Amenities - Question of Cities

Play spaces for adolescents: The missing link in our cities

Urban spaces are currently spaces of adult hegemony designed for their work and mobility. Even when play spaces are built, they are for children but adolescents – at the threshold of childhood and adulthood – are usually left out. India…

How Delhi’s poor and homeless beat the heat on their own

The country’s capital recorded this year’s first heat wave in early April, with temperatures touching 40.2 degrees Celsius. With summer making an early and harsh onset, the most vulnerable people – the homeless – have only themselves to rely upon…

Placing platform workers in the city’s urban imagination

The city is the place of work for millions of platform or gig workers in India who number an astounding 7.7 million in official records but could well be three times that. Yet, the relationship between them and the city…

At Hyderabad airport, drivers agitate for the bare minimum

It took nearly ten years, collectivisation, and dogged unionising for the drivers of aggregator taxis at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport to get even a resting room for themselves. Their fight for other basic amenities continues. But, as two of…

Platforming domestic work will amplify existing vulnerabilities of workers

The platform and gig economy took a leap into the unorganised domestic work sector in March when advertisements promised ‘maids’ at a mere Rs 49 an hour. It swung the focus on a sector that goes below the radar across…

India’s urbanisation must not, cannot, leave behind her urban poor

People migrate to cities for work but most Indian cities lack housing, water and sanitation, employment opportunities, and basic services such as health care and education to accommodate and meet the needs of migrants. Although the middle class and the…