Burte, H. A. Bhide, L. Kamath & R. Kundu. 2022. The Quiet Violence of the Remaking of Mumbai. The India Forum. Accessible at: https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/quiet-violence-remaking-mumbai
Kamath, L. & G. Dubey. 2021. "To save Mumbai's toxic Thane Creek, experts should listen to the experiences of traditional fishers." Scroll, July 30. Accessible at: https://scroll.in/article/1001487/to-save-mumbais-toxic-thane-creek-experts-should-listen-to-the-experiences-of-traditional-fishers
Anand, N. and L. Kamath. 2021. Mumbai's climate adaptation plan must consider all citizens, especially the most vulnerable. The Indian Express. Accessible at: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mumbais-climate-adaptation-plan-must-consider-all-citizens-especially-the-most-vulnerable-7499760/
Kamath, L. Sanjana Krishnan, Purva Dewoolkar, Avinash Kaur Bons & Aradhana Paralikar. 2020. "What mapping Mumbai's Covid-19 relief work reveals about inequality in services and 'slow violence.'" Scroll, July 21. Accessible at: https://scroll.in/article/968088/what-mapping-mumbais-covid-19-relief-work-reveals-about-inequality-in-services-and-slow-violence
Kamath, Lalitha, and Radhika Raj. 2017. "Smuggler City to Smart City: Masculine City-Making on the Urban Periphery." Special Issue on Masculinities in Urban India, Cafe Dissensus, 35.
Newspaper and Popular Journal Articles
Vishnukant Govindwad and Geetanjoy Sahu (2023), How A Family Of 5 Got Legal Rights Over 144 Hectares Of Forest & Why That Matters For 250 Million Indians, 6th October, Article-14
Soma Sarkar and Geetanjoy Sahu (2022), How Shimla’s Water Crisis Flows Along Spatial and Economic Lines, 29th September, The Wire.
Geetanjoy Sahu (2022), The Case of Ramdas Janardan Koli, or How an Underdog Successfully Won an Environmental Case, 13th July, The Wire
Lekshmi M, Anup Kumar Samal and Geetanjoy Sahu (2021), 15 Years of FRA: What Trends in Forest Rights Claims and Recognition Tells Us, 22nd December, The Wire.
Geetanjoy Sahu (2021), Expedite climate action, focus on protected areas: What Bhupendra Yadav should map out, Down To Earth, 16th July
Geetanjoy Sahu (2021), Why States Should Emulate Maharashtra on Kendu Leaf Deregulation, The Wire, 8th July
Sara Costa and Geetanjoy Sahu (2020), The Ship Recycling Industry Must Move Towards a Sustainable Future, 3rd August, The Wire
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), Aarey Protest: The Life of A Forest, India Today Magazine, 21st October
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), Whither The National Green Tribunal, Down To Earth, 23rd September
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), Forest Rights Act: A Litmus Test For Government to Protect Forest Dwellers, Down To Earth, 25th July
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), 10 interventions government must make to protect forest rights, Down To Earth, 3rd June
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), 'Progressive' Maharashtra governor must step in to save tribal land, rights, Down To Earth, 29th April
Geetanjoy Sahu (2019), Wildlife and Forest Rights Groups Have Shared Interests. Why Don't They Work Together?, The Wire, 24th January
Paul Fernandes, Bikash Kumar Sahoo and Geetanjoy Sahu (2018), Has Farmers' March Impacted the Implementation of Forest Rights Act in Maharashtra? The Wire, 22nd October
Isha Naaz & Geetanjoy Sahu (2018), The Panchayats Meant to Protect Uttarakhand's Forests Are Under Threat, The Wire, 19th July
Geetanjoy Sahu (2018), Minor Forest Produce, Major Returns, Indian Express, 11th June
Geetanjoy Sahu & Asavari Raj Sharma (2018), India Has Recognised Forest Rights but Intervention Is Still Necessary, The Wire, 1st May.
Geetanjoy Sahu (2018), A Path Through The Forest, The Indian Express, 19th March
Geetanjoy Sahu (2018), Ecocide by Design? Under Modi, Vacancies At National Green Tribunal Reach 70%, The Wire, 17th February
Samriddhi and Geetanjoy Sahu (2018) Off the mark: National Crime Records Bureau data gives a misleading picture of environmental crime, Scroll.in, 2nd January.
July 20, 2022
Developing Kamathipura: Life Measured in Square Feet
https://www.outlookindia.com/national/developing-kamathipura-life-measured-in-square-feet-magazine-184848
September 10, 2017 Deccan Chronicle.
Flooding in cities suggests critical failures in our ability to anticipate and prevent disasters. We blame the civic bodies and sanitation staff for doing a shoddy job, but what about our own social responsibility and civic sense? We encroach every vacant space, water body, sewage line, and clog them with tonnes of plastic, construction rubble and other wastes. And then we cry ourselves a river over flooding!
