A Public Effort
Where the government has failed miserably in providing quality service to the people, some ngos have set an example on how urban waste can be …
Bogged Down
Waste generation is not rare in urban areas, nor any other part of the world. The only difference is in the management of wastes. An effective, …
Aaj Ka Roadshow
Liberalisation in India has not only affected humdrum life, but also popular cultural forms. This is palpable in the changing dynamics of the big …
There's nothing august about Mumbai
July 26, 2005: It began raining at 11 am. In the next 24 hours, India's most populous city received 944 mm of rainfall. The resultant flood …
Pandakudia slum shows 'smart city' Bhubaneswar has a long way to go
Informal settlements in Odisha capital lack toilets, running water & power; situation worsens during rains and natural disasters; women …
Peripheries: new destinations for vacations
Poverty is not to be relished as a visual prop, or an object of aesthetic appeasement—immunising us to “a new normal” of …
Slums and Society
A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and …
How India’s ‘slum-free’ redevelopment fails residents by ignoring their design insights and needs
Housing design alone cannot change the persistent structural inequality faced by residents
Children teach elders with play on street
Against the opulent backdrop of the WHO building in the Capital, children of the Anna Nagar slum act out on the street their …
Transforming a Karachi slum into a tidy suburb
The success of various programmes initiated under a pilot project in Orangi, a Karachi slum, has inspired its leader to predict the squatter …
The nuances of ignorance
GENDER AND SLUM CULTURE IN URBAN ASIA Susanne Thorbek Publisher: Sage Publications (Vistaar) Price: Rs 225
Delhi’s (and India’s) urban poor may have houses to live. But are they habitable
The habitability of housing, rather than just its availability, will be an important factor in the future, given the trends in climate change
Live in Mumbai, work in Mumbai, but these workers can't vote in Mumbai
Ragpickers, DNT members and construction workers in India's financial capital don't possess the most powerful tool in democracy
Getting Indore's roads to play a double role
An Indore engineer has solved the problem of waterlogging in the city's slums by building sloping roads that lead excess water to the nearest nullah.
Court bars slum-dwellers defecating in the open
Residents of Delhi's slums find themselves in a Catch-22 situation. Public conveniences in the Capital are woefully inadequate, but when they are …
Former slum now has its own newspaper
A determined group of youngsters in Shaheed Nagar who started a weekly newspaper find their objectives are slowly being realised.
Where will these railway track dwellers of Delhi live after eviction
Already living in filth, misery, disease and hunger, will they now be deprived of the only places they call home?
Delhi's two faces: One rich, the other poor
The slums in the capital city will keep on growing unless the villages around it are allowed to prosper.
Improving village life will keep villager home
Voluntary agencies will have to come up with ways to make the village peaceful and productive. Only a satisfying life in the village will prevent …
Divine dwellings
An organisation set up by priests provides inexpensive bamboo houses to people living in slums and on the streets
The torrid charm of being a UP politician
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has resigned. She's ended, as a newspaper put it, her "third honeymoon" with the Bharatiya Janata Party, a …
"The market usually decides the fate of slum-dwellers"
NIDHI JAMWAL discusses approaches to slum upgradation in developing countries with FAROUK TEBBAL, chief, Shelter Branch, United Nations Human …
"Ecosan is not a second-rate approach"
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) related to sanitation rely on flushing systems. Uno Winblad, senior adviser, Stockholm Environment …
Jostling for jhuggi land
The Shakur Basti eviction drive calls for a thorough review of the railways’ mandate, politics of urban land and housing of urban poor
Slum voices
BOOK>> TRICKSTER CITY, WRITINGS FROM THE UNDERBELLY OF A METROPOLIS • translated by Shveta Sarda • Penguin • Rs 499