 such meters, enough to cover one-sixth of the capital’s water connections.

Bombay HC halts construction by Hiranandani Developers in Powai

Social activists fighting land grab by builders have a reason to cheer. The Bombay High Court has restrained Mumbai-based Hiranandani Developers from carrying out further construction at a township it is developing in suburban Powai until it provides flats for the economically weaker sections of society. The court also put on hold the sale of the flats till further orders.

TB turns invincible

In December last, when doctors at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai raised the alarm over a deadly form of tuberculosis, the Union health ministry was quick to refute the claim. In its press release on January 17, the ministry said the term “totally drug resistant TB” is “misleading”; it is neither recognised by the national programme for TB control nor by WHO. But WHO has received reports of a similar strain of TB bacteria before: first from Italy in 2007 and then from Iran in 2009. With India becoming the third country to have raised the concern, it has now convened a meeting of global TB experts in March to discuss whether the strain should be called totally drug resistant (TDR), or be clubbed under the existing category of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), given that advanced drugs are in the making and that it is not possible to test TB bacteria against every possible drug and concentration.

Bombay HC halts work at Mulund-Thane SEZ

The Bombay High Court has put a spanner in the land reclamation work currently on at the Mulund-Thane Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project site in the ecologically sensitive coastal area in northeastern Mumbai. It has asked the project proponent, Zeus Infrastructure, to stop dumping solid waste in the area immediately. The company was using construction debris and municipal garbage to reclaim land.

Desperate for gas

BAWANA IN NORTHWEST DELHI is a telling stop on India’s winding and elusive gas trail. About 35 km from the city centre, Bawana is where the Delhi government is setting up a 1,500 MW power plant that will meet a fifth of the capital’s voracious energy needs. The state-owned generating company, Pragati Power Corporation Ltd (PPCL), is forking out Rs 4,500-crore to set up this gas-fired plant in two modules of 750 MW each, the first of which has been ready for a while. However, despite severe power cuts in recent weeks, the plant has remained idle. There is no fuel to run it

Future shock

It is a definite recipe for disaster, barely short of apocalypse. Thousands may die, millions get affected, and assets worth billions of dollars get destroyed. As human-induced greenhouse gases increase, so will extreme weather events like floods, heat waves and droughts.

Deafening Noise

Ask Priyabrata Kanjilal, a grocery store owner in one of the bylanes of south Kolkata, for a Vim washing bar. Chances are he will produce an egg (dim in Bengali), for he cannot distinguish between the two words. Twenty years at the store has taken a toll on his hearing ability. During his eight hours at the store it’s not the good old radio that he listens to, but the steady groan of traffic on the 4.5-metre alley. Impatient honks and noise of trucks, buses, autorickshaws, cars and bikes are a constant. The 50-year-old is also a captive listener of the many religious, social and political processions that often pass through the road, all expressing their emotions through blaring loudspeakers.

Car Control

Cities all over the world are checking car population to free their road space. Anumita Roychowdhury finds out where India is headed

On two legs and a prayer

The horn, though, would not have helped negotiate a bull that he skirted, but that meant his leg slipped into sludge heaped beside an open manhole. Before long, a bicyclist expectorated betel juice right on to his trouser legs and shoes.