From vidya_rangan at yahoo.co.in Tue Apr 1 13:59:47 2008 From: vidya_rangan at yahoo.co.in (Vidya Rangan) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:59:47 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Invitation to seminar on "Environmental Governance and Role of Judiciary in India" by Geetanjoy Sahu, 4th April 2008, 4-7 pm, EQUATIONS office In-Reply-To: <634740.59076.qm@web23014.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <79263.75128.qm@web94616.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear friends, Please find attached an invitation to a seminar on "Environmental Governance and Role of Judiciary in India" by Geetanjoy Sahu on the 4th of April 2008 from 4-7 PM at the EQUATIONS office in Bangalore. Geetanjoy, as many of you would know, is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. Attached is the invite to the seminar and a route map to reach EQUATIONS. Do try and make it. Best, Vidya. ------------------------------------------------ Vidya Rangan Globalisation Impacts and Tourism Programme EQUATIONS #415, 2nd C-cross, 4th main OMBR Layout, Banaswadi Bangalore 560043 Telephone: +91-80-25457607/25457659 Fax: +91-80-25457665 E-mail: vidya.r at equitabletourism.org URL: www.equitabletourism.org Why delete messages? Unlimited storage is just a click away. Go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Invitation card for Seminar on 4th April 2008.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 353877 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080401/07a53b8d/attachment-0002.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Equations route map.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 174654 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080401/07a53b8d/attachment-0003.jpg From yanivbin at gmail.com Tue Apr 1 20:53:34 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 20:53:34 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward Message-ID: <86b8a7050804010823x24d3b14bha1778fb7f196a67a@mail.gmail.com> Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward Madhav G Badami An item in The Times of India (March 19) reported on the results of a survey which showed that the public believe that the poor quality of our roads is the No. 1 reason, followed closely by poor traffic management and lack of proper (sic) infrastructure like flyovers for traffic congestion, which itself appears, according to the item, to be the primary public concern. I can certainly empathize with the frustration with the congestion on our roads, having been stuck in traffic in Bangalore and other Indian cities, but I am concerned that this frustration will lead to an excessive, even if not exclusive, focus on road-building (and road widening) as a solution to our urban transport woes. While there is an important role for personal and other motor vehicles (and infrastructure for these modes, as well as effective traffic management), there is also a crucially important role for walking and cycling, and infrastructure and facilities — such as controlled pedestrian crossings — for the safe and convenient use of these modes, if we want to mitigate the serious impacts of rapidly growing motor vehicle activity. Providing infrastructure for motor vehicles, while ignoring that for the non-motorized modes, will likely increase already serious access and time loss, and road safety, impacts for the many who own no motor vehicles, and therefore have no choice but to walk and cycle. Further, while road-building may improve speeds for motor vehicles and ease congestion in the short term, it will, as international experience has shown, very likely be neutralized over the longer term, by rendering the other modes even more unviable, increasing the need for motor vehicle ownership and use, and forcing motor vehicle owners to needlessly drive even for short distances, leading to ever more motor vehicle activity and congestion, and the need to build more roads, in a vicious spiral. It is likely that we are already seeing the negative effects of the neglect of infrastructure for walking and cycling in Bangalore. The data for the city show that as many as 38% of all persontrips are by personal (mainly two-wheeled) motor vehicles, with another 41% by buses, and only 17% by walk and cycle. The last figure is a lot lower (and the first a lot higher) than in other major Indian cities, including Delhi, by far the most motorized Indian city. If in fact the low walk and cycle shares are a faithful representation of reality, rather than the result of under-counting of these trips, it is likely that they are at least partly a reflection of the highly compromised access for these modes, due to rapidly growing motor vehicle activity, and planning to accommodate it. Ignoring walking and cycling can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; the less you provide for them, the less these modes will be used. Infrastructure for walking and cycling is vitally important, because these modes are potentially competitive in terms of door-to-door journey times with cars and even metro, and many more people would likely use them, especially for short and medium distance trips, which account for a large proportion of all trips, if adequate facilities were provided for them; and given that pedestrian accessibility is crucially important for the viability of public transit. 'Build it and they will come' is as true of pedestrians and cyclists as it is of motor vehicles. Finally, while reliable, convenient, affordable, and widespread public transit is necessary for getting people out of personal motor vehicles, its success in doing so, and indeed, the ability to curb rapid growth in motor vehicle activity and its impacts, also depends on pricing motor vehicle use at a level that will internalize its costs, discourage avoidable motor vehicle trips, and provide incentives and funding for more sustainable choices. In this regard, it is worth noting that the costs of operating personal motor vehicles are so low, notwithstanding the recently increased fuel prices (they are of the order of a rupee per kilometre on a two-wheeled motor vehicle), and parking is so inexpensive even if not always readily available, that no such incentives to avoid personal motorized trips, even for the shortest distances, currently exist. What we urgently need in order to effectively address our urban transport challenge is an integrated approach that accounts for multiple urban transport impacts (access loss, road safety, congestion, air pollution, and energy consumption), caters for multiple modes and user groups that are differentially affected by motorization, and is sensitive to the needs, capabilities and constraints in the Indian context. Such an approach, encompassing accessibility for all, including nonmotorized modes, quality public transit, and pricing of personal motor vehicle use, along with serious attention to land use-transport integration, would provide viable alternatives for a range of road users, minimize the need for long distance motorized trips, and curb rapid growth in motor vehicle activity by restricting it to its highest value uses, which would in turn allow all modes (including personal motor vehicles) to operate more efficiently, enhance the effectiveness of mass transit, mitigate rapidly worsening urban transport impacts, and promote social justice on our roads. (The writer teaches in the School of Urban Planning and the McGill School of Environment at McGill University in Montreal, Canada) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080401/28bfe385/attachment.html From debsinha at gmail.com Tue Apr 1 21:41:34 2008 From: debsinha at gmail.com (Deb Ranjan Sinha (Gmail)) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:11:34 -0400 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Asia Times Online: Local pride buffets Bangalore business Message-ID: <016b01c89413$153da4b0$0200000a@PAGOL> This city's cosmopolitan culture is coming under pressure in the wake of growing militancy of outfits claiming to represent the interests of the local Kannadiga population. This militancy was on display a month ago when activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV - Karnataka Protection Forum) stormed offices of a multinational company to protest alleged ridicule of Kannada culture by an employee of the company. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JD02Df01.html From cugambetta at yahoo.com Wed Apr 2 00:19:21 2008 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:49:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward Message-ID: <773629.27269.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com> I completely agree with the author. All of our recent discussion about streets really underscores the desire and need for mobility in the contemporary urban economy, and that transport unfolds at a great range of scales of travel time, purpose and infrastructure... I was reminded last summer of the difficulty of assigning political roles regarding who is for and against recent infrastructure projects, in Bangalore specifically. Rajan and I were speaking with a chemist in Indiranagar, soon to be affected by the Metro construction, who explained how the completion of the Airport Road/Domlur flyover was a boon to business. I assumed that the shop owner would be more cynical towards infrastructure projects like this in general, perhaps out of bitterness to the major infrastructure intervention that would soon displace his business. But, he benefited from the flyover (an object of significant distaste for many progressive folks in Bangalore, myself included!), it gave customers greater access to his shop on CMH road... his opposition was not to infrastructure as such. I think this is more than a question of nuance, because I think as anyone working on the issue already knows well, how agency and resistance are constructed are vital to crafting the issue itself. I am interested in how the contours of debate are shaped through groups of business owners, activists, 'civil society' and such. I think it is useful to always bear in mind the long and global history of disciplining and modernizing the life of the street, in many contexts, because cases ranging from the United States to Egypt all at least raise the kinds of questions to reflect on about how marginal figures are created in efforts to rationalize urban social order. How do contexts of road widening or regulation of hawkers or pavement dwellers construct models of order? How are figures of ambivalence constructed and disciplined? Ambivalence here understood, as sociology Zygmunt Bauman understood it, as that which modernity has no language for and cannot classify... ambivalence is, he argues, much more difficult to regulate and manage than order and disorder. This kind of anxiety plays itself out on the street in many ways in contemporary India, be it in regards to encroachments, hawkers, street dwellers, sex workers etc. This is sort of off the cuff, but I think it would benefit us to think about organizing some kind of workshop/ symposium that brings together much of the work happening on transportation and street life in the contemporary with people who have done work on the historical context, perhaps to induce a bit of reflection on the issue. I think it would be useful to supplement what are already largely policy or legal issues with a good amount of social, economic and architectural history. If we want to argue for the street (or what the street allows for, maybe not the street as such?), then we need this kind of exchange. I would be interested in seeing a discussion about: 1) Idea of transportation as reform: how are marginal figures or practices figured into efforts to regulate the streets? How has the language of street regulation changed (is it about aesthetic order? ideas of citizenship? gendered roles, norms and spaces? formal vs informal economy? individual actors? collective bodies?) 