Inequality | Inequality and access to urban resources |

‘Coping with heat isn’t an individual problem, it’s a systemic challenge’

The unequal impact of heat on the marginalised in India’s cities is no longer in question. The chasm is deepening between those who can escape heat stress and those forced to work despite extreme heat. Apekshita Varshney, founder of non-profit…

How Delhi’s poor and homeless beat the heat on their own

The country’s capital recorded this year’s first heat wave in early April, with temperatures touching 40.2 degrees Celsius. With summer making an…

At Hyderabad airport, drivers agitate for the bare minimum

It took nearly ten years, collectivisation, and dogged unionising for the drivers of aggregator taxis at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport to…

South Asian domestic worker abuse and activism in New York

This insightful and evocative paper, presented as senior thesis at Columbia University’s Department of History, traces the arc of the exploitation and…

Platforming domestic work will amplify existing vulnerabilities of workers

The platform and gig economy took a leap into the unorganised domestic work sector in March when advertisements promised ‘maids’ at a…

‘Waste pickers are treated like step-children but the formal sector can’t work without them’

Most of Bengaluru’s waste used to be dumped in the villages nearby and waste pickers invisibilised despite their critical role. Hasiru Dala…

Building bridges: Why it need not be street vendors versus cities

Though a cityscape is nothing without its street vendors and they are an integral part of a city’s economy providing many services…

Informal workers brave cruel heat for a few rupees a day

Outdoor and informal workers such as construction labourers, delivery drivers, hawkers and vendors are forced to brave the punishing heat to earn a few rupees a day. Their working conditions are deplorable, living conditions no better. As they bear the…

M-East Mumbai: Votes don’t improve lives but they vote anyway

The cramped, polluted and neglected civic ward in the city, which houses migrant workers and project-affected persons displaced from other parts of…

‘Climate solutions should be grounded in human rights, equality, and participation of worst hit’

Climate change is a human rights issue too, as judgments in India and abroad recently underscored. This recognises that not all people…