Sustainability - Question of Cities

What if the Musi River could lead the development of Hyderabad?

The Musi, the pride of the city during the Nizam era, is a channel of filth, its banks encroached upon, its waters carrying untreated waste and industrial effluents, and its edges subjected to construction in the name of riverfront development.…

‘Rivers are not meant to die because of our mistakes’

The Musi could have been the defining characteristic of Hyderabad, the cyber city, as it was in history when it filled over…

The Musi was, and is, Hyderabad’s heritage
and culture

The story of the Musi is woven with that of the city. It, historically, had a riverfront with grand palaces, shamshaan ghats,…

‘We want the Musi cleaned but without displacing the people’

Once a lifeline of the city of Hyderabad, the Musi was home to thousands of people – mostly economically backward -- living…

‘The Yamuna is a living and breathing thing. We are systematically killing it’

Although India’s vision of a river was historically been influenced by the British, urban plans in contemporary India too do not have…

‘The government got votes from here, now claims the settlement is illegal’

What happens when a river’s relationships with people closest to it are broken and all talk of the river is reduced to…

Imaginations, protests and politics for better cities in 2026

The rapid development and redevelopment in cities in the business-as-usual mode has meant an extractive cost to nature with millions of people…

Reading cities through stories, writers and lenses

Cities unravel layers in their books through trivia, history, lived experiences captured in books, monographs and other pages. The written word matters even in this digitally-driven age and books bring alive people of a city, its streets and neighbourhoods, hidden…

Community filmmakers tell lesser-known stories of
their cities

Cities are often spoken about through master plans, metrics and futures imagined top down. Often lost in these are how people live…

How changing climate and cities influence people’s lives

When the world is confronted with climate change and its intensifying effects, studies and research give concrete shape to the impacts. International…