Another case of a drunk driver killing some people in Mumbai greeted me as I opened the morning newspaper today.
Although the Mumbai Poilce have been cracking down on drunk driving for 2 years now - there are still some nuts who think they can drive after downing some drinks.
The Mumbai Police should also crack down on use of mobiles while driving - whether with handsfree or not. It is an established fact that use of mobiles distract us so much that we can have a serious accident if we drive while talking on the mobile.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Learning about Indian History
Recently I bought three books - The Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Sri Aurobindo's commentary), Dasavatara and Sanatana Dharma. I have started reading Sanatana Dharma by Annie Besant and Bhagwan Dass. Good that I did - else I would not have known that Dr Bhagwan Dass was the first receipient of the Bharat Ratna.
I tried to recall my days in school and tried to recollect whether we were taught about the Gita, Sanatana Dharma or the Dasavatara. Save some chapters that mention of the ancient Indian scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads and the Puranas) and the Gita, we were not taught about our rich heritage of the Sanatana Dharma - which is unique to this part of the world and has no parallel. The only other place where there was a serious attempt to enlighten us with our heritage was in my higher secondary class at the Ramakrishna Mission.
As parents, we are duty bound to teach our children things that are not taught in schools. But to teach them we need to know the subject ourselves!
I tried to recall my days in school and tried to recollect whether we were taught about the Gita, Sanatana Dharma or the Dasavatara. Save some chapters that mention of the ancient Indian scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads and the Puranas) and the Gita, we were not taught about our rich heritage of the Sanatana Dharma - which is unique to this part of the world and has no parallel. The only other place where there was a serious attempt to enlighten us with our heritage was in my higher secondary class at the Ramakrishna Mission.
As parents, we are duty bound to teach our children things that are not taught in schools. But to teach them we need to know the subject ourselves!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Planning Infrastructure
In most Indian cities, a familiar sight is that of what can be loosely termed as "construction". Flyovers, road, bridges, transit railways, parking lots, new residential and office buildings - every city seems to be playing catch up with the lost time of the first 50 years of modern India.
It is good! It is good for the economy, for creating jobs at every stage of the value chain, for creating infrastructure to service the needs of an ever increasing population.
There are some key elements missing from these infrastructure construction activities:
1. Planning for future capacity
2. Concern for pedestrians
3. Creating green spaces
4. Ease of use
1. Planning for future capacity: in most infrastructure projects the planners seem to plan for immediate rather than future capacity. Witness the construction of flyovers across busy intersections. Why not create flyovers over all the intersections at one go - instead of coming to a breakdown situation and then deciding to build?
2. Concern for pedestrians: in no project the planners factor in needs to pedestrians. How does a pedestrian get to cross the road? How does the pedestrian alight from the bus? Is the footpath wide enough to carry hundreds of thousands of pedestrians who walk every day for short or medium distances? The true test of a civilised nation is how it treats it's less priviliged citizens. In this respect India has a long way to go - at least in its treatment of pedestrians.
3. Creating green spaces: after all the construction has ended and the dust died down, what will leave for our children to inherit? Endless concrete stretches? The scenario is scary. In all our infrastructure projects - where is the planning for creating green spaces?
4. Ease of use: ease of use was never a priority for our planners. We create skywalks for pedestrians because we cannt give them footpaths. Fantastic, but anyone thought about the ease of use of skywalks which are as high as a three storey building? What about the mandatory escalators on all sides? When the pedestrians finally have to get off the skywalk - do they spill on to the road or the footpath? Why dont we have escalators from all platforms of all railway stations which have more than ten thousand passengers transiting every day?
Who will teach these to well educated planners? The best way would be to make them pedestrians and users of public transport for such a time till they improve planning and delivery.
It is good! It is good for the economy, for creating jobs at every stage of the value chain, for creating infrastructure to service the needs of an ever increasing population.
There are some key elements missing from these infrastructure construction activities:
1. Planning for future capacity
2. Concern for pedestrians
3. Creating green spaces
4. Ease of use
1. Planning for future capacity: in most infrastructure projects the planners seem to plan for immediate rather than future capacity. Witness the construction of flyovers across busy intersections. Why not create flyovers over all the intersections at one go - instead of coming to a breakdown situation and then deciding to build?
2. Concern for pedestrians: in no project the planners factor in needs to pedestrians. How does a pedestrian get to cross the road? How does the pedestrian alight from the bus? Is the footpath wide enough to carry hundreds of thousands of pedestrians who walk every day for short or medium distances? The true test of a civilised nation is how it treats it's less priviliged citizens. In this respect India has a long way to go - at least in its treatment of pedestrians.
3. Creating green spaces: after all the construction has ended and the dust died down, what will leave for our children to inherit? Endless concrete stretches? The scenario is scary. In all our infrastructure projects - where is the planning for creating green spaces?
4. Ease of use: ease of use was never a priority for our planners. We create skywalks for pedestrians because we cannt give them footpaths. Fantastic, but anyone thought about the ease of use of skywalks which are as high as a three storey building? What about the mandatory escalators on all sides? When the pedestrians finally have to get off the skywalk - do they spill on to the road or the footpath? Why dont we have escalators from all platforms of all railway stations which have more than ten thousand passengers transiting every day?
Who will teach these to well educated planners? The best way would be to make them pedestrians and users of public transport for such a time till they improve planning and delivery.
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