Designing a criteria to count the poor in India for BPL cards
by Shagun Singh
India’s poverty line is sometimes called the ‘starvation line’ since this income based poverty line considers the bare minimum income to provide food and does not account for education and healthcare. An income of less than a dollar per person per day is defined as extreme poverty internationally. By that estimate, 40% of the Indians [...]
Panel discussion on Parallel Urbanism
by Shagun Singh
Panel discussion topic – Parallel Urbanism : local people editing local spaces Panelists – Lina Srivastava, Jyoti Hosagrahar, John Gerarci Date – Feb 28th at Wix Lounge NYC The panel on Parallel Urbanism : local people regulating local spaces addressed the topic of involvement of community in the decision making processes pertaining to their environments. [...]
An insight into the Sabarmati riverfront development project
by Shagun Singh
Designwala recently organized a panel about local people regulating local spaces. The panel was timely given the political unrest in the Middle East and Africa with people standing up to reclaim their rights. The video for the panel will be posted shortly. Our three panelists Jyoti Hosagrahar, Lina Srivastava and John Geraci come from different [...]
Panel Discussion : Parallel Urbanism : local people regulating local spaces
by Shagun Singh
Join us on Feb 28th for a panel presentation and discussion on “Parallel Urbanism – local people regulating local spaces”. http://parallelurbanism.eventbrite.com THE PANEL Major decisions that affect design and planning of cities are made by urban planners, politicians, policy makers, real estate owners and the government. The local people who inhabit the city usually don’t [...]
Movirtu’s phone sharing product for BOP users
by Shagun Singh
The past decade has seen a lot of work being done in the arena of development of mobile applications in the developing nations. A lot of them include mobile banking, inventories for agricultural products, education, healthcare etc. There has been extensive mobile phone penetration in places like India, parts of Africa, China, and a lot [...]
PROTOVILLAGE – Adequate Village Cluster
by Ria Rajan
A Prototype, by definition, is a typical example of something. That is exactly what PROTOVILLAGE aims to be. An initiative of InteGreater and brainchild of Kalyan Akkipeddi, who, in a trend that is fast becoming popular with those who are opting to BE the change they want, quit his corporate job and went travelling across [...]
The city and the internet
by Shagun Singh
For some of us who grew up back home in India, we understand the perils of living in an unplanned city. Dodgy transportation system, consistent power cuts, inefficient waste disposal and sewage systems, gridlocked roads and a broken, corrupt bureaucratic government. People develop ways around problems. They adjust. The idea is to work the system [...]
“A Grand Idea – Inhabit” Competition Brief
by Shagun Singh
What is this competition about? This competition is focused on design solutions that can change our immediate urban environment into places that we can truly inhabit. The first series of ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’ is called ‘INHABIT‘. The ultimate challenge of which is to create solutions that introduce fun, sustainable, and innovative ways people use [...]
The Better India – Positive news. Happy Stories. Unsung Heroes.
by Ria Rajan
Tired of the sensationalized reports and negative journalism of Indian newspapers and magazines, Bangalore based husband and wife duo – Anuradha and Dhimant Parekh decided to set up a platform that focuses only on happy stories. Thus The Better India was born. It was an honest attempt to celebrate and bring together those unsung heroes [...]
India: Design like you give a damn
by Shagun Singh
FrontlineWorld had an article about building sustainable communities in India post Tsunami. An Architecture for Humanity initiative led by Cameron Sinclair and an Indian Architect trained in America, Purnima McCutcheon were responsible for helping out this village in Tamil Nadu to rebuild their community which was in pieces after the Tsunami hit the village a [...]
