In our minds, built environments represent modernity, and if we see enough of that in our homes, workplaces and means of commuting, we don't pause to consider how equitable it is. This must change.
By listening to residents, and understanding the needs that have driven them to organic solutions, it is possible for Master Plans in cities to be a lot more attentive to the lived realities of people.
The Delhi HC ruling in Ajay Maken offers hope to residents of informal settlements by protecting their right to housing and enhancing their role in decision-making about urban space.
Looking into what’s happening in the State of Karnataka, Kathyayini Chamaraj discusses the housing needs and rights of the urban poor.
Displaced by the flawed implementation of Slum Rehabilitation Authority's policy and an unholy nexus of real-estate mafia, slum-dwellers continue to fight for their basic right to shelter.
Families in Majuli island are used to the vagaries of the Brahmaputra. But the floods this year have been particularly harsh on them. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.
Were we interested in a comfortable home for Medhi, or were we looking to give her just another house from our stable of development schemes? R Balasubramaniam remembers a lesson he learned well.
I could smell her before I could see her. She had layers of clothes once white, laced with the acrid odour of incontinence, of old age. Arpan Tulsyan reports on one woman's poverty and homelessness.
A systematic, participatory effort to map and understand the need for sanitation in Sangli's slums has helped bring about a change in the mindset of civic officials and residents alike.
The belief that slum dwellers convert any structure they are given into another slum is thoroughly disproved in Charkop. There is clearly a sense of community, and each cluster feels proud to maintain the cleanliness of its surroundings, writes Kalpana Sharma.
While the sheer scale of the flooding in Mumbai last year made relief operations difficult, there was still much that the government could have done, but failed to do. The citizens themselves, were far more resourceful and sensitive to the plight of others, writes Darryl D'Monte, who served on the Concerned Citizens' Commission.
"This building is dangerous. It may collapse at any time. Enter at your own risk." So goes a warning sign at the entrance to a building in Mumbai. Buildings that crumble are an old tradition in this city, with at least one cause being the Rent Control Act. Dilip D'Souza says the pernicious law must go.
India Together is published with support from Oorvani Foundation.