2) See the debate about policy, governance etc against wider social and economic forces that rely on and take place in the street, maybe to address what Leo was getting at when he requested perspectives on the life of the street, how it functions, why it matters... we need more of this work! 3) Issues of density and suburbanization, do we need more density in cities in India? Are there other models of densification that are more porous than the insular developments popping up all over the countryside of Delhi, Bangalore and other cities? I understand the reticence of some here to accept high density growth, but I wonder how we can engage with it, and what attitudes to density and public life have shaped urban order throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. 4) How new retail models are reshaping the economy of the street... this could be approached from various angles, there is already a lot of work on the new retail sector... but I would like to see more material investigations, about architecture, signage, the texture and semiotics of communication of new (and older) spaces of commerce. Is this all a matter of defending the street? If you travel to a city such as Hong Kong, and see the new kind of development that is happening... the datum upon which economic and social life takes place is no longer the street, but the escalator, the mall, the metro station etc... all sorts of connections that push through different regulatory bodies (apartment complexes, the metro rail, building managers etc). The street is incidental, a way for cars to move but a leftover between property boundaries... it is no longer a locus of public life. This is a radical transformation, one in some ways difficult to embrace, but something we might want to take seriously... I know Leo and Zainab were some time back asking for sources, probably more bound to India or the contemporary, regarding the life of the street... I am attaching (I apologize for not distributing this sooner) a syllabus of a course I am taking right now, taught by Shirine Hamadeh here at Rice University, on streets and urban life. It is an invaluable resource to anyone looking to work on the issue, to enter into an informed historical perspective. Especially relevant are accounts of Egypt and Ottoman Istanbul that in some ways remind me of the urban experience in Modern India, in the sense of there being an expanding thin administration of urban order by the state that is coupled with a porous legal structure, effectively allowing for 'avenues of participation'... or locations of agency and authority that are non-representative but nonetheless transformative of how we live, work and build in a city. If any of the readings are of special interest, I could scan them and send them along. Curt ----- Original Message ---- From: Vinay Baindur To: JNNURM WATCH ; Hasiru Usiru ; CAF2 ; Bruhat Bengaluru Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 10:23:34 AM Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward Madhav G Badami Anitem in The Times of India (March 19) reported on the results of asurvey which showed that the public believe that the poor quality ofour roads is the No. 1 reason, followed closely by poor trafficmanagement and lack of proper (sic) infrastructure like flyovers fortraffic congestion, which itself appears, according to the item, to bethe primary public concern. I can certainly empathize with thefrustration with the congestion on our roads, having been stuck intraffic in Bangalore and other Indian cities, but I am concerned thatthis frustration will lead to an excessive, even if not exclusive,focus on road-building (and road widening) as a solution to our urbantransport woes. While there is an important role for personal andother motor vehicles (and infrastructure for these modes, as well aseffective traffic management), there is also a crucially important rolefor walking and cycling, and infrastructure and facilities — such ascontrolled pedestrian crossings — for the safe and convenient use ofthese modes, if we want to mitigate the serious impacts of rapidlygrowing motor vehicle activity. Providing infrastructure for motorvehicles, while ignoring that for the non-motorized modes, will likelyincrease already serious access and time loss, and road safety, impactsfor the many who own no motor vehicles, and therefore have no choicebut to walk and cycle. Further, while road-building may improve speedsfor motor vehicles and ease congestion in the short term, it will, asinternational experience has shown, very likely be neutralized over thelonger term, by rendering the other modes even more unviable,increasing the need for motor vehicle ownership and use, and forcingmotor vehicle owners to needlessly drive even for short distances,leading to ever more motor vehicle activity and congestion, and theneed to build more roads, in a vicious spiral. It is likely that weare already seeing the negative effects of the neglect ofinfrastructure for walking and cycling in Bangalore. The data for thecity show that as many as 38% of all persontrips are by personal(mainly two-wheeled) motor vehicles, with another 41% by buses, andonly 17% by walk and cycle. The last figure is a lot lower (and thefirst a lot higher) than in other major Indian cities, including Delhi,by far the most motorized Indian city. If in fact the low walk andcycle shares are a faithful representation of reality, rather than theresult of under-counting of these trips, it is likely that they are atleast partly a reflection of the highly compromised access for thesemodes, due to rapidly growing motor vehicle activity, and planning toaccommodate it. Ignoring walking and cycling can become aself-fulfilling prophecy; the less you provide for them, the less thesemodes will be used. Infrastructure for walking and cycling isvitally important, because these modes are potentially competitive interms of door-to-door journey times with cars and even metro, and manymore people would likely use them, especially for short and mediumdistance trips, which account for a large proportion of all trips, ifadequate facilities were provided for them; and given that pedestrianaccessibility is crucially important for the viability of publictransit. 'Build it and they will come' is as true of pedestrians andcyclists as it is of motor vehicles. Finally, while reliable,convenient, affordable, and widespread public transit is necessary forgetting people out of personal motor vehicles, its success in doing so,and indeed, the ability to curb rapid growth in motor vehicle activityand its impacts, also depends on pricing motor vehicle use at a levelthat will internalize its costs, discourage avoidable motor vehicletrips, and provide incentives and funding for more sustainable choices.In this regard, it is worth noting that the costs of operating personalmotor vehicles are so low, notwithstanding the recently increased fuelprices (they are of the order of a rupee per kilometre on a two-wheeledmotor vehicle), and parking is so inexpensive even if not alwaysreadily available, that no such incentives to avoid personal motorizedtrips, even for the shortest distances, currently exist. What weurgently need in order to effectively address our urban transportchallenge is an integrated approach that accounts for multiple urbantransport impacts (access loss, road safety, congestion, air pollution,and energy consumption), caters for multiple modes and user groups thatare differentially affected by motorization, and is sensitive to theneeds, capabilities and constraints in the Indian context. Such anapproach, encompassing accessibility for all, including nonmotorizedmodes, quality public transit, and pricing of personal motor vehicleuse, along with serious attention to land use-transport integration,would provide viable alternatives for a range of road users, minimizethe need for long distance motorized trips, and curb rapid growth inmotor vehicle activity by restricting it to its highest value uses,which would in turn allow all modes (including personal motor vehicles)to operate more efficiently, enhance the effectiveness of mass transit,mitigate rapidly worsening urban transport impacts, and promote socialjustice on our roads. (The writer teaches in the School of Urban Planning and the McGill School of Environment at McGill University in Montreal, Canada) ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080401/0b539f1c/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Streets Syllabus.doc Type: application/msword Size: 44544 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080401/0b539f1c/attachment-0001.doc From davidboyk at gmail.com Wed Apr 2 05:52:19 2008 From: davidboyk at gmail.com (David Boyk) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 17:22:19 -0700 Subject: [Urbanstudy] South Asian urban transportation history Message-ID: <182642c40804011722y4177d891nfab110313c2dd6ae@mail.gmail.com> Dear everyone, I'm a first-year graduate student in the history department at UC Berkeley, and I'm working on a project on transportation and geography in early twentieth-century South Asian cities. I'm interested in how people, particularly in the lower and lower-middle classes, navigated the city between about 1890 and 1965: how they got between work and home; where they went for leisure; how bicycles, buses or trams affected how they moved through and perceived the city; and how they moved in and between neighborhoods. I've found a number of official sources on city planning and so forth, newspaper ads for bicycles, and some other assorted materials, but I would really like a broader range of sources. Can anyone point me to discussions in fiction, periodicals or memoirs of how people dealt with the physical or social space of the city? Or any other source that might be helpful? Thanks very much, David Boyk davidboyk at gmail.com From bawazainab79 at gmail.com Wed Apr 2 21:57:52 2008 From: bawazainab79 at gmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 21:57:52 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward In-Reply-To: <773629.27269.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <773629.27269.