Urban infrastructure - Question of Cities

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…

‘Women’s access to gig work is challenged by their access to digital infrastructure’

Women gig workers form a niche and gender-segregated part of the expanding platform and gig economy. It will reportedly provide 90 million jobs in India but its structure is hardly women-friendly. “Even educated women have a lot of challenges when…

What enraged us and what gladdened us in 2024: An overview

When we look back at the year fast closing upon us all, there was not much to cheer about how our cities were built, how the environment was undermined in the name of development, and how people mostly coped with…

Small but significant changes for gender-inclusive cities

Safe and clean public spaces, accessible convenience areas and toilets at regular intervals, areas that they can rest for a while, streets and footpaths that do not threaten even in the dark, responsive mechanism to complaints are some of the…

Micro-mapping streets and footpaths in a neighbourhood, as a woman

We walk by on badly-designed streets and footpaths or race across at ill-planned traffic intersections made to facilitate vehicles rather than pedestrians, and come to believe that this is a part of wretched and stressful life in a city. Walking…

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 mixed outcome – while women, especially the working class with tight home budgets, appreciate the saving it allows…