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19/01/2019 - 10:25

Chennai’s Second Master Plan envisions “a prime metropolis which will become more livable, economically vibrant, environmentally sustainable, and with better assets for future generations”. However, an examination of this vision from the perspective of the urban poor reveals that the plan does not address social and economic inequalities.

25/07/2018 - 13:00

What makes a journey safe - better drivers or better roads? While we are agreed that India’s road safety record needs to improve, how we are going to go about it remains a matter of some debate.

16/02/2018 - 09:50

When the Government of India introduced its Smart City Mission back in 2015, it was met with widespread approval, fist pumps and the feeling of quantifiable development all highlighted by a background score of ‘Swachh Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’ chants.

06/12/2017 - 09:19

An oft quoted data, when it comes to road safety in India, is that every hour, 17 people die on the country’s roads. That’s 408 people per day.

07/09/2016 - 14:15

It was on a Saturday Morning that I ventured on a walk, along with a group of volunteers, through the fishing communities of Foreshore Estate and Srinivasapuram. The aim was to learn about the way land was being taken away from these communities in the name of development and environmental protection, and the absence of detailed land records places them in a particularly precarious position.

01/09/2016 - 15:46

The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be created by each city to implement the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) at the city level. The SPV will be in charge of planning, appraising, approving, releasing funds, implementing, managing, operating, monitoring and evaluating the projects in their city.

14/07/2016 - 12:54

Assessing road quality may seem like a highly complex science, requiring not only prior technical knowledge and experience, but also specialised equipment and tools. For the most part, this is true - most municipal authorities around the world are tasked with surveying roads and pavements regularly to determine maintenance, repair or rehabilitation needs and require teams of highly qualified civil and mechanical engineers, amongst other professionals.

14/07/2016 - 10:41

Open data can be a high demand to place on certain governments when they lack credible and organized data to begin with, which is a necessity in order to make well-informed decisions.

16/06/2016 - 18:01

Ponneri is currently a small town located north of Chennai which lies in the middle of lush fields and numerous water bodies. However, all of this will soon change. Last Saturday a colleague and I were able to go visit some of the areas around the planned smart city of Ponneri and envision the drastic changes that this area will undergo if the development plan goes through.