-Press release by World Bank dated November 14, 2022 NEW DELHI: A new World Bank report estimates that India will need to invest $840 billion over the next 15 years—or an average of $55 billion per annum—into urban infrastructure if it is to effectively meet the needs of its fast-growing urban population. The report, titled “Financing India’s Urban Infrastructure Needs: Constraints to Commercial Financing and Prospects for Policy Action” underlines the...

-Down to Earth The United Nations declared 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration In this Anthropocene era, human interference can be seen in every component of Earth’s ecosystem. Due to such human-mediated changes, the loss of freshwater habitats such as lakes, ponds and wetlands, as well as their aquatic biodiversity and water quality are becoming a major concern.  Freshwater ecosystems are of enormous ecological importance and human need (such as drinking water and...

-IndiaToday.in Air emergencies, heat waves, water shortages, street flooding, garbage spillovers, traffic jams and noise pollution… Delhi has become unlivable and no urban planning can fix this unsustainable concrete jungle. It’s time we seriously looked at moving the capital out to let the city heal and live. In the last few years, winter in Delhi has become depressingly synonymous with toxic air pollution. During summers, drinking water shortages leave the city parched...

If you are not serious about non-communicable diseases, then this single piece of information is enough to scare you -- during 2019, almost two-third of deaths in India occurred due to such diseases i.e., NCDs.   The newly released report by World Health Organization shows that out of the total deaths in 2019 in our country, about 28 percent were caused by cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), 10 percent by cancers, 12 percent by chronic...

-VillageSquare.in The lure of processed fast food is not just an urban India problem - rural Indians are finding it increasingly hard to resist readily available junk food as a recent survey from the Development Intelligence Unit shows. Many of us have fond memories of drinking roohafza and eating homemade fryums.  OK, fryums are a deep-fried potato snack and roohafza might have fruit and herbs as its base but is loaded with sugar.  Still,...