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Dear Curt, Thanks for initiating what I think is an important discussion and a rich set of questions to ponder over, some of which I have been thinking about for my own work on urban economies. I wanted to share some of the experiences that I had while visiting the High Court of Karnataka as I was following the PIL lodged by the CMH Road traders, now asking for a stay on the construction of the Metro on their road. What was interesting throughout the process of the case and even in their prior writ petition that they withdrew, is their belief that the Metro is a great thing, it will bring them more customers and that they are not against it except for the fact that it running through their area as an elevated sky train. In the worst case, they don't mind if the Metro runs underground on their road but not elevated. In the beginning, I would find it really hard to understand what side of the issue they were on, but as I discovered later, there are numerous positions and in these matters, there cannot be a for-or-against stance. The strategy is to play it by the ear and still have some long-term plan in mind. I also found it intriguing and to some extent very exciting about how the CMH Road Traders' lawyer was doing a performance in the court as she was trying to argue - thus, she kept stating how the state is supreme and there is no questioning of the state, but there can be some element of mercy and consideration and here are people who want to stay in their place. I felt that the court is this space of performance of citizenship, of authority, of negotiation and also of graft. What is also interesting is how the court functions in these matters and perhaps also in other matters. Clearly, the court is not a provider of justice and it would be foolish to even imagine the court delivering justice. The court is purely an arbitrator, arbitrating on the basis of opinion, interpretations and some archaic laws. Interestingly, if you enter the High Court premises here, there are vendors selling second hand clothes inside the court premises and a rotating space where different vendors come and go - the last one I saw were two Muslim, sufi like characters, advising people on what gem they should wear for good luck, wealth, etc. I could never have imagined this "illegality" in the space of "legality". I was later told that moneylenders do the rounds in the High Court in Ahmedabad, offering people loans. Now something to think about urban spaces and their imagined symbolic value! I think your question about the importance of the street and transition in Hong Kong is what is very interesting to think aloud about. I was thinking about the streets in the context of urban economies, wondering how are these economies now being performed when the streets are being sanitized and people are being pushed out by various ways and means. I am wondering aloud right now that the importance of the street is the interactions that take place not only between people in the city, but symbolically between the state and individuals and between law and practice. If this interaction now moves into some other sphere, that is interesting to follow and examine. Also, the streets are a direct experience of what we understand as the city. Where is this experience moving now? Cheers, Zainab On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 12:19 AM, Curt Gambetta wrote: > I completely agree with the author. All of our recent discussion about > streets really underscores the desire and need for mobility in the > contemporary urban economy, and that transport unfolds at a great range of > scales of travel time, purpose and infrastructure... > > I was reminded last summer of the difficulty of assigning political roles > regarding who is for and against recent infrastructure projects, in > Bangalore specifically. Rajan and I were speaking with a chemist in > Indiranagar, soon to be affected by the Metro construction, who explained > how the completion of the Airport Road/Domlur flyover was a boon to > business. I assumed that the shop owner would be more cynical towards > infrastructure projects like this in general, perhaps out of bitterness to > the major infrastructure intervention that would soon displace his business. > But, he benefited from the flyover (an object of significant distaste for > many progressive folks in Bangalore, myself included!), it gave customers > greater access to his shop on CMH road... his opposition was not to > infrastructure as such. I think this is more than a question of nuance, > because I think as anyone working on the issue already knows well, how > agency and resistance are constructed are vital to crafting the issue > itself. > > I am interested in how the contours of debate are shaped through groups of > business owners, activists, 'civil society' and such. I think it is useful > to always bear in mind the long and global history of disciplining and > modernizing the life of the street, in many contexts, because cases ranging > from the United States to Egypt all at least raise the kinds of questions to > reflect on about how marginal figures are created in efforts to rationalize > urban social order. How do contexts of road widening or regulation of > hawkers or pavement dwellers construct models of order? How are figures of > ambivalence constructed and disciplined? Ambivalence here understood, as > sociology Zygmunt Bauman understood it, as that which modernity has no > language for and cannot classify... ambivalence is, he argues, much more > difficult to regulate and manage than order and disorder. This kind of > anxiety plays itself out on the street in many ways in contemporary India, > be it in regards to encroachments, hawkers, street dwellers, sex workers > etc. > > This is sort of off the cuff, but I think it would benefit us to think > about organizing some kind of workshop/ symposium that brings together much > of the work happening on transportation and street life in the contemporary > with people who have done work on the historical context, perhaps to induce > a bit of reflection on the issue. I think it would be useful to supplement > what are already largely policy or legal issues with a good amount of > social, economic and architectural history. If we want to argue for the > street (or what the street allows for, maybe not the street as such?), then > we need this kind of exchange. I would be interested in seeing a discussion > about: > > 1) Idea of transportation as reform: how are marginal figures or practices > figured into efforts to regulate the streets? How has the language of street > regulation changed (is it about aesthetic order? ideas of citizenship? > gendered roles, norms and spaces? formal vs informal economy? individual > actors? collective bodies?) > 2) See the debate about policy, governance etc against wider social and > economic forces that rely on and take place in the street, maybe to address > what Leo was getting at when he requested perspectives on the life of the > street, how it functions, why it matters... we need more of this work! > 3) Issues of density and suburbanization, do we need more density in > cities in India? Are there other models of densification that are more > porous than the insular developments popping up all over the countryside of > Delhi, Bangalore and other cities? I understand the reticence of some here > to accept high density growth, but I wonder how we can engage with it, and > what attitudes to density and public life have shaped urban order throughout > the 20th and 21st centuries. > 4) How new retail models are reshaping the economy of the street... this > could be approached from various angles, there is already a lot of work on > the new retail sector... but I would like to see more material > investigations, about architecture, signage, the texture and semiotics of > communication of new (and older) spaces of commerce. > > Is this all a matter of defending the street? If you travel to a city such > as Hong Kong, and see the new kind of development that is happening... the > datum upon which economic and social life takes place is no longer the > street, but the escalator, the mall, the metro station etc... all sorts of > connections that push through different regulatory bodies (apartment > complexes, the metro rail, building managers etc). The street is incidental, > a way for cars to move but a leftover between property boundaries... it is > no longer a locus of public life. This is a radical transformation, one in > some ways difficult to embrace, but something we might want to take > seriously... > > I know Leo and Zainab were some time back asking for sources, probably > more bound to India or the contemporary, regarding the life of the street... > I am attaching (I apologize for not distributing this sooner) a syllabus of > a course I am taking right now, taught by Shirine Hamadeh here at Rice > University, on streets and urban life. It is an invaluable resource to > anyone looking to work on the issue, to enter into an informed historical > perspective. Especially relevant are accounts of Egypt and Ottoman Istanbul > that in some ways remind me of the urban experience in Modern India, in the > sense of there being an expanding thin administration of urban order by the > state that is coupled with a porous legal structure, effectively allowing > for 'avenues of participation'... or locations of agency and authority that > are non-representative but nonetheless transformative of how we live, work > and build in a city. If any of the readings are of special interest, I could > scan them and send them along. > > Curt > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Vinay Baindur > To: JNNURM WATCH ; Hasiru Usiru < > hasiruusiru at yahoogroups.com>; CAF2 ; > Bruhat Bengaluru > Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 10:23:34 AM > Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way > forward > > Urban transport: accessibility for all is the way forward > Madhav G Badami > > An item in The Times of India (March 19) reported on the results of a > survey which showed that the public believe that the poor quality of our > roads is the No. 1 reason, followed closely by poor traffic management and > lack of proper (sic) infrastructure like flyovers for traffic congestion, > which itself appears, according to the item, to be the primary public > concern. I can certainly empathize with the frustration with the congestion > on our roads, having been stuck in traffic in Bangalore and other Indian > cities, but I am concerned that this frustration will lead to an excessive, > even if not exclusive, focus on road-building (and road widening) as a > solution to our urban transport woes. > While there is an important role for personal and other motor vehicles > (and infrastructure for these modes, as well as effective traffic > management), there is also a crucially important role for walking and > cycling, and infrastructure and facilities — such as controlled pedestrian > crossings — for the safe and convenient use of these modes, if we want to > mitigate the serious impacts of rapidly growing motor vehicle activity. > Providing infrastructure for motor vehicles, while ignoring that for the > non-motorized modes, will likely increase already serious access and time > loss, and road safety, impacts for the many who own no motor vehicles, and > therefore have no choice but to walk and cycle. Further, while road-building > may improve speeds for motor vehicles and ease congestion in the short term, > it will, as international experience has shown, very likely be neutralized > over the longer term, by rendering the other modes even more unviable, > increasing the need for motor vehicle ownership and use, and forcing motor > vehicle owners to needlessly drive even for short distances, leading to ever > more motor vehicle activity and congestion, and the need to build more > roads, in a vicious spiral. > It is likely that we are already seeing the negative effects of the > neglect of infrastructure for walking and cycling in Bangalore. The data for > the city show that as many as 38% of all persontrips are by personal (mainly > two-wheeled) motor vehicles, with another 41% by buses, and only 17% by walk > and cycle. The last figure is a lot lower (and the first a lot higher) than > in other major Indian cities, including Delhi, by far the most motorized > Indian city. If in fact the low walk and cycle shares are a faithful > representation of reality, rather than the result of under-counting of these > trips, it is likely that they are at least partly a reflection of the highly > compromised access for these modes, due to rapidly growing motor vehicle > activity, and planning to accommodate it. Ignoring walking and cycling can > become a self-fulfilling prophecy; the less you provide for them, the less > these modes will be used. > Infrastructure for walking and cycling is vitally important, because these > modes are potentially competitive in terms of door-to-door journey times > with cars and even metro, and many more people would likely use them, > especially for short and medium distance trips, which account for a large > proportion of all trips, if adequate facilities were provided for them; and > given that pedestrian accessibility is crucially important for the viability > of public transit. 