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/discourse/100917/under-water-under-siege.html
International Development Planning Review 42.1 Featured ...
Liverpool University Press Blog
https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog › 2020/01/14 ›The editors of International Development Planning Review have selected ‘Everyday violence and bottom-up peace building initiatives by the urban poor in Mumbai’ by Amita Bhide as the Featured Article for International Development Planning Review 42.1.
18 Nov 2022, in e-sakal Marathi
Mumbai : शहरी गरीबांसाठी वन नेशन वन हेल्थ कार्ड गरजेचे - प्रा अमिता भिडे
https://www.esakal.com/mumbai/dr-amita-bhide-professor-tata-institute-social-science-one-nation-one-health-card-for-the-urban-poor-mumbai-rj01
December 03, 2022, Hindustan Times
In measles hotspots, hunger, an older malaise, is hastening fatalities
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/in-measles-hotspots-hunger-an-older-malaise-is-hastening-fatalities-101670007788835.html
Discussion of book event announcement at Sciences Po
Luca Pattaroni, Amita Bhide, Christine Lutringer. Presentation of the book « Politics of Urban Planning: The Making and Unmaking of the Mumbai Development Plan 2014–2034 »,
Amita Bhide, Professor at School of Habitat Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Amita Bhide has been engaged in teaching at the Institute for over twenty-eight years. A former faculty in the School of Social Work in the Department of Urban and Rural Community Development, she has been deeply involved in issues related to urban poor communities, community organization, housing rights movements and advocacy groups and has undertaken research projects linked to these subjects. She is the recipient of the Inaugural fellowship of the India China Institute on New School University, New York. Professor Bhide’s recent work at the School of Habitat Studies has been on urban governance reforms, housing informality, water- sanitation and land issues with a focus on small and medium towns in Maharashtra. Participatory, engendered local governance is a key area of her interest.
Under water, under siege Discourse Professor Amita Bhide 10 September 2017 12:56 AM (Update:23 April 2019 6:52 PM)
We encroach every vacant space, water body, sewage line, and clog them with tonnes of plastic, construction rubble and other wastes. The recent floods in Mumbai on August 29. (Photo: DC)
Flooding in cities suggests critical failures in our ability to anticipate and prevent disasters. We blame the civic bodies and sanitation staff for doing a shoddy job, but what about our own social responsibility and civic sense? We encroach every vacant space, water body, sewage line, and clog them with tonnes of plastic, construction rubble and other wastes. And then we cry ourselves a river over flooding! Also Read - Bust hate all time: Onus on moderators to take down content Advertisement At the time when India looks at its cities as growth engines for the economy, and as sites to give opportunities to the burgeoning demographic dividend, the cities themselves seem to be crumbling under the pressure of too large a population, too little infrastructure and the near absence of planning. The oft-repeated pattern of flooding in cities in recent years across terrains, distinct scales and geographies, suggests critical failures in our ability to anticipate, prepare for, and prevent, disasters. Heavy rainfall events in a tropical country like ours are part of a seasonal cycle and constitute a fair possibility of occurrence (once in 30 to 40 years), though there may be some unusual patterns in particular regions due to recent climatic changes. It is the ability of cities to handle such events that has reduced or come under question. Also Read - Bust hate all time: The struggle against hate, online and offline A combination of various forces, which includes the mindless exploitation of land, privatised growth of cities, a curtailed imagination and the practice of planning, and the inability to foster a strong public realm, have resulted in changing the intensely compact, mixed-use Indian city into a sprawling settlement where land, real estate and building are the only valued elements. Urban development is today equated with building and construction. Such expansion happens via private townships and layouts, but also because of the colonisation of the peripheries at the behest of various class interests. Also Read - Bonds know no bounds In this highly myopic pursuit, profits from land, lakes, nalas, rivers and mountains are all sought to be converted into something far more precious i.e. developable land. It is interesting to note that state agencies, corporate and private interests, and several classes are all complicit in altering the courses of rivers and natural drains, encroaching upon them and concretising every possible surface, thereby leaving no space for absorption of water. The reasons for flooding, thus, can be easily traced to the manner in which development takes place today. Also Read - Shifting sands in relations between parents and children The poor, who are marginalised from more valuable lands, are pushed into occupying more contentious, environmentally risky terrains — riverfronts, nalas, hill slopes and edges of lakes. While they are often seen as the subjects of environmental deterioration, it must be realised that they are the lowermost layer of a land exploitation regime and often the most vulnerable and with the least choices. This segmented nature of the urban Anthropocene in India needs to be recognised because, often, decisions meant to deal with sites of environmental risk turn out to be a double whammy for the poor — they are the worst victims of disasters like floods; they are also victims of governmental actions to prevent future floods. The occurrence of disasters such as floods is often attributed to a lack of planning. While