Urban Planning | Development and design of urban landscapes

How development control regulations erode the idea of cities

City-making has come to epitomise exclusion and commodification where open spaces and natural environment have been sacrificed to benefit private interests. City planning is given the short shrift and the Development Control Regulations (DCR) approach is used by politicians and…

Central Vista redevelopment could rob Delhi of its iconic public space – and shrink democracy

The once sprawling lawns, wide pathways and iconic buildings at Rajpath in New Delhi are being erased by the Rs 13,450-crore Central…

The modified public realm: A study of contemporary public spaces in Delhi

The definition of public space has changed. As ‘physical’ public spaces are turning ‘virtual’, social accessibility is now restricted. They are no…

Delhi’s ‘pink ticket’ allows women free travel but what we need is safe travel

India’s capital city introduced the ‘pink ticket’ in 2019 so that women could commute at virtually no cost. It has had a…

‘We get flash floods but we have never experienced this type of flood’

Assam, and its neighbouring region, was lashed by the harshest monsoon rain in years, resulting in massive inundation and floods across 32…

Assam floods: Infrastructure-led ruptures in the ecological landscape

The extreme rain and floods in Assam last month hit international headlines. As stories of loss and destruction tug at heart and…

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…

Hyderabad’s Khajaguda Rocks and its ecology yield to posh urban spaces

The luxury apartments, commercial buildings, and spanking new roads at Khajaguda have come up at a huge cost – the loss of the city’s prehistoric rocks and an entire ecological system that the rock formation supported. The sprawling 150-acre site,…

To build sustainable cities, keep nature and people at centre of urban planning

The rampant destruction of natural areas and biodiversity is significantly contributing to frequent and intense climate events threatening not only our health,…

The right to the Indian city: The need to spatialise human rights in urban India

Informal settlements, despite containing a majority of the people, are treated as an aberration whose marginality is portrayed as ‘the city within the city’.…