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The Right to the City: Eviction, Livelihood, and the Dal Mandi Case
Eviction, Livelihood, and the Right to the City Cities are not built only with concrete, roads, and buildings. They are also built through the everyday activities of the people who live and work in them. Street vendors are an important part of this urban life. They provide affordable food, goods, and services while creating livelihoods…
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Streets Keep Our Cities Alive: Policies Must Protect Street Vendors
Source: GenAI Ankit Kumar Pathak is a Management student at Chandigarh University, Punjab, India, and the Founder of TheOne Wealth. Every Indian city has a familiar street economy. Vegetable sellers begin work before sunrise, tea vendors serve commuters, fruit sellers operate near markets, and small food stalls serve workers and students every day. These businesses…
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The Street Vendor Paradox: Between Policy Frameworks, Urban Planning, and Ground Realities
Image source: GenAI Anshika Upadhyay is a Student and Researcher pursuing an MBA with specialisations in Financial Reporting & Analysis and Marketing Management at Chandigarh University, Punjab, India. Walk down any major street in an Indian metropolis, and you do not judge its energy by glass towers or landscaped public parks. You feel it through…
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One Big Commission, One Old Question: Will Our Teachers Finally Get a Fair Deal?
Ayush Kumar Upadhyay, Aug 12, 2026 If you ask any young teacher in India about how they got their job, you will hear three letters in the middle of the story: TET. The Teacher Eligibility Test determines whether a person is eligible to enter the classroom. It seems like a no-brainer: pass an exam, demonstrate…
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Beyond the Vision Statement: Revisiting India’s National Urban Transport Policy
Every morning, millions of Indians lose hours they’ll never get back stuck in traffic on roads that were never built with people in mind. In 2006, India’s National Urban Transport Policy diagnosed exactly why, and proposed a genuinely radical fix: reallocate road space from vehicles to people, fund cities through the land they sit on,…
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Why India’s Urban Local Bodies Need a New Fiscal Compact?
India is undergoing unprecedented urbanisation at a very fast pace. Over one-third of the country’s population now resides in urban areas, and urban centers account for more than 60 per cent of India’s GDP. The institutions responsible for managing this urban transition, the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), however, remain financially dependent, have limited revenue sources,…