'Build it and they will come' is as true of pedestrians > and cyclists as it is of motor vehicles. > Finally, while reliable, convenient, affordable, and widespread public > transit is necessary for getting people out of personal motor vehicles, its > success in doing so, and indeed, the ability to curb rapid growth in motor > vehicle activity and its impacts, also depends on pricing motor vehicle use > at a level that will internalize its costs, discourage avoidable motor > vehicle trips, and provide incentives and funding for more sustainable > choices. In this regard, it is worth noting that the costs of operating > personal motor vehicles are so low, notwithstanding the recently increased > fuel prices (they are of the order of a rupee per kilometre on a two-wheeled > motor vehicle), and parking is so inexpensive even if not always readily > available, that no such incentives to avoid personal motorized trips, even > for the shortest distances, currently exist. > What we urgently need in order to effectively address our urban transport > challenge is an integrated approach that accounts for multiple urban > transport impacts (access loss, road safety, congestion, air pollution, and > energy consumption), caters for multiple modes and user groups that are > differentially affected by motorization, and is sensitive to the needs, > capabilities and constraints in the Indian context. Such an approach, > encompassing accessibility for all, including nonmotorized modes, quality > public transit, and pricing of personal motor vehicle use, along with > serious attention to land use-transport integration, would provide viable > alternatives for a range of road users, minimize the need for long distance > motorized trips, and curb rapid growth in motor vehicle activity by > restricting it to its highest value uses, which would in turn allow all > modes (including personal motor vehicles) to operate more efficiently, > enhance the effectiveness of mass transit, mitigate rapidly worsening urban > transport impacts, and promote social justice on our roads. > (The writer teaches in the School of Urban Planning and the McGill School > of Environment > at McGill University in Montreal, Canada) > > > ------------------------------ > You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster > Total Access, > No Cost. > > _______________________________________________ > Urbanstudygroup mailing list > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City > > To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup > > -- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher Between Places ... http://wbfs.wordpress.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080402/42347f1a/attachment-0001.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Thu Apr 3 13:32:27 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:32:27 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Local pride buffets Bangalore business Message-ID: <86b8a7050804030102t1a1d368ch391aadf86c33f982@mail.gmail.com> Local pride buffets Bangalore business By Sudha Ramachandran Asia Times BANGALORE - This city's cosmopolitan culture is coming under pressure in the wake of growing militancy of outfits claiming to represent the interests of the local Kannadiga population. This militancy was on display a month ago when activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV - Karnataka Protection Forum) stormed offices of a multinational company to protest alleged ridicule of Kannada culture by an employee of the company. It appears that a Canadian employee of Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd, an IT solutions company that employs around 3,500 people, wrote a poem - what he described as "an anthem for Karnataka" - poking fun at local Kannadigas and ridiculing Kannada pride. According to reports, he had emailed the poem to others in the office and had been singing this "anthem" to harass a Kannadiga woman employee. He was apparently joined in the singing every morning by other non-Kannadiga employees. A video clip of the jeering made its way to a local television channel, which telecast it. Within hours of the telecast, enraged activists of the KRV were picketing Sasken's offices in Bangalore. They threw stones and destroyed the company's key server room. "The attack was necessary to remind Sasken that they are operating in Karnataka and should respect our pride and the women in this land," KRV president Narayana Gowda said. The KRV is a pro-Kannada organization, which claims to represent the interests of the local Kannadiga population. Less than a decade old, it says it has more than 10,000 units and about 2 million volunteers across Karnataka. Sasken responded quickly by sacking the employee. In a bid to make peace with the Kannada activists, it said in a statement that it "respects Karnataka and the sentiments of its people and [is] proud to be a part of this state and in no way supports any activity that is against the interest and sentiments of Karnataka and its people." The attack on Sasken's offices in Bangalore is not the first time that the KRV has unleashed violence in the name of protecting the interests of local Kannadigas. Nor is it the first time that it has directed its ire against an IT company. In 2005, hundreds of KRV activists picketed offices of Infosys Technologies, one of India's biggest IT companies and its second-largest software exporter, demanding priority for Kannadigas in appointments to IT companies. The same year, its activists demonstrated outside IBM's Bangalore office to protest the opposition to singing of Kannada songs by a section of IBM employees at a company cultural event. Bangalore is India's IT capital, with companies in the sector operating out of the city contributing 33% of the country's US$32 billion IT exports in 2006-07. It is also the capital of the southern state of Karnataka. Kannada is the official language of the state and is spoken by the majority of the people. But in Bangalore itself, Kannadigas constitute just 38.7% of its roughly 5.25 million-strong population, the rest being "outsiders", ie people from outside the state. With a economic growth rate of 10.3%, it is India's second-fastest growing region. This economic boom together with the city's pleasant climate and cosmopolitan culture is drawing people from other parts of the country. If in the past it was Tamils from neighboring Tamil Nadu who constituted the bulk of the outsiders in Bangalore, today North Indians are pouring into the city. While some are professionals in the IT industry, the bulk are construction workers, carpenters, guards and cooks. A section of Kannadigas fears that the influx of outsiders has not only altered the demographic composition of Bangalore but also altered its culture. Many outsiders, and even many locals, cannot speak Kannada and prefer conversing in English or Hindi. Bangalore's culture has become "westernized", locals complain, pointing to pubs and nightclubs "which arrived here with the IT brat pack". Kannada movies are not as popular and do not draw the kind of audiences that English or Hindi movies do. As a result the Kannada film industry is in the doldrums. Bangalore's culture is losing its Kannada flavor, supporters of the local culture complain, pointing out that it has become "Westernized". One can certainly survive in Bangalore without knowing the local language and most residents, even those who have lived here for decades would identify themselves as Bangaloreans, not as Kannadigas. It is not just the emotional issue of pride in Kannada culture that is stirring anger among a section of locals. There is an economic angle. Locals feel excluded from Bangalore's economic prosperity. They insist that it is outsiders who dominate the software industry and have gained from the IT boom. Kannadigas feel they are being "Bangalored" from their capital. Today Bangalore is a city divided. It might be home to 10,000 dollar millionaires but 35%% of its population lives in some 400 slums that dot the city. The divide is largely between the employees of the tech industry and the rest, the affluent and the less privileged. And this divide roughly coincides with the outsider-insider split. It is visible in starkly different lifestyles as well. Bangalore's techies receive fat paychecks, live in swanky apartments and unwind in nightclubs. They talk differently and live differently. The rest of Bangalore doesn't have prospective employers lining up with better job offers; many people simply don't have jobs. Bangalore is witnessing financial success but mounting discontent as well. And the discontented - mostly locals - blame the IT industry for their woes. Not only have they not benefited from the IT boom; worse, they are suffering because of it. With IT professionals buying up around 50% of new apartments coming up in the city, property prices are fixed with them in mind, locals lament. This has resulted in soaring rents. Locals also blame traffic jams on IT professionals - "their cars are flooding our streets" is a common gripe. It is this discontent among locals that groups like the KRV claim to represent and are actively mobilizing. In the 1970s, another grouping, the Kannada Chaluvali, was the self-appointed guardian of Kannadiga interests, but it lacked mass support and was a bit of a joke, often dismissed as a one-man army. In the 1990s, a dispute over sharing of water from the River Cauvery with neighboring Tamil Nadu deepened the feeling of victimhood among Kannadigas, providing a shot in the arm to linguistic chauvinism. Anti-Tamil riots developed in Bangalore. Several self-appointed guardians of Kannada interests emerged, the KRV among them. Others include the Kannada Sene, the Karunada Sene, and the Karnataka Gadi Horata Samithi. In the name of protecting local interests, these groups have engaged in intimidation and mob violence. They have defaced English-language signboards, demanding that Kannada be used instead, and have attacked cinema theatres screening Hindi and Tamil films in Bangalore. Their members have heckled eminent personalities such as Ramesh Ramanathan, head of Janagraaha, a respected Bangalore-based NGO, for not speaking in Kannada at public meetings. Activists have stopped trains and vandalized railway stations to demand more local recruitment. Two years ago, when a hugely popular Kannada film star - a champion of Kannada culture and an icon for Kannada activists - died, mobs went on a rampage through Bangalore. Almost 1,000 vehicles including public buses and private cars were damaged. The violence cost the city around $160 million, with software firms losing roughly $40 million in revenue. . The IT sector appears to be emerging as an important battleground. Kannada activists insist that locals account for a small fraction of those employed in IT and IT-related services. Even these are at the lower levels. The management is predominantly north Indian while the techies are from other states in south India, not Karnataka, they argue, pointing out that even contracts to run canteens and provide security go to outsiders. IT companies insist that they do not hire along linguistic lines. When KRV targeted Infosys in 2005, demanding job quotas for locals, Infosys claimed that a quarter of its employees are locals and that it hires from 46 engineering colleges in the state. KRV's demand was turned down by the government, the IT companies and industry bodies, which insisted that Kannadigas were meritorious enough to get jobs in IT companies and did not need quotas. At work, office politics sometimes takes on linguistic overtones. In the Sasken incident, for instance, what began as a case of sexual harassment quickly became a conflict pitting locals against outsiders. The insider/outsider conflict is an old one in India, with "sons of the soil" feeling besieged by migrants. It has been the central theme of the insurgency in the northeastern state of Assam, for instance. In Mumbai, India's commercial