Delhi's new Master Plan 2047 recognises informal housing and livelihoods more than any plan before it. But Mathew Idiculla and Shoubhik Chatterjee argue that it offers the least to the poorest residents, and that recognition on paper must be matched by enforceable commitments.
30 October 2026
Environmental Hazards · Girls' Education
Aarti Kelkar Khambete reports on a new study from Sonitpur district, finding that recurring floods leave lasting marks on adolescent girls, from lost schooling and healthcare to menstrual hygiene gaps that current disaster response rarely addresses.
10 October 2026
Law and Order · Government
A new nationwide survey finds that cybercrime now touches a growing share of Indian households, yet most victims never report it, and those who do often face a difficult process with little chance of recovering their money.
6 October 2026
Economy · Government
India became the world's second-largest steel producer while posting profits well above the rest of Indian manufacturing. A new CSEP study by Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva tests how much of that is earned, and how much rests on cheap iron ore and tariff walls that could just as easily come down.
2 October 2026
Water · Urban Environment
Groundwater levels collapse across Karnataka's hard-rock terrain; decades of drilling ever-deeper borewells have meant losing sight of the shallow aquifers and local knowledge that sustained this landscape. Small towns may be best placed to change course.
29 September 2026
Health · Public Health
India has at least four official counts of heat-related deaths, and they routinely disagree by a factor of two or more. Rakesh Dubbudu traces why the numbers diverge so sharply, and what it costs the families and districts caught in the gap.
23 September 2026
Environment · Climate
Nearly 200 ecologists have signed an open call to action, warning that the El Niño developing over 2026-27 could be the strongest in over a thousand years, and asking researchers, funders and government agencies to strengthen monitoring before its effects peak.
20 September 2026
Public Funds · Poverty
Development economist Reetika Khera has spent two decades studying India's welfare programmes from the ground up. Ashwin Mahesh spoke to her about her new book, and why the language of "freebies" obscures what public spending on food, health, education and work actually does for people's lives.
17 September 2026
Education · Education Law and Policy
A new state education policy proposes replacing scattered, under-resourced government schools with roughly 2,190 large, well-equipped campuses spread across every mandal in Telangana, pre-primary through class 12, free, and meant to be good enough that parents choose them over private schools.
13 September 2026
Cities · Urban Environment
A new framework from Assam's town planners argues that city masterplans never quite reach the street. In a crowded square kilometre of central Guwahati, Ward 29 is where that argument is being tested, starting with a monsoon-flooded footpath.
8 September 2026
Transport · Cities
Indian cities have long tracked how fast traffic moves. Pawan Mulukutla argues, drawing on the new Transport Analytics Hub, that the more useful question is whether people can actually get where they need to go.
5 September 2026
Environment · Forests
The reserve needs neither an unquestioned one-kilometer ring nor an undifferentiated ten-kilometer circle. It needs an ESZ that varies in width and follows ecological processes, writes Divya Soman.
28 August 2026
Transport · Cities
Andhra Pradesh has written India's first serious pedestrian policy. What it is missing is the machinery that makes a promise survive a transfer order. Ruchita Bansal writes about the new green shoots of walkability in India.
24 August 2026
