Natural Environment - Question of Cities

Do not touch our trees: Citizens echo across cities

From Pune to Hyderabad, citizens are protesting large-scale tree cutting linked to roads, metros, flyovers, mining and real estate projects despite worsening urban heat. In Pune, activists say decades of infrastructure-led concretisation have devastated tree cover, even as the city…

Paris shows the cool way to prioritise nature over concrete

Paris went from grey car-centric to green and tree-filled, planting nearly 1,00,000 trees and creating 531 gardens, and two urban forests with…

‘Riverfront development is the murder of rivers, turning rivers into drains.’

“The Aravari taught me to flow like water,” says Dr Rajendra Singh, renowned water conservationist, in this interview, explaining how the work…

Pune riverfront work narrows the Mula-Mutha, slashes
green to grey

The network of rivers in Pune have created and sustained life; their banks, riparian zones, and channels (not canals) have been functional…

Musi riverfront project for real estate, sidelines people
and river

Only the first phase of the Musi riverfront development project in Hyderabad will be around Rs 7,000 crore; the total cost is…

Copy-paste riverfront model discounts Godavari’s ecology and heritage

Real estate over ecological restoration, multiplicity of agencies, and Kumbh Mela-driven deadlines are three faultlines of Nashik’s Godavari riverfront development, based on…

Nuts, bolts, and budgets of riverfront development

Riverfront development has rapidly become a defining feature of cities across India, with projects underway in cities from Ahmedabad to Guwahati and…

Mumbai protests for ecology intensify but disconnected

Across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, people’s protests to protect mangroves, wetlands, forests, and other fragile ecosystems have multiplied as infrastructure projects gather momentum. Despite sustained efforts through demonstrations, legal action, and digital campaigns, authorities have largely gone ahead with projects,…

Halla bol: Why protests are intrinsic to city-making

Resistance and protests are increasingly framed as undesirable, even anti-national. Yet, they have always defined the character of cities. Protests seem to…

Mumbai-Thane on ecology
protection march

Across Mumbai and Thane, individuals and groups have been coming together to resist ecological damage by the authorities in the name of…