and financial capital, such schisms have been apparent for several decades, actively fueled by the Shiv Sena, a political party claiming to represent the interests of Marathis, the local population there. It was south Indians, especially Tamils, who were the target of the Shiv Sena in the 1970s. Today, it is the north Indians mainly migrants from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. This year, activists of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (a breakaway of the Shiv Sena) attacked both Indian taxi drivers and vendors in Mumbai and other cities. Will outfits like KRV choose the Shiv Sena path? Shiv Sena is a powerful political party and has ruled the state of Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital) in the 1990s. It wields immense influence in local urban bodies and in the police force. An order from its chief Bal Thackeray can bring out thousands of activists to the streets. It has the capacity to paralyze Mumbai, the country's financial center. The recent anti-outsider violence resulted in the flight of hundreds of thousands of people from the city. In a bid to appease Kannada activists, the Karnataka government has set in motion a process to change Bangalore's name to Bengaluru, the way it is pronounced in Kannada. IT companies are trying to buy peace with Kannada activists by displaying Kannada flags prominently at their offices. Neither the name change not the flags is likely to douse the flames of Kannada chauvinism. Anti-outsider feelings are growing. The increasing militancy of KRV and other outfits in Bangalore is worrying, as they could be tempted to go the Shiv Sena way. Any excuse is reason for them to bring their cadres on to the streets to engage in vandalism. What makes IT companies attractive targets of the activists is that any development involving the latter makes international headlines, any "threat" to the IT sector brings the activists instant media attention. No less important, the IT companies are cash-rich. To some Kannada outfits this means that they are in a position to pay large amounts of money to buy peace. At present the threat the KRV poses can still be dismissed as a little more than a recurring headache, having nuisance value. However, the phenomenal growth of the organization in the short span of a decade and the growing militancy are cause for concern. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080403/dbc3b172/attachment.html From aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com Thu Apr 3 18:50:25 2008 From: aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com (Aashish Gupta) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 18:50:25 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban development secretary on problems and solutions of urban life Message-ID: Do check out http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interview/M_Ramachandran_Urban_development_secretary/articleshow/2921333.cms Aashish Gupta Student of Development Studies IIT Madras -- Chal Bulleya chal othae challeeya, jithae sarae annae. Naa koi saddi zaat paehchannae, thae na koi sanu mannae -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080403/1f3198ac/attachment.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Thu Apr 3 19:09:58 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 19:09:58 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Citizens & climate change Message-ID: <86b8a7050804030639h1d369f71o93916b7573241e00@mail.gmail.com> http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/03010137/Citizens-amp-climate-change.html* Citizens & climate change * Projects are not planned and integrated as part of a larger vision, but as insular activities Mihir R. Bhatt Indian cities are going through a historic transformation: never before have so many cities changed so much in such a short time. But the citizens have diminishing say over these changes. For example, the National Urban Renewal Mission, the largest ever direct public investment project for reviving Indian cities, funded by the government of India, has come down from urban renewal to building sewerage, roads and bridges: a wishful exercise of catching up with basic service gaps. This is not a renewal but a poor and late effort to repair our cities, guided by token consultation events. A democratic opportunity to involve citizens in shaping their future is being lost. Similarly, the unprecedented infrastructure investment in our cities by the private sector is narrowly focused on specific projects — airports, roads, townships, economic zones or convention centres — and not on the city as a whole. Regency Park residences are offered next to Roshanara Road halwai shops by clever builders in Delhi, or Manhattan Avenues are launched in drainageless areas of Maninagars of Ahmedabad by city contractors. Projects are not planned and integrated as part of a larger vision, but as insular activities. Recent visits across nine Indian cities showed that what citizens want are safe, sustainable and inclusive cities. G. Shanker of Habitat, a leading artisan's construction movement based in Thiruvananthapuram, points out that cities can, in fact, be engines for reducing carbon footprints by building climate-friendly offices and homes, using near-zero emissions public transport and accelerating expansion of the recycling industry. "We have the know-how and we have the willingness of our citizens across cities," Shanker argues. We can build cities that save conventional energy as well as produce alternative energy, make pollution reduction profitable and contribute to both climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives of the city authorities and citizens. Making cities climate-friendly also has potential for promoting work security for vulnerable communities by accelerating their livelihood returns from carbon-reducing construction and waste-arresting consumption. "The poor can earn income by making large-scale but decentralized solar energy available at local level as well as recycle almost everything that is now dumped as garbage," pointed out a women masons cooperative member, Dipikaben, in Ahmedabad. Manufacturing solar panels or constructing new tools and utilities has employment potential. "If thoughtful financial incentives for green products and services are offered, climate risk mitigation can be a low-investment, high-employment sector," added a leading local women's cooperative bank officer from Surat. Building climate-friendly cities through mass employment across low-income communities cannot be achieved by the way we currently govern our cities. Decentralized, participatory and inclusive governance is a must. "Citizens must see the impact of their views and decisions in their working and living conditions," pointed out a community schoolteacher in Delhi. Governance must focus not only on economic growth, but on sustainable growth of all in the city. "City governance should balance global economic forces affecting the city with local ownership and management by citizens," added a city safety adviser in Mumbai. Such cities cannot be reserved for a few, however rich or poor, rooted or migrant citizens. Cities will have to reach out to more and more citizens. What city planners have offered is endless issues, but not solutions that can be used in different states and cities. It is time citizens themselves offer prototypes to planners and policymakers to support and proliferate. The Mattanchery Anganwadi Committee in Kochi said: "We should not be pushed back to managing our homes. We can manage civic affairs." India's globally recognized management consulting firms can work on suitable interplay across livelihood, carbon use, governance and inclusion in cities. They would need the vision from civil society and leadership from key cities such as Delhi or Mumbai. It would be good idea for India to showcase a few prototypes of safe, sustainable and inclusive cities at the upcoming World Urban Forum organized by the UN Habitat in Beijing. Citizens should not leave the future of cities to government or political parties or investors alone. They should start shaping their cities. *Mihir R. Bhatt is an architect and city planner, working with the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, Ahmedabad. Comments are welcome at otherviews at livemint.com* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080403/85ff7a68/attachment-0001.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Thu Apr 3 21:24:00 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 21:24:00 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: Satyagraha for pedestrians' rights DNA mumbai Message-ID: <86b8a7050804030854x11e1ccbfw35c67359c89e5568@mail.gmail.com> *UNIQUE PROTEST COULD GENERATE A CROSS CITY PEDESTRIANS RIGHTS DAY OF ACTION ..... *SINCE CHENNAI AND MUMBAI CITIZENS ARE ON THE STREETS TO CLAIM THEIR SHARE OF ROAD SPACE ... and others could join in 3 April 2008 Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:20:00 AM *Satyagraha for pedestrians' rights* Sandeep Ashar *Bandra residents use this strategy to claim the right to use road space encroached upon by autos and hawkers* MUMBAI: The tony suburb of Bandra has a brand new fixation — the Pedestrian Satyagraha or civil disobedience for the rights of pedestrians. The fight for pedestrians having the first right to use road space, initiated by the group Sahasi Padyatri and supported by DNA, has found a considerable support from Bandra residents. So overwhelming has been the response that the activist pedestrians have decided to make it a mainstay for the campaign. Krishnaraj Rao, co-founder of Sahasi Padyatri, whose volunteers have taken to drawing 6 ft lanes from the centre of the road on both sides, said, "Having received support from the citizens' trust in Bandra, we have decided to continue marking lanes in the suburb as a 'pedestrian-only' territory. Buoyed by the response, we have decided to focus our efforts in this region." Volunteers of the group, along with local citizens, will repaint the pedestrian-only lanes at Bandra's station road on Thursday. These lanes were painted last week. The campaign was appreciated by many commuters and locals, for whom walking on the road had become a nightmare with autorickshaws and hawkers encroaching upon the road space meant for pedestrians. Vidya Vaidya, member, Federation of H/West Ward Citizens' Trust, attributed the response to the active citizens' movement in the suburb. "We have jointly decided to support the group in the fight for the pedestrians' territory. We will keep demarcating lanes and encourage more and more people to use these lanes," she said. While Bandra has taken to the satyagraha like no other, citizens from all parts from the city have begun to volunteer for the cause. Rao said, "Aggrieved pedestrians from any part of the city can contact the group for staging the satyagraha in their area." *If the roads in your area are hell for pedestrians and you want to voice your protest, contact Sahasi Padyatri at 98215 88114 or mail us at ** padyatri at dnaindia.net* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080403/844b7a87/attachment.html From deepika031 at rediffmail.com Fri Apr 4 10:41:54 2008 From: deepika031 at rediffmail.com (Deepika Mathur) Date: 4 Apr 2008 05:11:54 -0000 Subject: [Urbanstudy] housing as a percentage of construction sector Message-ID: <20080404051154.23972.qmail@f4mail211.rediffmail.com> Hi, I am a PhD student in the University of Melbourne. I am after the following information: what percentage does housing constitute in the overall building construction industry in India? Part of my research is to identify the need for addressing housing sector for developing frameworks for sustainable architecture rather than only concentrating on the 'green' corporate buildings that currently represent sustainable construction practices in India. Deepika Mathur Deepika Mathur 2/51, Brunswick Road Brunswick East VIC 3057 Australia Office: +61 3 8344 7265 Home: +61 3 9381 0600 Fax: +61 3 8344 5532 M: +61 421 802 304 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080404/11c7d3f1/attachment.html From sharma_mail at yahoo.com Fri Apr 4 12:06:57 2008 From: sharma_mail at yahoo.com (manish sharma) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:36:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] housing as a percentage of construction sector Message-ID: <536452.21329.qm@web51410.mail.re2.yahoo.com> hi deepika i think minimum 75% housing for one family of 4 you need a 1000 sqft apartment but just 100 sqft per person in an office even if we add in 100 sqft for each child for schooling, 5 sqft for shopping and other needs then 75% housing, 10% schooling, 5% shopping, 10% others ( including infrastructure, govt. etc ) not to forget that people own more than one homes & to add in NRI homes. 