-Business Standard No 'smart city' will be created in the next five years, though a successful programme could see several smart colonies come up across the country The National Democratic Alliance government's ambitious Smart Cities programme will at best be able set up only 100 pilot projects in the first five years. Contrary to general perception, no 'smart city' will be created in the next five years, though a successful programme could...

-The Times of India BERLIN: India on Thursday submitted its 'climate action plan' to a UN body at Bonn in Germany, telling the world that the country would fight the climate change by taking energy efficiency route and reducing its 'emission intensity' (carbon emission per unit of GDP) substantially as well as increasing the share of clean energy by huge 40% in its total energy mix by the year 2030. The country,...

-The Times of India India and her neighbors are going through a tortuous process of urbanization - slow, messy and partly hidden. This is seen in severe problems of livability and congestion, making cities unattractive for rural migrants. As a result, whatever benefits urban agglomerations could have offered in terms of economic advance are getting diluted. This is the dire analysis of a 200-page World Bank report on urbanization in South...

-Hindustan Times Farmers like Amolak Singh in the farm rich state of Punjab are making money and also helping clean the air in cities like Chandigarh and Delhi by selling agricultural waste to generate bioenergy. Every year in November, farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan burn agricultural waste which leads to rise in air pollution levels in the national capital and neighbouring cities, home for over 2.5 crore people. Things have changed as...

-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...