Pollution - Question of Cities

Let’s transform Kolkata into a care-based feminist city

In its bid to ‘develop’ into a modern metropolis, the city’s everyday rhythms are fading. Kolkata must hold on to its essence – embrace of all people, streets as expressions of protests, neighbourhood addas and baithaks all a testimony to…

Clean air and water in Thrissur. Breaking barriers in Chennai

Drawing a circle from Thrissur to Chennai, Mumbai, and back to Thrissur, this multi-city letter weighs in to reminisce what used to make them ‘home’ earlier, and what has changed over the decades and what has not. It then re-imagines,…

Dehradun, we dream a future without air purifiers and ailments

Two summers ago, when the temperature of Dehradun touched 47 degrees Celsius, many realised the price of sacrificing trees for development and came out to protest. The picturesque hill station has been marred by over-tourism, congestion, excessive construction, and poor…

The Musi – then and now

Cover photo: Musi River at Hyderabad/ Wikimedia Commons

Delhi owes the Yamuna an ecologically-sound river-led city plan

The deterioration and shrinking of the Yamuna in Delhi have worsened over the decades despite thousands of crores spent. Constructions on its floodplains were ignored earlier; now, the Yamuna Action Plan itself includes riverfront development with concretisation even as long-time…

‘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 an ecological perspective, say Dr Reema Bhatia and Meeta Kumar in this interview. Their research paper ‘Urbanising a…

The Yamuna: Memoir of
a dying river

Nikeita Saraf, a Thane-based architect and urban practitioner, works as illustrator and writer with Question of Cities. Through her academic years at School of Environment and Architecture, and later as Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements…

The relentless fighters who cycle, campaign and rally to save Yamuna

Pankaj Kumar quit his job to work 24x7 for a clean Yamuna. Vikrant Tongad decided he would not be a silent spectator to the pollution in the river. Manu Bhatnagar chalked out a water policy with nature-based solutions. Nishant Pawar…

They fight so that the Aravallis can stand tall

Sheer passion, deep commitment to their land, and raw anger at the daylight robbery of the hills they have called home forever have driven scores of people to gather in small and large numbers across the Aravalli hills and range…

Saving the Aravallis with songs, poems and art

People, including professional artists, have been using every medium at their disposal to draw attention to the Aravallis. While locals across Rajasthan and Haryana have taken to songs, poems, and art works to protect their beloved hills, activists in Delhi,…