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By:

Minal Sancheti

2 May 2026 at 12:26:53 pm

Lost in Transport

Mumbai’s grand transport infrastructure is undermined by potholes, Poor discipline and a last-mile gaps that keeps it crawling Mumbai: It is morning time, and Pawan Khandelwal is all set to leave for work. A creative lead at an ad agency in Malad, Mumbai, Khandelwal should take 12 to 15 minutes to reach the office, but that rarely happens because of the traffic, poor road quality and lack of civic sense among co-drivers on the road. He mostly ends up reaching the office in 30 to 40 minutes....

Lost in Transport

Mumbai’s grand transport infrastructure is undermined by potholes, Poor discipline and a last-mile gaps that keeps it crawling Mumbai: It is morning time, and Pawan Khandelwal is all set to leave for work. A creative lead at an ad agency in Malad, Mumbai, Khandelwal should take 12 to 15 minutes to reach the office, but that rarely happens because of the traffic, poor road quality and lack of civic sense among co-drivers on the road. He mostly ends up reaching the office in 30 to 40 minutes. Khandelwal firmly believes that road construction is not a major issue for traffic. “The road under construction is not a big issue because they usually don’t take very long to repair the roads. But even after their work is done, it is not done perfectly. At times when they are digging up the road for other purposes, they often leave a bump or a pothole,” he said. He gives an example, “One can see it on the western express highway. There are so many bumps. We call it a highway, but we can’t even drive at 15 km/h because it is not fixed properly.” He also blames people for not following traffic rules, which adds to the problem. Traffic Woes Although there are coastal roads and metros available, the traffic still seems to be a problem for many residents. A media professional and a daily commuter, Charlene Flanagan has been travelling in Mumbai for many years now. There is not much difference in her experience of the traffic congestion. From her experience, she believes the coastal roads and metros have not completely accomplished the mission of curbing traffic congestion. She says, “As a resident of Mumbai and as a person with a valid driver’s licence, I would say the traf f ic hasn’t really changed. It is still as congested, and whether the coastal roads have helped depends on the time of the day you leave and whether you are going against the traffic or along with the traffic.” The pedestrians also face problems. Saloni Mehta, a theatre artiste, says, “I prefer walking to my destinations. For example, I live in Versova, and if I want to see a play in the Prithvi Theatre, I will take a half-hour walk. However, this one time, I could not reach the venue, not just because of the traffic but also because there were no pavements left to walk on. The roads are dug up, and every road is just half a road.” Mumbai’s average speed covered is 5.2 km per 15 minutes. During the peak traffic hours in the morning, when most people travel to their workplace, the average speed is 18.5 km/h. It is important to understand the issue and address it with a solution. Sudhir Badami, an author of the book ‘Matter of Equitability - Making Commuting in Mumbai Enviable’, explains why people still prefer to use cars over metros, “The metro line 3 has definitely taken away some car users. But it has not taken away sufficient numbers of car users to make a difference in the state of road congestion. The reason behind this is essentially the last-mile connectivity in areas where the Aqua Line or Line 7 operates, especially in suburban areas. In the city area, it is supported by good BEST services on the one hand, and taxis being available near the metro stations on the other hand. But most car users still opt for using their cars, as public transport currently does provide assured exclusivity, comfort and good frequency, not forgetting last mile connectivity. The Coastal Road sees very few cars compared to the number of cars on Mumbai’s Roads. Badami, as a transportation analyst, says, “Mumbai has approximately 16 Lakhs motor cars, out of which only about 55,000 seem to be using coastal roads. It is such a minuscule proportion for whom so much has been spent. This is largely because in the city, people don’t go from one end of the city to the other end. They normally start from in between and go somewhere in between. If there is not much time saving for the shorter stretches, then people are not likely to take it, and there will be continued congestion on city roads.” “In general, the necessity of the last-mile connectivity is an important part, but the greater part will be how to get car users onto the public transport,” says Badami. Public transport must provide near exclusivity, comfort and safety to a car-using commuter for migration to take place. This is where the importance of last-mile connectivity is felt. Air Pollution The slow-moving traffic also adds to the air pollution in the city several times more than when they are moving at optimum speeds, he says. Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Mumbai, Anil Kumbhare, denies that there is much traffic congestion in Mumbai as compared to five years back. He credits the coastal roads for curbing the traffic. He says, “Earlier, there used to be bumper-to bumper traffic near Haji Ali. That has come down drastically. As coastal roads shape, the traffic will go down.” He also adds that there is traffic congestion in the morning hours as people are travelling for work. But there is no traffic jam. Although coastal roads have helped, there are still pockets of the city that face traffic congestion every day. This can be solved with careful planning and execution.