75 % should be a good guess including elders in. manish sharma photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/futureisinbeta/ contact +65 93397934 (handphone/ mobile) +65 63007904 (resi.) ----- Original Message ---- From: Deepika Mathur To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net Sent: Friday, 4 April, 2008 1:11:54 PM Subject: [Urbanstudy] housing as a percentage of construction sector Hi, I am a PhD student in the University of Melbourne. I am after the following information: what percentage does housing constitute in the overall building construction industry in India? Part of my research is to identify the need for addressing housing sector for developing frameworks for sustainable architecture rather than only concentrating on the 'green' corporate buildings that currently represent sustainable construction practices in India. Deepika Mathur Deepika Mathur 2/51, Brunswick Road Brunswick East VIC 3057 Australia Office: +61 3 8344 7265 Home: +61 3 9381 0600 Fax: +61 3 8344 5532 M: +61 421 802 304 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080403/c41fc165/attachment.html From cheryl.deutsch at gmail.com Sat Apr 5 18:55:39 2008 From: cheryl.deutsch at gmail.com (Cheryl Deutsch) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 18:55:39 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] South Asian urban transportation history Message-ID: <189301e00804050625ua0b803fi30f60ace57275c79@mail.gmail.com> Hi David, Sounds like interesting research. You might want to get in touch with the people at Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai... their website is: http://www.udri.org/ Cheryl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080405/0f1760e5/attachment.html From janjaria at ucsc.edu Sun Apr 6 03:12:17 2008 From: janjaria at ucsc.edu (Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 17:42:17 -0400 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Karen and pedestrian access project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Curt, Zainab, Karen and everyone else, Thanks for starting this great discussion on the street, mobility and urban reconfiguration, which I think addresses a critical set of issues at the moment. It is striking that the renewed attack on the street in urban India (I say 'renewed' because the authorities have attempted to tame peoples' behavior on the street in Bombay at least since the early 20th c.) is taking place at the same time that, in Europe and a bit in the U.S., the street is undergoing a revival. (just as the mall's death in the US has coincided with its arrival on the Indian scene, which I think Curt mentioned). Consider, for instance, urban design trends such as the 'shared space'/ 'woonerf' idea found in Holland and Denmark mostly, which is basically a reversal of the modernist ideal of segregation of space according to activity. (there is a good descriptive piece no 'shared streets' idea in Salon: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/05/20/ traffic_design/index.html. The idea is the encouragement of a logical chaos by blurring the distinction between the sidewalk and the street (footpath and carriageway) and removing signage, which, its proponents argue, slows vehicle speed, which in turn enables communication among the space's various users and the integration of pedestrian, bicycle and motor vehicle (and, we can assume, hawker) activitiy. It is an interesting idea to think with if we are to address the issue of pedestrian access in a way that does not preclude rights of hawkers to public space, such as Karen's exciting pedestrian access project in Chennai. In Mumbai (where my work is focused) 'citizens' groups' persistently promote the idea that pedestrian and hawker access to space are mutually exclusive. On one hand this can be explained by the class-based nature of the citizens' group activism, which is loath to address the obvious problem of (parked and moving) private cars. But this understanding of the 'problem' of urban India's public space also relates to the past century of urban planning, in which ideas such as the removal of ambiguity, and the strict segregation of activiites are privileged above all other concerns. I think there is much potential in getting the word out that, in fact, a certain element of ambiguity in fact creates healthy streets. PUKAR's Gender and Space project also makes this point. However, my intention of bringing up the 'shared space' idea is not to recommend the importation of yet another idea of urban design. My point is that there is a need to recognize, work with, and encourage the immanent systems and logics of Indian streets. Indeed, it is ironic that the characterisitc features of the street in cities like Mumbai—blurred spaces, ambiguity, dense mixed use, absence of footpaths, and a logical chaos —are now being touted as cutting edge urban design in Northern Europe. I believe, although I have no way of knowing for sure, that the advocates of 'shared space' have very little experience with/knowledge of cities in India, which, seen in a certain way, represent this kind of urbanism in its highest form....This suggests an interesting transnational significance of a symposium/workshop on street life and mobility in India such as Curt Gambetta suggested, which I think is a brilliant idea. Clearly there is so much to be learned from the varied forms that the street takes in India. An event such as this would address the lack of writing on this topic (from both contemporary and historical perspectives), and also, I hope, highlight the diverse and unexpected ways a street can work. best, Jon PS: In response to David Boyk's post (April 1)-- you might want to look at Mulk Raj Anand's novel Coolie for a portrayal of early twentieth century working class life on the street in Bombay. Also Sandip Hazareesingh's new book, The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity : Urban Hegemonies and Civic Contestations in Bombay City 1900-1925" addresses the problem of unaffordable public transport for millworkers during this period. Also take a look at "The Greater Bombay Scheme" which is a fascinating 1945 report of traffic and railways in Bombay. On Mar 20, 2008, at 8:18 AM, urbanstudygroup-request at sarai.net wrote: > Send Urbanstudygroup mailing list submissions to > urbanstudygroup at sarai.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > urbanstudygroup-request at sarai.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > urbanstudygroup-owner at sarai.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Urbanstudygroup digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. pedestrian access project Chennai (Karen) > 2. 27March[d] Panel discussion on 'Unrecognised schools - Help > or hurt the Poor?' (Makarand Bakore) > 3. Haats in India (Gaurav Bhushan) > 4. Re: Urbanstudygroup Digest, Vol 49, Issue 16 (Aditi Mittal) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:23:10 +0530 > From: "Karen" > Subject: [Urbanstudy] pedestrian access project Chennai > To: > Message-ID: <00a801c88a57$0f1dd3e0$4600a8c0 at MIDSPC19> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Dear friends, > > A propos the discussions on hawkers and streets, I'd like to share > with you a project that we are into (actually just beginning) here > in Chennai. We call it "The Walking Classes Strike." It is, to > begin with, an assessment of pedestrian facilities on a sample of > the city's streets, involving sections of the pedestrian community > -- school and college students, informal sector workers, disabled > and elderly people -- as investigators. The longer-term aim is to > build up a voice, an organised demand, maybe a platform, of > pedestrians in the city, hopefully through some direct action as > well as ongoing lobbying and advocacy. > > An important part of this project is to explore how pedestrian > facilities can co-exist with spaces for street vendors on the city > pavements. Can the two sets of rights be seen in a collaborative or > mutually supporting way? We want to ensure that our demands for > expanding pavement space does not feed into discourses that support > evictions of street dwellers and hawkers. We are looking at the > national hawkers policy and the Nasvi documents, and will talk to > street vendors here, but if anybody has any inputs that will help > in this, please send or indicate. > > Thanks > > Karen Coelho > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/ > 20080320/54a7c6f2/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:15:29 +0530 > From: "Makarand Bakore" > Subject: [Urbanstudy] 27March[d] Panel discussion on 'Unrecognised > schools - Help or hurt the Poor?' > To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net > Message-ID: > <81b861310803200245s12ec281bmb199a3a04da79790 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" > > Dear friends, > > We are pleased to invite you to a discussion on 'Unrecognised schools > - Help or hurt the Poor?' on 27 March 2008 from 3 pm to 6 pm at the > Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi. > > In February 2008 the Delhi High Court ordered all private unrecognised > schools to either seek recognition or close down. As per one estimate, > there are 10,000 such schools in the capital catering to about 6 lakh > children between the age group of 2 to 18 years. The judgement will > have a significant impact on school education in Delhi. But will it be > positive or negative? How should the government go about executing the > order the Court? What are its possible fall outs? There are no > straight-forward answers to these questions. > > The following distinguished panellist will help us understand some of > these issues: > > - Mr. Ashok Agarwal, Adv. (Social Jurist) > - Mr. R. M. Sinha, Adv. (Counsel for unrecognised schools) > - Mr. R.C. Jain (President, Delhi State Public Schools > Management Association) > - Mr. Vijendra Kumar Gupta (President, Delhi Abhivavak > Mahasangh) > - Mr. T.K. Mathew (Chief Executive, Deepalaya) > - Mr. Shailendra Sharma (Head Programs, Pratham Delhi Education > Initiative) > > Registration is open and we look forward to your participation in > this program. > > > Warm Regards, > Makarand Bakore > Centre for Civil Society > K-36, Hauz Khas Enclave, > New Delhi 110016 > Ph: 011- 26537456 / 26521882 > www.ccs.in > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:06:58 +0530 > From: "Gaurav Bhushan" > Subject: [Urbanstudy] Haats in India > To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net > Message-ID: > <8f821bcf0803200436o3787b9efm2111b7d494b9e1f2 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi Everyone, > > I recently read an article by Mrs. Jaya Jaitley, who conceptualized > and > established the Dilli Haat, an urban crafts market. She described > that the > need was to bring the craftspeople directly to urban areas to > market their > products, and also