Category Center for Habitat, Urban and Regional Studies

Odisha Train Crash: Demanding Better Maintenance for New Trains

It is a terrible tragedy that more than 280 people have died and 900-odd injured in twin rail accidents in Odisha’s Balasore district. The Chennai-bound Coromandel Express ran headlong into a stationary goods train at Bahanaga station, Balasore, tearing away and throwing bogeys on to the parallel track, directly in the path of the oncoming Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, creating a second collision. This happened at 7 pm on June 2. Rescue work started fairly soon – that is the only good part of the story.

Doubling of Income, Really?

INDIA’S per capita income, representing the average income of an Indian citizen, has risen from INR 79,000 in 2013–14 to INR 1,71,000 in 2022–23 — an increase of 116 percent. Therefore, some claim that incomes have more than doubled in India since the present ruling dispensation took office. The catch is that: a) this includes the price increase during the period and hence does not represent the real increase in incomes, and b) the data for 2022–23 and two earlier years is provisional and subject to revision.

budget 23 urban development

Union Budget 2023-24 and Urban Infrastructure and Development Financing: Promising Yet Concerning

Indian cities with their contribution of around two-thirds of the GDP are expected to play an instrumental role as the country’s ‘engines of economic growth'. The union budget 2023-24 has tried give a push to cities by way of capital expenditure.

Water Distress and Indian Cities

Splintering urbanism is a reality that has roots in the neo-liberal paradigm of urbanisation, which started nearly three decades back in India. Cities have suffered from the fragmentation of access, control, and pricing of network infrastructure, including water supply. The fragmentation is due to political-economic processes-neoliberalism-that have changed the ways cities are governed and services provided. 

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