Slums on rent
Dhaka has seen a sharp rise in privately owned slums. Are these a better alternative to 'squatter settlements' common in India?
THROWBACK: How China’s ‘sponge cities’ aim to re-use 70% of rainwater
Even as Indian cities become increasingly water-scarce, they get flooded — as Mumbai is getting now — by a few days' intense rainfall.…
New Age Approach
We need to go back to the drawing board to reinvent a green toilet. If necessary, to go back to our past and find technological innovations that …
Drowning In Human Excreta
Sanitation for urban India means building flush toilets and linking them to sewer systems. But the price of chasing this dream is leading to an …
Quality of life in informal settlements: Basic sanitation services a luxury
The SC/ST community had the highest proportion of those who did not have access to a toilet
Residents’ lives in this Jodhpur basti revolve around water
Only downhill houses have water connections, others walk for several kilometres or are forced to use plastic pipes, pumps
Jal Jeevan Mission Urban launched in Union Budget 2021-22
An outlay of Rs 50,011 crore was announced for the urban and rural water supply scheme, over 4 times the revised budget for 2020-2021
Development handcuffed
Confidential audit exposes financial, planning lapses in Andhra’s urban renewal mission
UN 2023 Water Conference: 46 years after Mar del Plata, it’s time to examine the successes and failures
Access to clean water and sanitation remains a significant challenge in many parts of the world, particularly in low-income countries and …
Water quality deteriorating in Kochi, reveals audit
Only 24 per cent households implement water conservation measures like reuse and recycling
Unreal in pampered India
With NDMC winning the smart city challenge, the contrast between where the government lives and where the rest of the citizens live could not …
Parched capital
While Delhi struggles to make rainwater harvesting compulsory even after 13 years of amending byelaws, Chennai shows the way
Rivers, up close and personal
Over centuries people have learnt to live with rivers. They are part of our lives but over the past 150 years this association has weakened. A …
What COVID-19 can mean for SDG-11, sustainable cities and communities in India
As urban vulnerabilities are amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of sustainable cities in Sustainable Development Goals needs to be …
Bhutan’s experiments with happiness
The idyllic Buddhist kingdom believes that peace and happiness should take preference over material growth. In a world beset by inequities and …
COVID-19: Here's what decentralised planning teaches us to curb pandemics
Decentralised infrastructure and services provide a range of benefits for all stakeholders
It rained hard in Delhi; what if all that water did not go waste
The volume of rainwater generated in the past week was almost 13 per cent of the demand for water in Delhi, estimated at 2,765 million litres per …
An every monsoon affair: How to tackle urban flooding
Urbanisation is inevitable as is climate change; the need is for a multi-pronged approach
On privatising water
What about privatising water? Should India move to do it? What tips the scales in its favour, and what doesn't? In 2003, two editorials in Down …
I am green by choice , not by chance
Probably the first chief minister of Delhi to have taken a keen interest in the environment, Shiela Dixit has got a mixed response for her …
The past and present of rivers
Author(s): Karuna Futane We are a generation that has turned flowing fresh water rivers to rivers of sewage and garbage. We have lost rivers. …