Coffee Diplomacy

Venezuela’s embattled strongman resurfaces amid rising American pressure as an old oil war returns in new form.

After several days of unexplained absence that had fuelled fevered speculation in Caracas and beyond, President Nicolás Maduro chose an unlikely venue to reappear: a specialty-coffee awards ceremony in eastern Caracas. Slipping back into public view by pinning medals on farmers and sipping espresso before cameras, he spoke not of warships or sanctions but of resilience, declaring Venezuela “indestructible, untouchable, unbeatable.” It was an effort at reassurance, both to his supporters and to wavering elites. Yet the symbolism was impossible to miss. Maduro surfaced just as pressure from the United States was intensifying sharply and moments after Donald Trump confirmed that the two leaders had spoken by phone.


The call, Trump said with studied ambiguity, went “neither well nor badly.” In the past few weeks, Washington has moved more than a dozen warships into the Caribbean, deployed roughly 15,000 troops across the region and expanded maritime strikes on vessels it claims are linked to drug trafficking. Caracas insists the campaign is merely the latest pretext for regime change.


At one level, this confrontation is being framed as law enforcement versus criminal enterprise. At a deeper level, it is a familiar struggle over sovereignty, influence and oil. Venezuela possesses some of the world’s largest proven petroleum reserves. For more than a century, its hydrocarbons have shaped its domestic politics and its relationship with the United States. Oil allowed the country to build one of Latin America’s most durable twentieth-century democracies and later funded Hugo Chávez’s break with it. When Chávez recast the state as a revolutionary petro-power in the early 2000s, he also recast Washington as his principal antagonist.


Maduro inherited not only that ideological conflict but also the fragile economic model beneath it. When global oil prices collapsed after 2014 and American sanctions tightened, the Bolivarian system began to fail catastrophically. Hyperinflation wiped out savings. Power cuts became routine. Public services imploded. More than seven million Venezuelans fled abroad in the largest migration in modern Latin American history. Sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the international recognition of an alternative presidency under Juan Guaidó were meant to force a transition. Instead, they entrenched a hardened security state.


For years Washington relied on economic strangulation and diplomatic pressure to dislodge Maduro. Neither worked. Today the strategy appears to be shifting from financial suffocation toward military intimidation.


Maduro, for his part, has chosen to internationalise the conflict. In a letter to the secretary general of OPEC, he accused the United States of seeking to seize Venezuelan oil reserves by force and of endangering global energy stability. The precedent is not flattering to Washington. From Iran in 1953 to Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, energy security has repeatedly fused with interventionism.


Yet to portray Venezuela merely as a victim of imperial appetite is to ignore how thoroughly its own institutions have been hollowed out. Elections have been manipulated, opposition figures jailed or exiled, courts subordinated and the military bound ever tighter to the ruling party’s survival.


What makes the present moment especially combustible is the weakening of the external buffers that once protected Caracas. Russia, long a diplomatic shield and military supplier, is consumed by its war in Ukraine. China has quietly retreated from large-scale lending to Venezuela after years of unpaid debts and failed projects. Iran remains a tactical partner but lacks the capacity to absorb Venezuela’s economic collapse. Even Latin America, once ideologically divided over Chávez and his heirs, now responds with fatigue rather than solidarity.


That leaves Maduro dangerously exposed. His reappearance at a coffee ceremony was meant to project calm continuity and personal control. Instead, it underscored how narrow his room for manoeuvre has become. Washington hints at escalation without committing itself. Caracas shouts sovereignty while acknowledging civilian deaths.


Venezuela’s tragedy is that its fate is once more being shaped by forces far larger than its shattered economy and exhausted society. Oil, ideology and American power are converging again, just as they have at so many ruinous crossroads in the past. 


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