A Simple Solution to Delhi's Parking Woes

"People unnecessarily complain that there's shortage of parking space in Delhi.. Everyone has a tree in front of their house. If they could get rid of it, there's more than enough space for all the cars.."

The driver who said this was serious. I found it funny, but could not laugh in front of him. Later I laughed my heart out, sharing this joke with friends.

But then, it is just a matter of choice. You decide whether you want that third car (or second, or fourth.. quite common in Delhi class families) or that tree in front of your house. Simple.

[image : sudeep]

Why Raj Thakre is the winner

Nobody knew this nephew Thakre (ok English media writes Thackeray) till a few months back. Now any "small kid" does, and how! One should admit this guy has succeeded in grabbing the spotlight. Cutting across classes and cultures -- educated middle class to the Bihari labourers -- he has become an object of despise. In our "national media" and in our private parties alike, we dismiss it as "cheap tricks".

Because we really don't want to admit this war is real.

That this person has managed to gather good support among many "aam" Maharashtrians.

It is not rocket science. It is not Raj's intellectual property either. It is the basis on which Shiv Sena built itself. That is how SS got unprecedented kind of mass support in the seventies. Rooting for locals when it comes to jobs in Maharashtra, especially Mumbai. (The Hindutva came much later to Shiv Sena).

The jobless Maharashtrians is a real issue. As is lack of jobs in Bihar or UP. In other words, the imbalance in our very development model itself.

One may say "India is my nation" and be proud about it (Shiv Sainiks also do, and so do Maharashtra Navnirman Sainiks) but it remains a fact that Bombay is "the place to go" for most Indians. Then there is at most one Delhi, one Chennai, one Bangalore. And may be some smaller cities. A large part of India lives in darkness, without basic healthcare, without access to primary education, without anything.

No matter how much you try to romanticize the "village life" sitting in the air conditioned comfort of your city abodes, people are flowing from these villages to cities. And these cities are overcrowded, to say the least.

The living conditions in a slum in Mumbai are quite bad, but that does not put any breaks on the inflow. Which essentially means that the situation at home is worse.

And as long as we refuse to address that, as long as we do not wake up to the need for a more distributed and more localized development, as long as we are blinded by the "growth rates" and flying sensex (at least that has stopped for now), we are digging our own graves. The regional battles are here to stay.

* * * *

[a related link: Marathis in US justify Raj demands; but condone his means to achieve it, from NDTV dot com]

Many Nandigrams (and six Maoist women)

A few days back, a media friend of mine and five others visited the POSCO site in Orissa on the eve of a mass rally against the project. The next day, a local Oriya newspaper reported that six Maoist women -- some of them pretending to be media people -- came the previous night and camped at the rally site to give arms training to the tribals.

News about the rally came in the "Non-Events" section in local Times of India. In Delhi edition, Times carried a oneliner (Massive rally at proposed Posco site: Anti-Posco protesters held a massive rally at the proposed Posco site near Paradeep even as police detained around 300 of their supporters on Tuesday. The district administration had imposed prohibitory orders in Balitutha where an estimated 3,000 villagers gathered on Utkal Divas and pledged not to give away their land for the proposed Posco project. The police blocked entry of protestors at several places. ToI Delhi, April 2) and Indian Express chose to look away.

Native resistances to big projects and the displacements attached to such projects do not carry any news value any more (unless it happens in a state where a communist party rules). In the rush to globalize and to get things done at low cost (which most often means without paying for the resources), such struggles have become commonplace. And there are many Nandigram-like situations in many states in India. The POSCO project is just one of them.

(It is not new to Orissa either -- the people's resistance to a big mining project in Kashipur is over 15 years old and a brutal police crackdown on tribals there happened only about three years back.)

Some related links:

Democracy at gunpoint: a report, a case study, a map and other links

Armed procession against Posco: Indian Express, December 3, 2007

Posco officials taken hostage by villagers: Indian Express, May 12, 2007

Nandigram-like Situation in Orissa? The South Asian, December 2, 2007

[Post Script: One local guy told my friend, "You people are lucky that there are no metallic resources in your state. At least you will have some amount of democracy". Going by the list of mine-rich states, one sees he does have a point. But now, it is not only about the mines any more.]

VIBGYOR time

The festival starts today at Thrissur, Kerala. Focus of the year is Earth. See VIBGYOR International Film Festival: Celebrating Identities and diversity.

And schedule.

Laurie Baker, the Builder

Laurie Baker. Born in Birmingham, England on March 2, 1917. Died on April 1, 2007 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He had become a household name in Kerala synonymous to low-cost housing. The Times of India article (that triggered this attribution issue) says he is "relevant for a world that is threatened by global warming".

