-Scroll.in The city urgently needs formalised, standardised spaces for waste work. September was the peak of monsoons in India. It rained incessantly. Women from the waste picker community in a slum in North Delhi’s Wazirabad were been in a fix. Their homes, which are also their workspaces, were inundated with water. Their husbands and many of the women themselves collect, sort and segregate waste. They are also involved in recycling and reselling it. The...

-Scroll.in Anganwadi staff need funds for infrastructure and supplies. Instead, the government gave them a new app that is riddled with problems. On the afternoon of August 23, the Chhota Sion urban health centre in the heart of Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum was suddenly awash with pink. Nearly 80 women, all dressed in saris and salwar suits in various shades of the colour, trooped into its lobby. Breaking up into groups, they spent...

-TheWire.in A recent survey in 16 states and union territories suggests has revealed that there has been a catastrophic slide in literacy among children from poor and marginalised sections. However, there seems to be no plan to help them. October is the month for new beginnings, not least for scores of children who have been unable to attend school in its physical form for the last year and a half. The pandemic...

-The Hindu With children out of school, rural Karnataka is reviving free libraries and creating new ones — with book racks, furniture, posters, work tables and computers I love libraries. I love everything about them — the hush, the slowly spinning blades of the ceiling fan, the sunlight spilling in from tall windows, the magazines lying open on polished wooden tables, the readers slumped over books, taking notes, the rows and endless...

-Scroll.in The In-Situ slum Rehabilitation model offered by planners is deeply flawed. Let us assume that the goal is uncontested – Delhi, in 2041, should be without the inadequate housing, absent services, and insecure tenure that define the “slum” or the “jhuggi jhopdi cluster”. Getting there is not easy. Delhi has over 757 jhuggi jhopdi clusters that house (officially) between 11%-15% of the city’s population in neighbourhoods not just materially vulnerable but lacking...