help them understand the demand of these urban > costumers. > So, it all started as an informal, impermanent haat on the lines of > the > traditional village markets in India which was held every Saturday > near the > Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place, New Delhi. This was back in 1985! > > The problem with this system, however, was that the travel and > transport > costs for the craftsmen were too high. This led her to propose the > Dilli > Haat, a permanent market for impermanent craftsmen! I am sure a lot > of us > feel it was an excellent concept... The Haat evolved from an > impermanent > market to permanent place to meet the needs of the buyers and > sellers in a > different, urban, environment. You may read about her experience > with the > Dilli Haat here http://www.craftrevival.org/Voicedetails.asp?Code=109 > > The Dilli Haat completed 10 successful years in March 2004. And, we > see a > number of urban haats have propped up across the Nation. > Shilparamam in > Hyderabad, Swabhumi in Calcutta, the Bhopal Haat, Amdavad Haat, > Bhuj Haat > and three new Dilli Haats that have been proposed in Pitampura, > Janakpuri > and another one towards East Delhi, are all based on the same > model. A lot > of this can be attributed to Government Policies that are in favor > of the > Dilli Haat Model. > > In my recent visit to a fair at the Amdavad Haat, I realized the > craftsmen > eagerly look forward to an opportunity to participate in these > Haats. There > exists a network of craft clusters that communicate to these > craftsmen, > where they have an opportunity to participate. But not every haat > is as > successful. The craftspeople were not very pleased to be at the > Amdavad > Haat. > > Thanks Cheryl, for your suggestions. I found the material very > interesting. > But for my ongoing project I > will try and > focus on these urban Haats, and the problems and opportunities they > pose. > > Regards, > > Gaurav Bhushan > http://projecthaat.blogspot.com/ > Information Design, National Institute of Design, India > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/ > 20080320/8f51459d/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:48:09 +0530 > From: Aditi Mittal > Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] Urbanstudygroup Digest, Vol 49, Issue 16 > To: > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > > Dear All, > > An apt time for me to have come across a discussion on slum > settlements - someone I know lives in such a settlement that is now > to be surrendered to builders who would like to redevelop the same. > > This lady and her family have been promised the be given back a > share of the redeveloped property in accordance with the property > they are now giving up. > > In the interim period (of one year) a sum of money will be given to > them that will allow them to rent out alternate accomodation. > > I am wondering, what are the rights given by the government to slum > settlers. Is there clarity on this? Do they have ownership / > tenancy rights on the property they live in? What is the policy in > Mumbai? > > Would appreciate some feedback. > > Thanks, > Aditi > > >> Message: 5> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:31:10 +0000 (GMT)> From: >> anant m > Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] slum >> discussion> To: gauri bharat , >> urbanstudygroup at sarai.net> Message-ID: >> <434230.38635.qm at web23005.mail.ird.yahoo.com>> Content-Type: text/ >> plain; charset="iso-8859-1"> > Just to take this note from Gauri >> Bharath a little> further --> two different directions are worth >> pursuing. > 1) the discursive terrain> 2) the state related >> discussion > I am not putting in any citations because this is a> >> rough and ready account. But I will be happy to follow> it up if >> anyone is interested. > > Discursively, the idea of the 'slum' in >> India came> through the colonial administration. The earliest> >> references of slums in India are to be found in the> context of >> the city/town improvement trusts/boards.> The first of these not >> surprisingly were in the two> big port cities -- Calcutta and >> Bombay. This> introduction of slums into colonial port cities> >> happened in the context of both a fear of> plague/cholera >> epidemics and also the need for> rationalizing the city. The moral >> dimension here was a> complicated one -- slums were places of vice >> - but> they also reflected badly on how the administrators> were >> discharging their own moral obligation. However,> in most >> instances the residents opposed slum> eradication efforts. (Often >> these places included> 'unplanned', 'congested' housing lots which >> were> unintelligible to the planner's (of> >> transportation,roads,sanitation etc.) gaze. In the> face of this >> resistance the colonial administration> began to recruit native >> elites to persuade the Hindoos> and Moslems respectively to give >> up their 'bad' living> arrangements. Archives of this kind of >> stuff are not> easy to come by because it will be mostly in the >> form> of city and town improvement trust documents, annual> >> reports etc. as well as diaries and reports of> engineers and >> medical doctors. This process of> spotting and removing slums >> which began in calcutta> and bombay gradually migrated to native >> ruled cities> by the first and second decades of the 20th century> >> and got reshaped by both people like patrick geddes> and >> mokshagundam visweswarayya. although neither of> these people have >> written much directly on slums,> initiatives that were launched >> under their guidance --> City Improvement Board in Hyderabad for >> instance --> record slums removal efforts at that time. > during >> the next two decades, there was a fair amount> of physical >> anthropology kind of work on whether or> not living in slums >> stunts bodily growth, reports of> census officers confused by the >> impossibility of> delimiting a family or a household in the >> enormous> diversity of dwellings has developed in India. > > But >> it was only in 1939 -- during the Bombay> development plan writing >> that the first serious> official pronouncements on slums in India >> become> visible. in that document, the planners effectively> say >> that slums are related to industry. so if we shift> industry out >> of the city, slums will automatically> move out with them and then >> they will be the> responsibility of the industry itself. the state >> does> not have to worry about it so much. > > the 1956 slum act >> retains the early definition of> slums and the moral fervor, >> developmental vision and> so on but two issues are important to >> note here. this> was the time when there was a tremendous mobility >> of> people into state capitals-- lingusitic reorganization> of >> states being only one of the contributory factors.> in many states >> the records of rights were being> revamped and resurveyes were >> being done as a result of> all of which there were many violent >> conflicts in> cities over landed property. some of these >> conflicts> were large enough to shape the political careers young> >> local leaders. the act was mainly an attempt to deal> with those >> conflicts through the notification> procedures. very very limited >> housing programs were> undertaken in some cities and these were >> quite diverse> -- from self help to hire purchase. > beginning >> late 50s, there has been an important shift> in the way slums are >> dealt with in India. now that> there are specific procedures and >> designated> authoritis to deal with them -- officials of housing,> >> district revenue and municipal authorities the slum> kept getting >> reproduced in a myriad ways simply> through governmental >> procedures. > in the years to follow two important dimensions >> were> added to this: 1) the envisioning of the urban> community >> development program as a corollary to the> rural community >> development program under the auspices> of the community >> development ministry 2) the tying of> these programs to >> international developmental aid. in> some ways what happened was a >> short circuit between> local officials and international discourse >> on urban> poverty from the UN etc. both of these were of course> >> subject to a lot of contingent factors which had to > do with >> political developments at different scales. > As a consequence, at >> this point any attempt to write a> n intelligible timeline of >> governmental attitude> towards slums is doomed to fail. each city >> and some> times even each municipal ward can present a> >> bewildering mass of facts. this is not to deny the> fact that >> turner's influence did not matter -- but> what needs to be done is >> to map out how why turner> mattered at a certain point of time and >> exactly> through what administrative channels did his ideas get> >> transformed and materialized in different cities. I> have not seen >> much work on this really, except a> recent article which talks >> about how there is a wide> gap between international policy >> discourse and its> implementation in thailand. > [the entry of >> British ODA in the 80s, the role of DFID> and the mid 90s Indian >> Population project of the world> bank and of course the emergence >> of a largish urban> NGO sector in the 80s and 90s, the plotting >> and> squatting stuff that began after the urban development> >> authorities were enacted in the mid 70s -- all this is> a >> differennt story altogether but as confusing and> exciting as the >> rest:)]> anant > > --- gauri bharat >> wrote:> > > Dear list members,> > My first posting to this forum, >> I'd like to add my> > two bits to this> > discussion on the slum.> >> > > > The 'moral' mention in the 1956 definition was> > probably a >> result of the> > nature of early scholarship/ way of thinking on >> the> > slums. Slums have been> > written about since the late 19 >> century (Jacob Riis,> > 1896) and in the US,> > were a product of >> a middle class outraged at the> > depravity they saw around> > >> them. The forays into the slum were tinted by a> > (often >> Christian) moral> > reform agenda, and the writings of the time> > >> reflected this. This attitude> > carried on for the next few >> decades, and as late as> > the 1960s, scholars like> > Oscar Lewis >> spoke of the slums as having a 'culture> > of poverty'. >> Basically,> > the slums were considered a pathologically >> deficient> > body, distinctly> > different and depraved in >> comparison to the main> > stream city.> > > > In the early 1970s, >> the works of people like John> > Turner (mentioned in an> > >> earlier reply) began to see the slums in more> > positive light, >> in terms of> > its potential for housing the poor. And this was> > >> followed in the late 1970s> > and 1980s by the the works of people >> like Janice> > Perlman who debunked the> > 'myth of marginality' >> among the urban poor, and> > Manuel Castells and the> > political >> economy of slum housing etc.> > > > These shifts in ways of >> thinking corresponded with> > shifts in policy - like> > the govt. >> agenda for instance. From subsidised> > housing provision in the> >> > 1960s, the govt position shifted to site and> > services schemes >> and in situ> > upgrading in the 1980s, and further to the whole> > >> sector reform in recent> > times.> > > > My point, in all this, is >> to suggest the the ways of> > seeing/ understanding> > the slum, >> and subsequently, of policy has undergone> > a change over the> > >> decades. What I've written above is sketchy, but> > indicative of >> some of the> > shifts that have taken place. I also hope this >> makes> > clear that the absence> > of the 'moral' aspect in later >> years is due to a> > more fundamental shift in> > the perception >> of slums.> > > > Roy and AlSayyad's Urban Informality (2004) >> offers a> > detailed discussion on> > the historiography of >> scholarship on slums, and> > cases and theoretical> > positions >> from different parts of the world today.