Author: Vijaylakshmi
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Sustainability of Smart Cities
Vijaylakshmi Suman The popular imagination of monsoon is that of lush green surroundings and pleasant weather, but the monsoon scenario in Delhi is not always the same. Water-logging and floods are becoming an annual phenomenon. This year Delhi received 64.5-124.4 mm of rain, and according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was classified as ‘heavy…
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On the Aesthetics of Urban Nature
Vijaylakshmi Suman The vision of a world-class city comes with socially produced aesthetic criteria. It draws a distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, the visible and the invisible, the legal and the illegal as a process for the making of world-class urban improvements. According to such an aesthetic mode of governance, development projects in…
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Earth Day: Its Significance Amidst the Pandemic
Vijaylakshmi Suman The second wave of Covid-19 has crippled the world, and unfortunately, India has become one of the hotspots. It has been a year since the first wave of the pandemic hit the country but with the second wave, the situation seems grimmer and its effects devastating. All possible measures are being deployed in…
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Urban Wetland and its Importance
Vijaylakshmi Suman World Wetlands Day is celebrated every year on 2 February to raise global awareness about the importance of wetlands for the environment and the people. This day also marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetland in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian…
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Defining ‘Urban Greenspace’
Vijaylakshmi Suman One of the aspects which I am planning to analyze for my doctoral study is how urban greenspaces are defined and understood by not just the people living around it, but also by planners and researchers. As part of the research process, I have been looking at several studies to find common definitions…
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Management of Urban Commons through the Social-Ecological System Framework
Vijaylakshmi Suman In urban areas, the condition of different forms of nature and access to them is not unanimous. Some are found in a better condition, as they are more ecologically functional and thriving, whereas some others have been completely decimated. One of the human used resources, like lakes in the city, are embedded in…
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Locust In The City
Vijaylakshmi Suman The rise of the pandemic resulted in people being confined to their homes for months. Since then, a lot of news has emerged where people in the city had witnessed instances of ‘reclamation by nature’. For some, it was a sign of reclamation and recovery, while some quoted this as an absence of…
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Nature Through a Shifting Lens
Vijaylakshmi A few days back, during one of the conversations with my friends, we were reminiscing about some old travel memories and how effortless it was to have a small weekend getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city. We would generally plan a vacation out of the city as an opportunity to be…
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What’s in the Name?
Vijaylakshmi Suman How often do we as humans see the same thing in so many different ways. This difference in perceptions is generally labelled as subjectivity. My recent read of the book “Postmodern Wetlands: culture, history, ecology” by Rod Giblett (1996) provides a similar situation of how a wetland can be associated with diverse imagination…
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Flying High to Flying Feral
Vijaylakshmi It has been almost a month in lockdown, and while most of my time goes in procrastination, I also spend some time early mornings and evenings in a small balcony adjacent to my room. Having an interest in bird watching (ornithology), like a typical bird watcher, I keep an eye for new or not…