Archives - Question of Cities

Climate-induced inflation wrecks women’s food practices in Shaheen Bagh

Shaheen Bagh, a middle-class and predominantly Muslim area in south east Delhi, emerged as the city’s culinary hub after the persistent protest against the draconian Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in 2019-2020. Though the chaalis futa road…

Greater Dhaka: Making liveable city in times of Climate Change is all politics and planning

Dhaka has been experiencing longer summers with heatwaves, weaker monsoons and shorter winters, indicating the Climate Change impact. Studies show that the situation is likely to worsen in the years to come, both of heat and rainfall. Thousands of underprivileged…

Nepal’s Melamchi, still recovering from 2021 flood, shows multiple risks of rapid urbanisation

Melamchi, 76 kilometres from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, was bouncing back from the massive 2015 earthquake when the flood in 2021 brought further devastation. The ravaging flood also severely damaged its ambitious water supply project which had taken nearly three decades…

Delhi’s heatwave, floods, and G20 beautification force urban poor to pay heavy price

In the sweltering heat of the Indian capital, the lives of the urban poor have been turned upside down by the ruthless demolitions carried out for Delhi’s G20 beautification drive and subsequent floods. Forced out of their homes and left…

Climate justice eludes the displaced from Karachi’s Orangi Nala

After the heavy floods in 2020, the decision to remove illegal settlements along one of Karachi’s streams, Orangi Nala, to make way for water was a double blow to the residents. Three years later, they await justice. With climate-related catastrophes…

‘We are scared that the polluted Mithi might flood again’

As Mumbai’s most prominent river and natural drainage channel, the Mithi has mostly been struggling to flow despite the restoration work after the destructive 2005 floods. The pollution, concretisation and encroachment that led to Mithi’s pathetic state have also impacted…

Mithi: Desperately seeking course correction, ecological restoration

It’s been 18 long years since the Mithi river was blamed for Mumbai’s worst flood. Ten committee reports and thousands of crores later, the authorities have scrambled to deepen and desilt the river besides construct retaining walls on both the…

‘This year’s Yamuna floods are a trailer of bigger floods to hit Delhi’

New Delhi and parts of the National Capital region (NCR) struggled through a massive flood in July, the likes of which had not been seen in many decades, certainly since 1978. Yamuna River breached its previous highest flood level by…

Kochi caught between the Periyar, surging sea and tidal floods

The intense rainfall in July and August in Kochi this year alarmed those who had witnessed the deadly floods in 2018 when Periyar River submerged vast areas of the city. Nearby, the Chellanam-Cherai coastal stretch has seen huge sea surges…

Frequent flood hazards show the downside of urbanisation

The northern hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and the north-eastern state of Assam have been reeling under massive floods this monsoon. The large-scale destruction all around, and the loss of lives and property, exceeded what has come to…