there is certainly a lack of planning, it is necessary to pinpoint what aspect of planning is to be blamed. Recurrent flooding is after all only a symptom of an urban system that is powered by politics of stealth, of practices where classes seek to expand their private interests, and the commons be damned. In such a scenario, even planning becomes only a tool in the hands of the propertied and seeks to appropriate the benefits of speculation for a few while attempting to defer the costs to another domain, make them invisible or transfer them to a more vulnerable group. Successful planning requires planning for the common good. It requires the creation of institutions that gather scientific knowledge and apply that knowledge in an integrated manner to predict risk, prepare for the same, and institute adaptive or mitigative responses. Since several of our cities now have detailed disaster management plans, systems do kick in fairly quickly after disasters and there is a fair degree of knowledge of the risks and hazards in particular terrains, but the application of that knowledge involves costs and deferment of “development”. Is this a cost that we as a society are prepared to pay? Are we willing to understand the risks and carefully offset them with the costs concerned? Do we have sufficient faith in knowledge systems, in state institutions that legitimise or delegitimise particular kinds of knowledge? Does the state have sufficient faith in the citizens to bring knowledge in the public domain and generate a discourse around developmental pathways and the respective costs/benefits entailed? Are we prepared to make the urban poor and other disenfranchised groups part of this deliberation, and treat them as an integral part of cities and the opportunities they offer? What we thus require is a different imagination of planning and of our cities. Else let us enjoy our private benefits and await the next round of heavy rains to inundate the city.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle. ) About the Author Professor Amita Bhide The writer is a faculty teacher at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/discourse/100917/under-water-under-siege.html
Extract from Judgement on IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CONFIRMATION CASE NO. 2 OF 2014
Amita Bhide called in as part of a group of experts to evaluate the case
In view of the guiding principles in the case of Singh(supra) and Dagadu (Supra) this Court has accepted the affidavit filed by the advocate for the respondents in order to give an opportunity to the convicts to file their say. The interim application is
266 of 2019. The respondents have placed on record the affidavits of
the following expert witnesses:
(i) Dr. Ashis Nandy, Honorary Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.
(ii) Dr. Sanjay Srivastav, Professor Dept. of Sociology, University of Delhi, Institute of Economic Growth.
(iii) Dr. Amita Bhide, Dean, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
(iv) Dr. Sanjeev Jain, Professor, Dept. of Psychiratry, Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).
The above named experts after reading the judgment of the trial court, appreciating the evidence of the survivor as well as transcript of interviews with the respondents have analysed the lived experiences of the three respondents, the value system of the world, they have grown up in an in its consequent behaviourial and psychological impact. All these factors would determine their virtues and values in life. Hence, an opportunity was given by this court to place mitigating circumstances on record.
A virtual exhibition highlights how redevelopment plans in this neighbourhood must ensure that the future of marginalised communities is not jeopardised
August 2021
https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai-guide/things-to-do/article/kamathipura-2-0-23188153
Developing Kamathipura: Life Measured in Square Feet
July 20, 2022
How residents of a low-income Mumbai settlement ensured food for their migrant neighbours
19 May 2020
https://citizenmatters.in/pisavalis-community-kitchen-mumbai-18213
Dr. Praveen Kumar, CCSS
Recent Publications:
Published a research paper in an international peer reviewed journal on Socio-ecological Systems (SES) based vulnerability assessment
- Kumar, P., Fürst, C., and Joshi, P.K. (2024). Differentiated Socio-ecological Systems (SES) approach for vulnerability and adaptation assessment in the Central Himalaya. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 29, 7.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-023-10097-y
Reports:
Published a national report with iFOREST on forest fire and Tendu Patta collection
- Singh, M., Shah, P., and Kumar, P. (2023). Forest fires and tendu leaf collection in India : An evidence-based analysis, iFOREST Foundation, New Delhi, India.
Awards Received:
Received two international awards and fellowships
- Commonwealth Futures Climate Research Cohort Fellowship by The Association of Commonwealth Universities, London, United Kingdom (2023).
OMLAS Star fellowship under the OMLAS program of Next Leaders’ Initiative for Sustainability (NELIS), Tokyo, Japan (2023).
- The Amazon fire that lacks proportion (Sept, 2019), in The Hindu oped. (https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-amazon-fires-an-alarm-that-lacks-proportion/article29377123.ece)
- India's commitment on climate change: The Paris agreement and Post-agreement progress (Nov. 2021), in Director's Today (Special Issue on Climate Change) https://www.iodglobal.com/flipapp/admin/uploads/projectlogo/72ed1d9435e38c55874fad821f477ad0.pdf
** IE Article "A CRISIS, AN OPPORTUNITY"
A prescription-based system using mobile phones can curb pesticide-related deaths
Chandrashekhar Joglekar
** News Articles: Call for combining scientific and traditional methods to check high tide
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