Informal settlements - Question of Cities

Delhi’s double whammy of heat and polluted air demands review of Heat Action Plan

If air pollution is hazardous and deadly for people, then poor quality air combined with high temperatures is worse, as seen in this ethnographic-like study of Delhi’s Sanjay Colony. However, the city’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) does not recognise, let…

How the lack of rights worsens climate events for Delhi’s informal workers

As climate-related weather events scorch, flood and chill New Delhi, its informal workers, an estimated 80 percent of its workforce, are left grappling with myriad challenges of living in a city that would not function if not for their labour.…

Pakistan’s women struggle to make voices heard in Climate Change conversations

The impact of climate-induced catastrophes doubles in Pakistani women as they are left out of the decision-making policies. Heat waves and floods have battered the country with greater intensity each passing year. Women living in informal settlements in Karachi, one…

Mumbai needs a master plan for slum land, not mere populism

Slum land was seen as a huge profitable space in which slum dwellers could be pushed into small areas while the larger spaces could be used to construct five-star hotels and homes. When the Slum Rehabilitation Authority was launched in…

Story of slums in laws, judgments, and housing schemes

As the number of homeless and urban poor multiply in cities, adequate housing remains a complex issue that governments have neglected. The Right to Life under Article 21 has been interpreted by courts to mean a life of dignity which…

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’. The poor survive in an Indian city because the reach of master planning is weak, granting them space…