Strong local governments for sustainable urbanisation

The UN Habitat report titled "UN system Task Team on the post 2015 UN development agenda" (2012) suggests governments across the world to prioritise in their agenda the development of cities for the next millennium. It calls cities as the space for creating new ideas, innovation and technology and requires a shift from regarding it as a space for settlements or production. It was published during the wake of rapid urbanisation across developing countries. 

After a passage of decade, the Indian cities contributing 70 percent of the country's GDP have witnessed disproportionate increase in the fluidity of market, labour and production over the years. The novel ideas and innovations driven by the Indian cities integrated into a global network. 

Urban India led the digital revolution from the forefront. The spurt of innovations and ideas springing up in the arena of technology has successfully consolidated a total of 1.26 lakh startups across the country. 

The waves of migration from various parts of the country to assimilate with the highly skilled talent pool created separate economic entities within the country. It further accentuated the need for increasing competitiveness of cities to sustain the economic growth of the country. 

It has been ensured with the improved connectivity via wide coverage of road networks and metro rails, establishment of high quality educational institutions, attracting global investors and enhanced quality of life with a spectrum of retail choices and hangout places. 

The growth-led initiatives enabled cities to undergo expansion and creation of new ones after overturning wetlands, trees and orchards, waterways and water bodies. It created urban sprawls owing to poor integrated planning and design in place. The shortcomings have been covered up with the innovation of smart cities with centralised command centres to improve the quality of service delivery and increased surveillance. The newly created smart city, Pimpri Chinchwad, was recognised globally for its urban innovation last year. It has successfully created a sustainable model with women-led groups to manage community toilets.

However, the little efforts made towards preserving the sustenance of life forms turned the rivers into sources of sewage and normalised landfills for tackling solid waste. This summer, the potability of water sources running along Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad have been red flagged after finding traces of harmful contaminants in it.

Despite installation of sewage treatment plants along water bodies, the nodal pollution body has found over 300 points as highly polluted stretches across the country. 

According to a report published by the World Meteorological Organisation, the economic damages incurred due to storms and floods in India tallied up to 7.6 billion during 2022. The recurring losses highlight that cities are non-homogeneous entities created after recklessly stitching peri-urban and rural areas under its fold.

While recognising the changing outlook of cities, the UN task team report identified the need for strong local governments for building resilient cities. A RBI report (Report on Municipal Finances), has identified the limited power of Urban Local Bodies over taxation (generate own revenue less than 1 % of GDP) and overdependence on central and state as reasons for the ineffectiveness of ULBs in the country.

The limitations placed on ULBs and the one-size-fits-for-all approach of the centre and state governments create cities without inherent characteristics besides economic activities.

The ULBs working closely with the people will be able to develop plans and designs that earmark a portion of agricultural fields for food security, effective utilisation of barren lands for developing amenities like housing, hospitals, educational institutions and transportation system, developing scientific ways of disposal of solid and liquid waste without disrupting biodiversity to make the cities more self-sustainable.

Sustainable urbanisation calls for preserving the diversity of areas bearing in mind medium and longer term development. While the cities built on adopted economic models for growth are falling apart, the need for strong ULBs rises sharply to sustain cities that do more than economic functions.

study conducted by the Colorado State University in Colorado, the sprawl development 

pattern can exacerbate the impacts of water shortage events more than high intensity 

development patterns.

The redefining of cities as humongous economic engines created natural disasters confined 

to urban spaces namely urban heat island effect, urban floods, acute water scarcity, poor 

quality of air and water as a recurring phenomena.

Sweet and sour lingers with a punch

 At a first glance, she looked reticent for the inquisitive eyes of passersby. Her long brown and thick curly strands cover her elegantly from nape to feet leaving ample room for imagination. When I moved closer to her, she revealed her bare feet as one, two, three and so on until I lost track of the count. The finite number of them contained gentle crest and trough akin to waves in oceans. But they all looked sturdy as she remained unmoved and held her ground underneath the surface of earth. 

The feets are not overburdened as her strong torso indicate that she had seen both gentle and battering winds, light and heavy thunderstorms and witnessed 

many moons and stars to the glory of time. Her thick brown skin enveloping her torso are not smooth like moving dense clouds of the sky. She has hardened her skin with peels of new and old of them in different shades of brown arranged across her body in no particular theme. But she looked breathtakingly beautiful as she stood tall with a crown in different shades of green and brown. It is like a clusters of feathers in different hues of green and brown. She has embellished it with elongated strips in thick brown colour which swings along with feathers and sometimes misses the beat allowing it to strewn everywhere near her feet. 

The feathers are in rhythm with seasons as she sheds some in spring, allows to mellow herself down during rains, stand in full strength during summers and take it slow during winters. 

