Right to the City - Question of Cities

Creating the right environment and spaces to make voices heard

Organising an urban festival is like weaving a multi-colour quilt. One of the many challenges is curating the events which will draw viewers but managing to keep the focus on the theme, another is to work with local communities and…

‘I need to provide for my family, the air doesn’t matter’

The face masks are back in Mumbai – not because of COVID but poor air quality. Over the past two months, Mumbai’s…

Delhi’s direct line from air pollution to disease

With the onset of winter in Delhi, smog is back and so are a plethora of diseases. The impact of air and…

Wanted: Safe and affordable housing for working women in cities

The basic human right to safe and affordable housing eludes most working women in cities. They are forced to submit to scrutinising…

Planning and building gender-inclusive cities is the need of the hour

Women and other genders interact differently with the city from the way men do. What work they do, where they live, how…

‘Mumbai Development Plan is not on paper alone, it makes spatial provisions for women’

The talk of incorporating gender concerns into urban plans has been around for decades but it became a reality only when Mumbai’s…

Digitalisation cannot be an unqualified “smart” solution to urban issues

As many cities become smarter by harnessing digitalisation and technology, sustainable development and ecology have been pushed behind. Smart Cities Mission, offered…

‘We need to ask where our data is being used and who is encashing it’

What does digitalisation look like in the urban periphery, the smaller towns? Urban studies scholars and researchers set out to Bhiwandi, on Mumbai’s periphery and part of the larger Mumbai Metropolitan Region, to try to answer the question. In the…

Climate migrants: From cyclone-hit Sundarbans to Kolkata’s miserable shanties

The real struggle for those battered by cyclones starts after the calamity when they are forced to leave behind their home, land…

A tall order: Housing as part of the ‘Right to the City’ is long, hard work

The Delhi High Court’s judgment in the Shakur Basti petition in 2019 foregrounded the Right to the City for slum dwellers, bringing…