Apparently after completing his architecture course, he became an ambulance driver in the Second War in Burma and China. On his way back (to England) through (then) Bombay in 1945, he met Gandhi who told him there was much useful work to be done by architects in rural India. Baker lived 13 years in Uttar Pradesh (where he got married to a local doctor) before he moved to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala in 1963.

Some of my friends are now camping at a house built by him, at Vagamon in Kottayam district of Kerala (see Inspiration: For Nature-friendly built Environment) for a Pattu Kalari (Music workshop).

I have memories of a cartoon strip "Malayaliyude Mundu" (Mundu of Malayalees, a piece of cloth that is worn like a wrap-around) by him in one leading Malayalam periodical.

A few links for those who are interested in knowing more about him and his philosphy of life: MUD: An article by Laurie Baker (pdf), Of Architectural Truths and Lies: another article by him in The Hindu, An interview: Architecture for the people, and an article on the builder: The cost of Living, by London-based architect Ayyub Malik (pdf) .

[Image from Inspiration page]

Mithunda's take on Singur/Nandigram

"The film begins with the customary disclaimer.. But Mithunda's latest box-office wonder is about land acquisition in a burning Bengal", goes the review of Bong film Tulkalam in The Telegraph by Chandrima S. Bhattacharya (could not find it on the web edition).

Hindustan Times has a special story by Drimi Chowdhuri titled Bengali cinema raises issue of land acquisition. "Filmmaker Haranath Chakroborty’s "Tulkalam" starring Mithun Chakraborty and Rachana Banerjee has struck a chord with viewers. The movie is running to packed houses in Minar, Bijoli and Chhabighar which are mostly haunted by Bengali cine-goers looking for something more than the regular commercial fare.."

"The city’s commercial theatre district, Chitpore, that has always shown a penchant for recent happenings, is also tapping in on the issue. All the theatre companies involved with production seem to be changing their storyline, even though their titles prominently feature Nandigram.."

The Telegraph review can't conclude without a reference to the "Left intellectuals":

"Such direct political reference is not usual in a mainstream Bengali movie. The issue must be so hot that it can't be swept under the carpet any more. Neither by Left intellectuals nor by Mithunda. The carpet will catch fire.."

Funny. The carpets of The Telegraphs and The Indian Expresses and Anand Bazar Patrikas seem to be catching fire. All these "development-mongers" vehemently supported the WB Govt on the land acquisitions and kept quiet about the first round of violent turn of events in Nandigram this January (that led to the March 14 firing).

["Villagers have become extremely wary of journalists, they turn back some of them, and claim that at least the biggest newspaper group, ABP, has sold itself to the state government. The variations are whether the buying party is the state government, the CPI(M), or the chief minister..", wrote Aloke Thakore in The Hoot].

So now, they are all busy taking digs at Left Intellectualism (IE article on "Why left intellectualism is so damaging", refering to some statement by some CPM intellectuals who are not sure where to stand.) Understandably turning a blind eye to most other left intellectuals who stood firm against the WB Govt's development policies even before the March 14 firings at Nandigram. In a desparate attempt to make sure everything goes "right", the way WB Govt and CPM has been moving. So that any voice against them, intellectual or not, are not taken seriously by anyone.

But no matter how muchever they try, the fire is very much here. Unlike what they would like to believe ("Unfortunately, real rural Bengal does not have a Mithun", says Ms Bhattacharya), the people are standing up for their rights and won't give in without a fight. And they are aware who are trying to take them for granted and who are benefitting from it.

* * *

Tailpiece: It seems March 15 and March 16 issues of Ananda Bazar Patrika went missing from their web archives!

Guess who are the Best Developed?

Guess which nation is the best developed in the world? When we say the "best developed", we mean it. Don't confuse that with something like "with highest per capita income" or "highest pollution rate".

Green Left, Australia quotes The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Global Footprint Network.s 2006 report, Living Planet, released last October:

"..human activities are outstripping the natural world's capacity to regenerate. The worst offenders are also the wealthiest. for example the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Australia and New Zealand produce 50% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.. It also revealed that Cuba was the only country to have achieved sustainable development.."

The report goes on to say that "Cuba's rating was based on the fact that it is the only country in the world that has a high level of social development, including good health and education systems, and does not use up more resources than is sustainable."

Now, what makes Cuba take the sustainability route, when everyone else is competing with one another in their race towards an impending doom? The communist parties, or the ideologies itself, have no special inclination towards environment-friendly development, or to be more precise, development that lasts.

