Are the urban rivers in India annihilated?
The extractive development and competitive growth models coupled with haphazard urban expansion plans are the root cause for the dying or dead urban rivers in India. The present trends of urban expansion programs in the country suggest that urban ecosystem is seemingly very heavily stressed and that the conditions are likely to go from bad […]
Inventing Institutional Structures For Delivering Affordable Shelter
Every State in India has an Affordable Housing policy. These are then sought to be implemented through various arms – be they Urban Local Bodies, Development Corporations or private developers. There is the PMAY for some financial support. We now have a national policy for rental housing on the anvil. The conception of all these […]
Whose sustainability? Discovering civic agency for the future Indian city
The UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Bruntland Commission, defined sustainable development in 1987 as development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The ‘future generations’ are key stakeholders in the process of achieving sustainability but it is […]
Inclusion of Wastewater treatment for funding for < 1 lakh population cities under the current Swachhta Mission: Prospects and Challenges
The Government of India has been pushing the agenda of Wastewater management with the launch of SBM 2.0. Complete FSM and Wastewater management for cities with < 1 lakh population is expected to be proposed under the mission. While FSSM and wastewater management needs of cities with population of more than 1 lakh are addressed […]
Supporting and strengthening civil society in addressing the urban challenge: How can CSR/philanthropy help?
India is in the throes of rapid urbanisation. The proportion of urban population increased from 17.3% in 1951 to 31.8% in 2011. The urban population of 377 million in 2011 is projected to almost double to 820 million in 2050. On the one hand, urbanisation seems to hold great promise. By 2030, 70% of net […]
The city and the right to work
We have all been seeing how the city is being transformed over the last thirty years from a place to work and live in, to one that is a site for investment and profit-making. Two major aspects of this transformation are the shift from manufacturing to services, and the privatisation of services. The NSO data […]
Heritage Conservation in the Emerging Indian City – II : India’s World Heritage Cities and Living Sites: Quo Vadis?
The walled city of Ahmedabad, founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah in the 15th century, and The city of Jaipur, founded in 1727 by Maharaja JaiSingh II (1693-1744) were both designated as UNESCO World Heritage Cities in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Their UNESCO inscription procedure mandates the creation of Conservation Management Plans binding on the State, […]
Heritage Conservation in the Emerging Indian City – I : The Future of 20th Century architecture in Indian Cities – (Un)Learning from Chandigarh, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai
This session will straddle the apparent contradiction of UNESCO World Heritage designations versus the demolition of iconic buildings in India’s recent history. For example, the Chandigarh Capitol Complex, designed by Le Corbusier was inscribed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. The Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai – a collection of 19th-century […]
The Indian city : Past, Present and Future – with India’s celebrated Architects
India lacks an imagination of the city. We tend to locate the authenticity of culture in the village and view the city only as a technical entity. Most building codes follow a template set by the National Building Code and define rules derived from abstract calculations based on site size, land use, and road width. […]
Business of Sanitation
Reinventing urban sanitation through innovation Over half the world currently does not have access to safe sanitation, meaning they have a dirty unsafe toilet or no toilet at all, waste is left exposed and untreated, and disease can run rampant. Sanitation systems have been considered a costly public responsibility; however, this is strongly linked to […]