Settlements and Transport

Human settlements with sustainability, equity, and fulfillment. Sustainable, equitable means including non-motorised and public transport

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This features both rural and urban areas, and the search to make human settlements sustainable, equitable, and fulfilling places to live and work in. This includes: sustainable architecture, localized generation of basic infrastructural, water and energy needs, urban biodiversity conservation, waste/garbage minimisation and recycling, efficiency and frugality in the use of these basics, the defense and revival of common and open spaces, participatory budgeting and planning of settlements.

We would also like to include stories of sustainable, equitable means of transport that can be accessed by all and that do not create ecological and social problems as is the case with a focus on privatized motorized transport. Stories on the promotion of public transport, cycling, walking, human/animal powered and other forms of ecologically sustainable and equitable transportation, planning for equitable access, reclaiming the roads and parking lots for public use, and so on, are featured.

Expensive, elitist models that may be ecologically sustainable but are not relevant for most people, are likely to be avoided here.

Crisis in India’s bread basket

How agriculture, capital and corporate investment have reshaped Indian Punjab, and brought about its current precarity

The Bicycle: Selected Writings on Bicycle

Essays offering a perspective on bicycle movements and the politics involved in it.

TRANSITION TOWN MOVEMENT

It is an initiative or model that refers to grassroots community projects. The aim is to create the means for sustainable self-sufficiency at the local level to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.

Ruza, a traditional water harvesting system for the water-scarce mountains

It is a communal practice with the water shared among families and an integrated form of farming comprising forestry, horticulture, agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry.

Can quick-fix solutions address India’s growing water woes?

Resistance to such destructive projects by helping the communities and their organisations fight them and developing alternatives through research and capacity building should be seen as part of our interventions or engagement in the urban space.

For a better Bengaluru: Various solutions discussed at citizens’ meet-up

Through the exchange of concerns, brainstorming solutions, and emphasising citizen-authority cooperation, the event demonstrated how hypothetical ideas can become a reality.

भारत का वैकल्पिक भविष्य: कुछ झलक (In Hindi)

यह दो लेख ‘ऑल्टेर्नेटिव फ्युचर्स: इन्डिया अन्शैकल्ड’ किताब जो २०१७ में छपी थी, से लिये व अनुवादित किये गये हैं।

Emancipation through Education: Movement for Scavenger Community

Eradication of caste violence and discriminatory attitude towards the scavenger community by facilitating leadership education.

Why this Maharashtra village is fighting for the long forgotten Gramdan Act?

Dec 2022, Mendha (Lekha), a village deep inside the forest area of Gadchiroli, moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC for implementing Gramdan, a historic act born out of a movement by Vinoba Bhave