The report says that "Cuba's achievements are all the more extraordinary because the country, already very poor, has pulled this off in despite the five-decade-long US economic blockade". Despite the blockade? I believe it was the Blockade itself that made this possible.

Cuba did not have much choice.

With a sanction in place for almost 50 years, they had to do with what they had within. They could not steal oil or share the benefit from those who did. They could not live in illusions.

Let us check what is happening in India. Our media has been raving about the new "shining" India, for which both NDA and UPA claim the credit. The "left", once widely seen as the "red" that stops this "development boom", is now going all out to beat everyone else in that game.

EPW Editorial ("Nandigram: Taking People for Granted", Economic and Political Weekly, Jan 13-19 2007) calls it a "race to the bottom":

"And with globalisation, capital, whether Indian or Foreign, has to be given better terms than what is on offer by governments in other potential locations in other countries. When capital finally decides to make an investment in the domestic economy, state governments then compete with one another in offering better terms to enhance their respective location advantages. The revenue loss such terms entail does, of course, compound their problem of financing programmes in health, education and other important public services, forcing them to either cut back on these programmes or turn to the "aid" agencies that willy-nilly impose their "conditionalities". Frankly, it is really a "race to the bottom" in which the state governments have limited options.."

[We had talked about this in the comments here once.

"..it is not profitable to account for the exploitation of our resources. Ooze all the water out of our wells and give it to MNCs. Shut all the schools down in the rural areas, have no hospitals, health care, or even better, shoot all those people..]

The media, with enough money backing it, play the "let the market decide" tune loud enough to make sure any other voice goes unheard. [A boycott in Nandigram of newspapers or of journalists belonging to some news organizations suggests a feeling of media disenfranchisement, writes Aloke Thakore; Singur smokescreen: Part 1, 2 and 3 by Anirudha Dutta]

Unfortunately, even when a Singur or Nandigram makes it to the news, at best it is used to "expose" the double-talk of the major left parties in India (and to feel glad that the "Left" is also coming "our" way). Hardly anyone bothers to raise questions about the development model itself.

Nuclear power Now

It is disasters that have made the human kind conscious about the importance of striking a balance between development and the environment.

One of them was an accident at Three Mile Island (Pennsylvania, United States) in 1979, apparently "the worst accident in US commercial nuclear power generating history". [See: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's "fact sheet" -- note that this came out in 2004; and "What's wrong with the NRC factsheet"]

Seven years later, Chernobyl (Ukraine, then part of USSR) saw "the worst accident ever in the history of nuclear power". More than 30 people died on the spot, and the "Nuclear fallout" (the residual radiation hazard) spread to Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the UK, Ireland and eastern North America.

After Chernobyl, the world has been going slow on Nuclear Power, that was once considered the final answer to all our energy worries. Many project proposals had to be shelved due to enormous opposition from the local people, scientsists and environmental activists. [There was one such proposal in Kerala about 15 years back].

Now we are turning to Nuclear Power once again. There has been opposion locally, but it is hardly making any news. The plan for the plant itself was kept away from media attention for quite some time, but the news is slowly coming in, thanks to Singur.

"West Bengal could be the site for eastern India's first nuclear power plant with a central committee recommending Haripur in coastal East Midnapore district as a possible location, an announcement which has already evoked protests by villagers there..", India e-News, Nov 20, 2006.

"The masses resist Haripur Nuclear power plant in Junput.." (Palash Biswas, on NDTV blogs).

Expectedly, the news is accompanied with anticipatory bails ["Scientist backing nuke plant project at Haripur", The Hindu].

The CPM seems to be confused. "Sitaram Yechury today said he was opposed to nuclear power stations as they were being eyed as potential customers by US firms that stand to benefit from the deal signed with the Bush administration.." (The Telegraph, Jan 8).

Even the country's safest reactors aren't so safe, according to its atomic regulations agency.

Can we afford another freaky accident? (We haven't recovered from that December Third yet..)

Dam Bad?

"New Delhi, Nov. 22: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has postponed his visit to Manipur to lay the foundation stone of the Tipaimukh dam, adding to the drama over the controversial project in Churachandpur district.." [from yesterday's paper]

What drama? Here are some links: [Oct 24: Naga groups in anti-dam brigade], [Nov 12: Tipaimukh strike cripples Manipur],[Nov 13: Delhi to ignore dam protest]..

* * *

Chinese movie 'Still Life' wins Golden Lion in Venice

From China Daily: "VENICE, Italy - The Chinese movie "Still Life," a surprise entry set against the backdrop of China's gigantic Three Gorges Dam project, won this year's Golden Lion - the top award at the Venice Film Festival - on Saturday..

