Articles by Aparajita Ray

Mohammad Khan lived in an informal slum near Bellandur lakebed, making a living collecting and segregating waste. When Citizen Matters covered his story five years ago, we found many families who lived off waste, playing a necessary role in the waste management ecosystem. They traversed the neighbourhoods of Sarjapur Road, HSR Layout and Jakkasandra with bicycles stacked with recyclable waste from across the area. Informal squatter settlements with the ubiquitous blue tent dwellings are often at risk of eviction. Recently, about 5000 migrant labourers living in makeshift sheds in Thubarahalli were threatened by the police and asked to vacate, after local…

Although insignificant in comparison to the population, as many as 10,000 kitchens in Bengaluru are already using piped natural gas (PNG). And if the numbers are to be believed, another 15,000 households have already paid a security deposit of Rs 5,000 to GAIL Gas Ltd (GGL), a subsidiary of Gas Authority of India Limited. In the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to turn 70 percent of India into a gas-based economy while helping the country achieve its climate goals, it would be interesting to objectively assess the progress and challenges of implementation of the city gas distribution project…