Tag Archives: water bodies

Debates, Development, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life

Heat in the Indian Cities – A Reality More Complex than Tree Cover: Soumya Dutta 

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Guest Post by SOUMYA DUTTA

Delhi, my current ‘home town’ for over 30 years, increasingly looks like a City that is learning to sweat, as  it slowly descends into a  Humid Heat environment, from a largely dry and hot summer.
Delhi Green cover Heatwave Days and Humidity
For a tad over three decades, I have lived through Delhi’s summers. I distinctly remember a time when heat here had a certain clarity – harsh, yes, but mostly dry. Except the occasional breaks by a storm or ‘aandhi’,  which brought the temperatures down, but left it mostly dry.  The afternoons scorched, the loo winds burned your skin, and yet early mornings and  evenings offered a measurable  respite from the high temperatures. Sweat quickly evaporated in the dry air, allowing our bodies to naturally cool down by the loss of heat of evaporation. Nights cooled, at least enough to sleep – because the dry rocky surface quickly re-radiated heat back to space. And that heat had a much clearer escape route, as the atmospheric  air had much lower moisture, a powerful heat trapping green house gas .

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Excavation, Government, Law, Scams

Survey Report on Losses Sustained during Chennai Floods: Concerned Citizens and Activist Groups

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Guest Post on Chennai floods by CONCERNED CITIZENS AND ACTIVIST GROUPS  

[Earlier today we had published a post on the Chennai floods. The following is a report of a Survey on losses sustained during the floods, conducted by Arunodhaya: Centre for Street and Working Children; Bhavani Raman; Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG); Karen Coelho, Kavin Malar; Krishnaveni; Madhumita Dutta; Vettiver Collective; Prem Revathi; Priti Narayan; Students of Madras Christian College; TN Labour blog; and V. Geetha]

Sample Survey of Losses Sustained During Chennai Floods

With special reference to losses and damages of possessions, loss of workdays and damage to homes

January 2016

Executive summary

A group of concerned citizens involved in relief work post-Chennai floods, 20015 undertook a sample survey of 610 households (including migrants) across the city to assess losses suffered/damages incurred to homes, goods, occupational tools and also to get an idea of loss of working days. The purpose of this survey was to identify the exact quantum of losses sustained by the population and to direct government to compensate the populace for damages/loss accruing on account of the floods.

  • Places surveyed: Eekaduthangal, Jaffarkhanpet, Saidpet, Kotturpuram (Adyar flood plains), Mudichur (badly affected suburb), Semmencheri, Perumbakkam (resettlement/new housing tenements for low-income groups), Kodungaiyur, Ponneri (outlying suburbs with poor infrastructural developments.
  • More than 95% of people surveyed had not received warnings about impending flooding.
  • Inhabitants of over 85% of households surveyed have lost 25-40 working days and concomitant wages, ranging from Rs 250-500/per day.
  • Almost all households had lost or were left with irretrievably damaged certificates, household articles, including fridge, washing machine, grinder, mixers, lights, fans, stoves, tools of trade, children’s books, cycles and in some cases bikes and scooters.
  • Total losses sustained by households range from Rs 75,000 (including wages lost and cost of damage to homes) to Rs 50,000.

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