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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.

Regime Reckoning

Netanyahu’s airstrikes on Iran aim not just to degrade its nuclear capacity, but to unseat its rulers.

For decades, Israel has warned of the allegedly existential menace posed by Iran’s theocratic regime following the latter’s race to turn nuclear and its sponsorship of terror against the Jewish state cloaked in revolutionary zeal. Last week, after years of shadow wars and covert skirmishes, Benjamin Netanyahu took the fight to the heart of Iran’s military elite. The Israeli prime minister, often derided for his hawkish instincts, launched Operation Rising Lion in what may become his most consequential gambit yet: to shake the foundations of the Islamic Republic.


The missile strikes, which were aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities, were surgical and devastating besides killing several of Iran’s military and scientific elite. Expectedly, Tehran retaliated by lobbing missiles against Israeli cities.


But Netanyahu’s ambitions go further. His language, unusually directed at the Iranian people themselves, suggests a long-term goal in encouraging a popular uprising to bring down Iran’s repressive Islamic regime of the Ayatollahs that has dominated the country since 1979.


The strategy is risky. For years, Western efforts to engage Iran diplomatically have yielded diminishing returns. The clerical regime has advanced its nuclear enrichment, expanded its proxy networks across the Arab world and brutally repressed dissent at home. Netanyahu’s view, long unpopular in European capitals but quietly acknowledged in others, is that Iran’s regime is a destabilising force whose survival is antithetical to regional peace.


The patience with Iran ran out on the morning of October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas militants (aided and abetted by Iran) broke through Israeli border fences and launched the bloodiest assault in the country’s history, they were not merely testing the resilience of the Israeli state. Since then, Netanyahu has unleashed a military doctrine with few recent parallels in Israeli history.


Rather than contain or manage the problem, Israel is now systematically dismantling Iran’s axis of resistance by pounding Gaza, finishing off the Hamas’ leadership, decimating Iran’s biggest proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now striking at the very ‘head of the snake.’


The latest strikes inside Iran are the culmination of a campaign whose tempo has only increased with time. While many view these events as escalation, the Israeli strategy is far from impulsive. It is built on a history of targeted deterrence stretching back to the 1960s, when Israeli agents tracked down and killed figures responsible for anti-Israel attacks in Europe and beyond.


During the early 2000s, Israel responded to the Second Intifada with a policy of ‘mowing the lawn’ - a metaphor for periodic, tactical military operations meant to degrade but not destroy adversaries like Hamas and Hezbollah.


The October 7 attack changed that calculus. Netanyahu’s government concluded that limited deterrence was no longer viable. Hamas’s incursion was too brutal, too expansive and too deliberate to be seen as anything but a broader Iranian proxy operation. Israel responded by striking not just at the foot soldiers of these ‘resistance’ movements, but reaching upward into their strategic and political leadership - whether in Gaza, Beirut, Damascus or now, Tehran.


The results have been stark. In Gaza, Hamas’s tunnel networks have been systematically collapsed and its command echelons severely weakened. In Lebanon, Israel has launched targeted strikes against Hezbollah commanders, munitions convoys, and military infrastructure. It has repeatedly pushed Hezbollah forces further north of the Litani River, disrupting Tehran’s most capable militia in the Levant.


Syria has been another front in this undeclared war. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on IRGC facilities and Iranian intelligence posts to erode Iran’s ability to project force westward.


What distinguishes the current campaign is the willingness to escalate openly. Unlike previous Israeli governments, Netanyahu has decided to make Iran pay for its regional misadventures. The strikes on Iran represent not just a bold military gamble, but a strategic vision that seeks to redraw the regional order by dismantling its most dangerous pillar. Regardless of how comprehensively he succeeds, Netanyahu’s actions will undoubtedly shape the Middle East for years to come.

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