She looks calm from within and gives away  shrills of laughter as and when breeze moved gently caressing its feathers and roared when winds touched it vigorously. She chanced upon the gaze of an onlooker on any other day of hers but it was indifferent from the rest. He moved his hands violently over torso for several days together. In the end, she fell apart from her multiple feets and left traces of torso to stay with it as she reassured herself that winds and breeze would come along looking for me to give their souls. 

I wish she knew that last passerby was not her admirer but adamant to bring her down. I wish she waved her curly strands vigorously in tandem with feathers and shoved him away forever. So that she always get to show the glimpses of her beauty for many and many centuries, instead of regaling the tales of tamarind tree in the future. 

(An ode to the last tamarind tree on this earth). 

'As good as you'

The experience of riding on a jungle safari is impassionally derived while reading the wildlife conservationist ERC Davidar's biography, 'Whispers from the wild'. 

His childhood in Trichy introduces the author to varied wild animals. A few tamed, newcomers were put in the rigorous process of it and delinquents such as bonnet macaque were promptly deposited into the adjacent forest begins his journey of being with and observing animal behaviours.

The author's adulthood becomes an extension of his childhood after he relocated into a real wild jungle in Nilgiris, where he transforms into a mature hunter. The hunter in him gave the courage to follow the animal trails in the forest initially, but his urge to understand the ecosystem replaced totting gun with a handsome camera. Thus, the book is whole of wild animals with mighty elephants, leopard, wild dogs, hyenas and many more in its glory and up close are a few close people of the author.

The thrill of riding on a safari with the author, who remained and traversed miles by-foot in the whole story, is infectious. His friends are mine as I know my gentle elephant Bumpty likes to take long bath which is promptly ended with slashing of mud across his body. Another gentle animal Kumariah of the same clan introduces herd culture to Cheetal Walk, which was despised during its solitary days later. 

Possession of machans atop tall trees of varied species brought us closer to the study of animal behaviours despite having its own perils. I was in awe of Davidar when we held our machans on the stumps of fallen trees to witness the actions of huge animals from proximity. Different locations had been identified along Sigurhalla stream which these animals consider it as their favourite spots for drinking water. When the stream was polluted, a gentle animal taught us to scoop sand from river bed to find clean water beneath it. 

I was petrified when Davidar's legs which were dangling from a makeshift machan atop huge branches of mango tree touched the shoulder of an elephant while it intended to take rest under it. The elephant ran in an opposite direction and we decided not to stay back in forest after the dusk hereafter.   

I laughed out loud when Davidar's head of the college decided to publish his picture of bonnet macaque (a monkey species) in the caption 'as good as you'. 

I was touched when Davidar extended his right arm for our 'Tikki' ( mongoose) to trust and deepen the bonding with his new master. 

We together learnt that feaces of hyena contains bones as these scavengers pulverize bones for their food. The wild dogs moving around in packs can chase away leopards from its hunt. But they are still yours faithfully lot with the humans in the forest. 

It was a humbling experience to read his biography where his enormous knowledge about the wilderness came across in a layman language but poetic. His integrity in narrating the tales even if he was fled away from solitary animals or tattered by bison on a fateful day remains impeccable and endearing.

He doesn't preach to save forest as a conservationist but he allows us to fall deeply in love for the nature. The first lessons that he learnt to understand the forest using wind, odour and sounds to criss-cross the forest and reach his safe abode in Cheetal Walk was filled with anecdotes and the traditional knowledge of indigenous tribes here. The varying flow of water along the forest streams likened to roaring of tiger during its strong flow and recounted cooing birds such as pigeons when the water trickles along it remains etched in my memory for its sheer imagination. 

He was a lawyer but tucked his profession in the margins of forest and oblivion to us. He was a wildlife conservationist but never articulated in length his achievements. He only cared to present his experiences with wilderness, in a more humane and hilarious way. 

In the end, the author brought me closer to him and made me fall in love with both nature and his inquisitive childlike passion that I cherish and yearn to be 'as good as you' in my field. 

Plugging loopholes of an argument

The Op-Ed page of ‘The Hindu’ carried out an article of the IT minister, Kapil Sibal, which intended in giving a reply to the recent remark of Narendra Modi on the inadequate spending of UPA government in the education sector. In this, the minister defends UPA with the comparison of public expenditures on education during NDA and his government.

Recently, in a gathering at a Pune University, Narendra Modi passed a remark on the UPA government’s expenditure of mere 4% of GDP compared to China’s 20% of GDP on this sector. The conjecture of data from Government World Reports (2013) proclaims the Chinese government expenditure was $1.25 trillion in the previous five years. This clears the air; china has spent only 4% of GDP on education. This extrapolation of data forms a basis of the minister’s argument.