"Still Life" was shot in the old village of Fengjie, which has been destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, and tells of people who go back there.."

* * *

"Perhaps India's most precious fragile ecological zone, the Northeast is now facing a paradox: to be damned or not. The big dam lobby is planning to bulldoze thousands of acres of forests, fertile villages, rivers and streams to build 73 dams in the Northeast and 42 in Arunachal bordering China. At Yazali in Arunachal, the Ranga nadi has been killed, destroying downstream ecology.

Outside the mainstream's gaze, this is a recipe for apocalypse now under a nasty Police State. The tribal people of Arunachal have begun the first fight which has spread to Manipur. Despite deaths in police firing as in Manipur recently, the fight has spread.."

[quoted from Tehelka 2nd anniversary special in an earlier post on this diary]

* * *

Some Q and A on Sardar Sarovar: Who pays, Who profits
[This document is somewhat old, the figures may have changed a bit, but not for the better]

* * *

Some more dam stories, including Tehri and the legendary Bhakra-Nangal, to appear in a follow-up to this post (say, in the comments section). Please post your comment with the stories/details you have on big dams.

How long?

One third of the planet will be desert by the year 2100, say climate experts in the most dire warning yet of the effects of global warming..

The century of drought, The Independent (U.K.), Oct. 4, 2006.

"Drought threatening the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth in the coming century because of global warming, according to new predictions from Britain's leading climate scientists.

Extreme drought, in which agriculture is in effect impossible, will affect about a third of the planet, according to the study from the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

It is one of the most dire forecasts so far of the potential effects of rising temperatures around the world - yet it may be an underestimation, the scientists involved said yesterday.."



This pic from the film "The Inconvenient truth" showing the global temp rise by 2100 shows that the carbon dioxide emissions come mainly from the "developed" countries whereas the resulting rise in temperature would be more in the poorer regions including Indian subcontinent, Africa and South America.

[Thanks to Deleep for the link and the pic].

A place called Singur

Singur. A place in the Hoogly district of West Bengal.

"I won't give up my land," says 48-year old Loknath in an article that appeared in Mumbai newspaper DNA. He knows that some ‘boro karkhana’ (large industry) will come up, for which he has to give up his farmland, his sole source of income.

The story goes that the CPM-led Left Front Government of West Bengal is set to acquire the multi-crop lands at Singur to make way for a small car factory. A move that will leave many farmers like Loknath landless. It's not just the farmers-- apparently this move will render more than ten thousand local inhabitants including farmers, sharecroppers and daily labourers jobless.

A group of scientists from various research institutes have personally visited the area and declared that it is beyond any doubt that the earmarked lands are extremely fertile and vast majority of those grow multi-crops throughout the year, and a group of research scientists from the Center for Studies on Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata have tried to capture this in a documentary film “Abad Bhumi” (Right to Land). They have also prepared an online petition that addresses the Governer of West Bengal. Don't know how much it'll help though.

Yet another example of the much-hyped "Globalization" eating up our resources and not accounting for it? Probably. But we may forget that soon.

As we already seem to have forgotten that the Colas have been sucking out our groundwater and ruining our villages (they fill the soil with toxics in return as a token of their gratitude) -- be it Mehendiganj in Uttar Pradesh (where Coca Cola draws out more than 250,000 liters of underground water per day and dumps toxic wastes) or Plachimada in Kerala (where the plant was shut-down once following a court order and is operational again now). In Shivaganga, Tamil Nadu, people's protest prevented a plant of Coke being set up in a region that was already facing water scarcity. There are silimar stories of struggles from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Patna and Hajipur in Bihar, Satharia Jainpur, Simhachavar in Ballia, Hathras in Aligarh, Dasna–Masoori in Ghaziabad, Bijnor in U.P., Badoli and Panipat in Haryana, Mandideep and Bhopal in M.P., Ahmedabad and Herea in Gujarat, Kudus and Thane in Maharashtra. Now the issue is whether the drinks have pesticides in it (Bahu Tulsi and Aamir Khan are assuring us they are safe) or whether having pesticides is a non-issue as even mother's milk has it, or whether it is right to compare Cola with Mother's milk.

* * *

[Some details and updates on the Singur story at PCFS page:

Forced Eviction of Farming Communities in Singur, West Bengal (and other links)

Also see: Tata Motors defends site selection at Singur, Times of India, 21 October 2006.

CPM defends the move: All India Kisan Sabha (CITU) leader and Industries Minister in People's Democracy]