PI Ayona Datta argues that our access to urban history is now determined by algorithms programmed to recognise the past as a repository of maps and images on the web. This has transformed the way that the urban poor ‘see’ the city, see themselves in the city and thus imagine possible futures for themselves.
Read MoreRead post by PI Ayona Datta which traces the planning applications for houses built by working classes since the late 19th century. These house biographies remind us that Shimla’s current tourist spectacle above is made possible because of the continued house building by the poor and working classes since the dawn of the Empire.
Read MoreResearch Assistant, Varun Patil continues his commentary with a part 2 on searching for the ‘Smart city’ in Jalandhar. In this post, he explores the ongoing work of the smart city interventions which aim to reduce congestion and improve traffic.
Read MoreResearch Assistant, Shilpa Dahake, introduces Nashik and the ongoing Smart City Project in detail. Specifically, she elaborates on the effects brought about by the Smart Road Project, as well as the sentiments shared by the locals of the area through her interactions with them during her fieldwork.
Read MoreIn this blog post, Post-doctoral Research Associate, Srilata, shares about her archival adventures in Jalandhar. She talks about how we must embrace the rich lived experiences and politics of place as well as trace continuities between the past, present and future in order to justly write about the city with integrity rather than, in her words, “through a vacuous notion of ‘smartness’ “.
Read MoreIn this piece, Research Assistant, Varun Patil, delves into the beauty of the 63-Acre Burlton Park and introduces the proposed plans for the erection of a Smart Sports Hub. This post celebrates the compendious array of the activities and time spent at Burlton Park by the locals of Jalandhar and touches on the sentiments of supporters and critics on building the said Sports Hub.
Read MoreIn this piece, Research Assistant, Mahima Taneja delves into the hustle and bustle of Shimla, the Smart city project, as well as her personal musings and fieldwork experience in this smart small city.
Read MoreProfessor Sanjay Srivastava, project India Principal Investigator and Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, introduces his previous work related to our project research themes as part of his British Academy Visiting Fellowship 2018 project entitled ‘Satellite Mapping, Big Data and the Politics of Space at the Margins of the Indian City’.
Read More