He accuses the NDA government’s expenditure of 2.4% of GDP whereas the UPA government spent staggering 4.2% of country’s GDP. Apparently, the figures show a hike in spending during the UPA regime. But to be noted is the country recorded its unprecedented GDP growth of 8.5% in the last decade only. The onset of real economic boom brought by IT was set after 2004 in the country, which means under the UPA government.

Ironically, the public expenditure on education reveals a different set of data. The government recorded its highest spending in the year 1999 with 12.72% and its least in the year 2009 with 9.98% of total government expenditure, according to official figures.

Thus, these figures support no successive government had valued the importance of education. Apart from RTE, the UPA government hasn’t roll out its sleeves in the sector. What believed to be a game changer, mid-day meals, is fraught with corruption and inefficiency driving students away from the school. Besides, the country concentrated very little on the pre-primary schools where the drop out ratio from schools scales higher as no legislation take cares of it.

The education sector is disfigured beyond recognition and being hopeless to millions of young minds. The persistent neglect of government, uncontrolled power exercise of private parties not bode well with the future of the country.

Apparently, the minister started his article with a quote, "Great leaders, it is said, are dealers in hope". This saying makes us to admit that our country, unfortunately, never stumbled across a great leader, so far.

Premonition of Alfred Hitchcock

Way back in 1955, the ‘Alfred Hitchcock presents’ sitcom aired an episode on the increase in violence and deaths in the city directly connected to the increase in earth temperature. The people’s mind in the hot climate is temperamental waiting for stoke to hound other person. This formed the crux of the episode which aired under the title ‘Shopping for death’ in the FX crime channel.

In some sort of a weird coincidence, recently, a study found the rise in temperature level of earth can trigger sporadic violence and conflicts among people. This could be significantly visible in the tropical country due to its climatic conditions. The other startling revelations are the rise of 2 degree Celsius of earth temperature by 2050, the increase in ethnic violence and clashes among people.

The study appears to be a rehash of the episode, or else, may be this study is being churned for time and again to remind the adversity on its way of people’s life.  It’s visible the temperature and climatic conditions of our place, region and the country showing variable changes.

Likewise, we could see the unhappiness growing among people globally and ostensibly visible in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and the African countries as they are in the middle of the ensuing civil wars. When the women of Turkey instructed to refrain from modern clothes irked the Muslim country which resulted in an uproar. The Syrians fight against decade-long dictatorship after following suit of Egyptians.

The people of Alaska regret following American lifestyle after the inhabited place looks no longer habitual for sustenance. The increased sea level submerged the land in the island and believed to disappear from the face of earth in another few years.

Back at home, the growing division among the states, people on the lines of castes, religion and money are starkly visible. The long rule of mismanagement of government gets highlighted in recent years, with the people demanding out rightly for the safety and security of fellow citizens.

The masses wield arms to stall the commissioning of nuclear power plant, to vent out anger on a community after an inter-caste marriage of adults, fighting for statehood, demanding the repeal of draconian laws and institution- sedition and AFSPA. The ever growing unsatisfied heaps spew fury and venom on the society by harming innocents.

Apart from this, another study claims the draining of resources forms a bone of contention for the future conflicts. When things look chaotic and unsatisfied, there are few people who work to combat the crisis in the future.

The researchers around the globe engaged in finding an alternative to the mainstream. A crew involved in developing a water-free public toilet for future as the source of water depleting at a faster rate compared with its repletion. Germans replaced their Volkswagen with electric cycles and are ready to close down nuclear power plants by 2025. Along with them there are large numbers of environmentalists around globe who are striving to bring back the earth from the verge of being inhabitable place.

All these events don’t boil down to the usual question on preponderance of good over evil, but how we are going to save ourselves before resorting to the last hope, abdication of earth. 

God in the eyes of man

The exquisitely decorated Lord Ganesha sculptures on the side walls of the mukkula Vinayagar temple in Pondicherry brings out a joy and exuberance in life instantly. The adorable god, Ganesh, is sculpted as he is been worshipped in different countries across the world. The depiction doesn’t reveal the god’s identity but helps in identifying a man’s perception conjured in his visual image.

In India, he is mostly seen as a humble and joyful god, who is happy to rest under a peepal tree as well as in the corner of streets, looks distinct in each sculpture. The Japanese made the trunk of the god in sculpture straight but very short who sits merrily with his pot belly, and doesn’t seems complaining about his short trunk on the walls. The Cambodian Ganesha brings surprise when he shows off his flat stomach and a thin tusk in the figurine. I found him conscious in the carving, may be, because I was taken aback with his healthy and fit stature.

The Bangladeshi Ganesha gives darshan with his four hands and a sword rested on his shoulder which usually spotted in the hands of goddess Durga. I presume he is looked upon as a god with the combination of brain and braveness, holds lots of similarities to goddess Durga in his carvings.

