An organization in Chennai is on a tree-planting spree and they have completed planting 3.5 lakh trees in Chennai alone. This is not the typical tree-planting drive with volunteers. This is raising small forests in a systematic way. The objective is greening degraded, barren and empty lands...
Statistics show that the number of areas that get flooded in Chennai during rains has increased several times over the years. This shows that the problem is only mounting. Can floods be prevented? Are there solutions? Water expert and retired professor at Madras Institute of Development...
Come rain or shine, they are out there cleaning the dirt of Chennai city. While the city sleeps, they work along the roads and drains of Chennai picking up rags and dirt. The next morning the city roads are tidy as usual. During the recent rains, a conservancy woman worker was seen cleaning the...
The Swachh Bharat Urban Mission for clean cities may be a successful Jan Andolan (people’s revolution) to the Central government, but in almost all the 4,320 cities surveyed, it remains stunted and incomplete. Mahatma Gandhi, the original swachh hero who deplored the low sensitivity among many...
During the freedom struggle against the British, there was a deep sense of oneness among the people. Creation of administratively autonomous states based on language after Independence has become a structural hurdle against national pride. It has led to miscommunication among the people driven...
Tamil Nadu's famous poet Kannadasan in a song of everlasting beauty for the Tamil film Paadhakaanikkai (பாதகாணிக்கை), sung by TM Soundararajan, tuned by Viswanathan Ramamurthy runs thus: வீடு வரை உறவு வீதி வரை மனைவி காடு வரை பிள்ளை கடைசி வரை யாரோ? veedu varai uravu veedhi varai manaivi kAdu...
Normal life is returning to Chennai. There is likelihood that it would be disrupted again if rain pours. Fear is still there among the people. It will be there until the end of December. I have been living in this growing city for nearly 35 years. Without any letup, the damage from rains and...
Following the massive floods of 1976, the first vice-chancellor of Anna University and former chief engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD), P Sivalingam, submitted a report to the government on how to stop flooding of the city. The report has never been made public even 45 years after...
The people of Chennai bore heavy losses in the 2015 Chennai floods. Loss of life, property and livelihood was common. Among the precious belongings lost were collector’s items. One such loss was Rengiah Murugan’s collection that included publications giving details of non-brahmin mutts in Tamil...
A group of volunteers have revived waterbodies in Coimbatore city by retracing an Chola irrigation system plan that fed the waterbodies. With the Western Ghats at its backdrop and blessed with a salubrious climate round the year, Coimbatore is one of the best places to live in Tamil Nadu. The...
