‘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…
Interviews - Page 2
‘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…
‘Without money, municipal bodies cannot fulfil their role or deliver the mandate given to them’
The elections to 29 municipal corporations and other urban local bodies in Maharashtra as well as discussions about elections in Bengaluru, Delhi…
‘Aesthetics not an after-thought or beautification, it’s harmony of city spaces and environment’
Cities become beautiful not only because of the quality of architecture but how it intermingles with nature, other life forms, and visual…
‘Ecology and landform give rise to urban form. Town planning flattens it to 2-dimension’
Cities have been turned into a mechanical mode of counting numbers with excel sheets, looking at which plot of land can be…
‘I have a negative sense of the judiciary; conflicting orders are passed’
An important path to protect ecology and seek environmental justice has been through the courts where, in numerous cases, citizens and lawyers…
‘The greatest threat to wetlands is, ironically,
government agencies’
In a landmark order in December 2024,[1] the Supreme Court directed every state to appoint its Wetland Authority, complete ground truthing, and…
‘Ecology is a city’s natural buffer. We don’t see its tipping point, its warning.’
As large swathes of natural ecology in our cities are sacrificed for development and construction, not only do we lose the trees…
‘Infrastructure and design of buildings matter, not only density’
Density is not the only factor in people in Mumbai’s slum rehabilitation colonies getting tuberculosis; a multi-disciplinary study showed that the built…
Why governments promote private profiteering and undermine public goods
The increasing trend towards privatising public goods and services under the pretext of making them cost-efficient has, in fact, come at a…