The Chinese Ganesha is unique with his trunk carefully folded towards its right side with a sharp edge. It resembles mandarin alphabet’s fine strokes that drawn with precision. The Ganesha in Sri Lanka looks similar to our Indian sculptures but the measurement varies. He is shown with broad shoulders looking little big to his size that we are accustomed to and also looks short in the carving.

Apart from the depictions of other countries, our sculptors chiseled few things from their figments of imagination. In a figurine, he thrills us with six hands and in the other he is adorned with jewels. The sculpture of Bal Ganesha poses the famous posture of Lord Natraja where Ganesha manages his whole body weight with one leg and the other leg is suspended in mid-air. Another distinct one, infant Ganesha rest on the laps of his father, god Shiva, and in the adjacent sculpture he is in the hands of his mother, goddess Parvathy.

An interesting sculpture of Ganesha sitting atop his vehicle, rat, and both of them look away furiously. In the other, he has taken the avatar of mayur (Peacock) where he is adorned with peacock feathers and, needless to say, makes a pretty picture.

The human’s way of perceiving things reflected in these sculptures and has more to do than mere appreciation of an art. Now, I am reminded by the Nobel peace prize winner, Wangari Mathai, - she said Jesus Christ, worshipped by her and her clan, is black. Indeed. 

Story of the nature overpowering mankind

   The importance of co-existence among nature and humankind has got its fittest reply with the country handling a natural disaster in Uttarkhand. The flashfloods in the Uttarkhand brought the region to its primitive existence as water gushes out from its repositories to land and the roads and bridges wiped from the face of earth; nailed the humankind for curtailing its existence by being pervasive now.

The official figures reveal about 822 died in the flashfloods till now and thousands left stranded in the disaster. More than 40 choppers are ferried in the inclement weather to distribute essentials and in airlifting the stranded people. The choppers ferry ghee and woods to carry on with the mass cremation, the locals are alerted to abstain using water in the hills and outbreak of deadly diseases is on high alert. Further, the chaos looms larger with the kith and kin at a frantic pace in search of the missed ones heightens the distress situation in the hills.

Within 24 hours of the onset of flashfloods, center declared it as a national disaster and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) acted on a full swing to mitigate the crisis. The Uttarkhand Chief Minister, Vijay Bhagugan, disheartened, said not expected floods during this monsoon season. The funds poured in from all the corners and the state governments ensured that pilgrims belonging to their state airlifted safely amidst the relentless operation.

As the events unfold, the environmentalists are fraught with the damage done to ecologically sensitive areas. The watershed of Bhargyarati and Mandakini Rivers comes under ecologically reserved areas that bar any developmental activities in the region. Further, in 2005, the Ministry of environment notified the state government of Uttarkhand to abstain from the activities that bring hazards to ecology but the Uttarkhand government defended those activities on the pretext of bringing development to the state.

In the following years, the state invested heavily on the tourism by laying new roads and widening the existing ones. The tourist buses crossed the mark of a lakh in 2010 and records the time gap of seven minutes between two vehicles plying in the hills. Subsequently, plying of heavy vehicles to ferry the growing tourists’ population weakened the mountains which triggered the landslide and created slits during the flashfloods. The construction companies and contractors drilled the mountains haphazardly without using advanced technologies and precautionary measures to minimize the ecological hazards. Subsequently, this man made construction changed the course of the rivers and thus disturbing its natural flow.

The generation of hydropower energy in Bargavati River tends to be lucrative to the state with high tariff rates but the series of bumper on the River to produce energy shrunk the water source.  Some parts of the river are parched and even during lean period the sharing of water is impossible. According to the claims the existing projects already did 80% damage to the river. 

The heavy drilling into the mountains for the construction of dams, roads, and bridges haphazardly without using sophisticated technology severed the mountains. The private contractors while building hotels and resorts drilled randomly without a prior knowledge laid many contractors bankrupt.

Apart from it, abode of Shiva, is a seismic zone, prone to landslides and earthquake. Back in 2002, the state experienced a massive earthquake jolted people from its normal life. Even during this rescue operation the hills recorded a quake of 3.5 Richter scale. The ecologists call the young Himalayan hills as ecologically fragile zones and claims the government has carried out the development at the cost of the environment.

The construction of buildings not adhering to the types belonging to seismic zones paid heavily during the floods. The environmentalist endorse any planned construction using technology withstands floods and earthquake. The flouting of rules and unregulated constructions wreaked havoc in the hills during the flashfloods are the strong claims of environmentalists.

Even after witnessing havoc, the Chief Minister, Vijay Bhagugan, shrugs these reasons as childish leaving ecologists in despair. As rescue operations drawing to a close and news stories on flashfloods moved to inside pages raises doubts on the momentum that can be seized for a better future of nature and humankind.