Health

Mumbai’s health officials are working on a war footing to ensure containment of the virus by creating containment zones and sanitising entire localities besides extensive screening. But they face a humongous task.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Smiling School Project will train principals and teachers to identify students facing mental or emotional distress. These students will then receive free counselling. But will it be enough, given the nature and magnitude of the problem?

For decades, waste has been Mumbai’s teeming, unsolvable problem. Slums around the city’s dumping ground are now Asia’s largest, exposing ragpickers and the general population to serious health risks. All plans and commitments to waste management, meanwhile, appear figurative.