It has been 8 years. Nirbhaya was beaten, gang-raped and assaulted in a running private bus she was travelling in. A 26-year-old veterinary doctor, near Hyderabad, was gang-raped and smothered.  Then, they allegedly loaded her benumbed body onto a lorry and dropped it on the roadside. In UP, a truck collision resulted serious injury of the Unnao rape survivor and death of her relatives. The same survivor set on fire in the morning. A woman was on her way to a local court for a hearing on her rape case. Suzette Jordan, a prominent women's-rights activist and anti-rape campaigner from Kolkata, was offered to drop at home. She was gang-raped in a moving car and dumped on the street. 

A  conversational piece between Parisar and Blue Sky Analytics, the creators of the Breezo Application recently launched in Pune.

Breezo was launched in Pune in October 2020 as an interactive data platform on air quality. Prior to the launch, Blue Sky Analytics approached Parisar for collaboration in two aspects - inputs on the platform itself and support the launch of the application. This blog has been conceptualised as a conversation between the two parties, which throws light on each party's interest, intention and expectationof this collaboration, all in the interest of cleaner air in Pune. 

With around 600 kms of Metro line projects under construction in 12 cities and over 500 km projects under consideration, it is of utmost significance and urgency to point out the highly unsustainable ways in which the so-called sustainable Metro projects are being implemented. Why should metro rail be established at the cost of other modes, especially the non-motorized modes of cycling and walking, and then profess the idea of multi-modal integration? Why are cities continually investing and compromising towards one grand idea as the sole solution to traffic problem rather than small constructive ideas weaved together? And can any futuristic planning be so bereft of and violent to a city’s past and present?

In the last one month, three major roads of Pune- Karve Road, Old Canal Road and Law College Road - underwent a significant change. A change considered both ‘planned’ and ‘necessary’. A change brought about at full tilt and yet reported surreptitiously. A change radical in its consequences but normalized and objectified in its implementation.

Cities grow as a collage of numerous layers of history mingled over a period of time. Cities are constructive entities with social, political, economic and cultural values. Every layer that gets overlaid on the city has an impact on its each and every aspect. Most of Indian cities that developed during the colonial era flourished around a core city or old city, a British established estate called Civil Lines, and the cantonment areas. Wherever the British established