> > > > Regards,> > Gauri >> Bharat> > > > > > > > >> > >> > >> > > Dipu:> > >> > > Was this >> shift at all precipitated by the> > Emergency? I am wondering >> what> > > role the Emergency played in this shift.> > >> Unfortunately, I cannot> > > substantiate this further, it's more >> of an open> > question.> > >> > > Curt> > >> > > ----- Original >> Message ----> > > From: "sharan at sarai.net" > > > >> To: lalit batra > > > Cc: >> urbanstudygroup at sarai.net> > > Sent: Friday, March 7, 2008 >> 11:40:51 PM> > > Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] Urbanstudygroup >> Digest,> > Vol 49, Issue 2> > >> > > Dear Lalit, Zainab and List >> Members,> > > Do notice the disappearance of the 'moral' aspect> > >> in the latter> > > definition.> > > Here's my hypothesis: in the >> period of upto about> > 1970s slum improvement> > > was closely >> tied to the idea of moral reform of> > the inhabitants of the> > > >> slums; since then the focus has been mostly on the> > physical >> infrastructure> > > or (il)legality - either by way of land-use, >> as in> > the case of squatters> > > or> > > in terms of >> 'illegitimate' access to such things> > as water and electricity.> >> > > This aspect - the (il)legality of built structures> > - was >> not entirely> > > absent in the earlier phase, but seems to have> >> > been clearly subordinate to> > > the moral question.> > >> > > I >> have been trying to understand the nature of> > this >> transformation and its> > > implication and would apppreciate any >> comments on> > it.> > >> > > Cheers,> > > Dipu> > >> > >> > > >> _______________________________________________> > Urbanstudygroup >> mailing list> > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City> > >> > > To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group> > archives, >> please visit> >> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/ >> urbanstudygroup> > > > > ----------------> A place does not merely >> exist...it has to be invented in one's imagination….> > > >> ___________________________________________________________ > Rise >> to the challenge for Sport Relief with Yahoo! For Good > > http:// >> uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/> > > > >> ------------------------------> > >> _______________________________________________> Urbanstudygroup >> mailing list> Urbanstudygroup at sarai.net> https://mail.sarai.net/ >> mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup> > > End of Urbanstudygroup >> Digest, Vol 49, Issue 16> >> *********************************************** > _________________________________________________________________ > Tried the new MSN Messenger? It’s cool! Download now. > http://messenger.msn.com/Download/Default.aspx?mkt=en-in > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/ > 20080320/63f91750/attachment.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Urbanstudygroup mailing list > Urbanstudygroup at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup > > > End of Urbanstudygroup Digest, Vol 49, Issue 19 > *********************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080405/2272a6e4/attachment-0001.html From cugambetta at yahoo.com Sun Apr 6 21:23:11 2008 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 08:53:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] South Asian urban transportation history Message-ID: <886238.53830.qm@web56804.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Dear David, I would check out the Indian Concrete Journal (Berkeley may have it, I bet) in the 40's and 50's... this will give you sense of how industry was seeing transportation infrastructure. There was much published that was technical, but a lot of other material was published in the journal that illustrated through photos and text what they imagined to be the future of roadways and the kind of livelihoods they would support. This was, of course, because the Concrete Association was giving the hard sell on concrete roadways and infrastructure of all kinds. You can glean a lot from looking at the images of progress they are trying to proliferate, and by reading some of writing by engineers and architects on what the city would and should look like. Also, there was an advertiser's guild publication (I'll have to check the reference) that was published in Bombay in the 60's and 70's, and they have a lot of good imagery that was published. This would again give you a sense of the kind of images of urban life that industry was trying to promulgate. Also, you've probably seen it, but check out "Anchoring a City Line" by Rahul Mehrotra and Sharada Dwivedi if you haven't already. It doesn't get too deep into the questions you are raising, but is a well documented background on the early history of the Bombay trains. Curt ----- Original Message ---- From: David Boyk To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net; H-ASIA at h-net.msu.edu; h-urban at h-net.msu.edu Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 7:22:19 PM Subject: [Urbanstudy] South Asian urban transportation history Dear everyone, I'm a first-year graduate student in the history department at UC Berkeley, and I'm working on a project on transportation and geography in early twentieth-century South Asian cities. I'm interested in how people, particularly in the lower and lower-middle classes, navigated the city between about 1890 and 1965: how they got between work and home; where they went for leisure; how bicycles, buses or trams affected how they moved through and perceived the city; and how they moved in and between neighborhoods. I've found a number of official sources on city planning and so forth, newspaper ads for bicycles, and some other assorted materials, but I would really like a broader range of sources. Can anyone point me to discussions in fiction, periodicals or memoirs of how people dealt with the physical or social space of the city? Or any other source that might be helpful? Thanks very much, David Boyk davidboyk at gmail.com _______________________________________________ Urbanstudygroup mailing list Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com From yanivbin at gmail.com Tue Apr 8 13:47:04 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:47:04 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Special Lecture : Prof. Diane Elson on "Unpaid work and Economic Development" Fri 11 Apr 08 at 10.30 AM In-Reply-To: <998c34570804080010u462729eqf4e0c82d52b0f718@mail.gmail.com> References: <3883d6930804072342k1107aa08y32fca156def822a@mail.gmail.com> <998c34570804080010u462729eqf4e0c82d52b0f718@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <86b8a7050804080117q78bb0388le2296e31c16fbd6@mail.gmail.com> FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: NIAS-BANGALORE Date: 8 Apr 2008 12:12 Subject: Special Lecture : Prof. Diane Elson on "Unpaid work and Economic Development" Fri 11 Apr 08 at 10.30 am *Special Lecture* Topic: *Unpaid work and Economic Development* Date: Friday, 11 April 2008 Speaker: Prof. Diane Elson Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK Chairperson: Prof. A.R. Vasavi Time: 10.30 AM Venue: JRD Tata Auditorium, NIAS You are cordially invited * * * *Abstract:* There are several forms of work for which no remuneration is paid (for example fetching fuel and water, taking care of family and friends, volunteer work, and unpaid work in a family farm or business). Unpaid work tends to be disproportionately done by women and girls. The lecture discusses the economic significance of unpaid work and how it changes in the course of economic development. It considers how unpaid work can be measured through time use studies, with examples from India, South Africa and UK; and what policy implications may be drawn from such studies. *About the Speaker* Professor Diane Elson teaches in the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK. She has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from University of Manchester. She is a former Vice President of the International Association for Feminist Economics. Her recent publications cover topics such as neoliberal economic policies and gender equality, feminist economics of international trade, and gender-responsive budgeting. * * * RSVP: 080-2218 5000/ niasoff at gmail.com (latest by Thursday 10 April, 08 4.00 pm) -K S Rama Krishna- - -- N.I.A.S., I.I.Sc Campus Bangalore 560012 Ph: 2218 5000 Fax: 2218 5028 Email: niasoff at gmail.com - -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080408/f549a018/attachment.html From leofsaldanha at gmail.com Tue Apr 8 16:36:00 2008 From: leofsaldanha at gmail.com (leo saldanha) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 16:36:00 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Karnataka High Court admits PIL against Privatisation of Lakes Message-ID: <9057132d0804080406m39e11f15g8b54934eb791248b@mail.gmail.com> Environment Support Group (R) *105, **East End B Main Road**, Jayanagar 9th Block East, **Bangalore**560069.INDIA * *Tel: 91-80-22441977/26531339 Voice/Fax: 91-80-26534364* *Email: *esg at esgindia.org or* *esgindia at gmail.com *Web: *www.esgindia.org* * *PRESS RELEASE : **Bangalore**, **08 April 2008*** *Karnataka High Court admits PIL against Privatisation of Lakes* *Issues Emergent Notice to Respondents* Hon'ble Mr. Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph and Hon'ble Justice Mr. Ravi Malimath constituting the Division Bench of the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka admitted a Public Interest Litigation (PIL, 817/2008) filed by Environment Support Group (ESG) against the ongoing privatization of lakes in Bangalore by the Lake Development Authority. Accepting the petitioners' appeal for urgency in dealing with the matter, the Hon'ble Court issued emergent notices to all respondents, and also gave liberty to the Petitioners to take out notice by way of hand summons. The case has been posted for hearing next on 27 May 2008.The following contentions have been raised in the PIL. ESG submitted before the Hon'ble Court that the PIL arrays a range of legal concerns relating to the ongoing privatisation of lakes/tanks in Bangaloreand fundamentally exposes such actions to be opposed to settled legal norms relating to management and conservation of such ecologically sensitive water bodies which are also wildlife habitats. In addition the petition submits that the ongoing privatisation fundamentally attacks a wide range of customary and traditional rights, especially of fishing communities, and thus is also a question of compromising livelihoods. The Petitioners submitted that the beneficiaries of such privatisation of water bodies which are located in prime areas of Bangalore are largely hoteliers and builders. These businesses have promoted themselves as being environmentally progressive but are instead taking undue advantage of this legally flawed and highly questionable policy for their own pecuniary and profit making gains. Such an approach is directly opposed to the very purpose of the constitution of the Lake Development Authority by the Karnataka Government (LDA), a key respondent to the petition. The petition argues that LDA is expressly prohibited from so privatising these public water bodies and that such an act is patently opposed to law and against the wider public interest. The Petitioners sought the Hon'ble Court's indulgence in quashing the Lease Deeds executed by the Lake Development Authority in favour of Respondents M/s Biota Natural Systems (I) Pvt. Ltd., M/s Lumbini Gardens Ltd. and M/s East India Hotels Limited, all profit making entities which have independently acquired lease rights over the Agara, Nagawara and Hebbal tanks/lakes respectively. The petition also highlights that Hebbal tank/lake was only recently rejuvenated by the Indo-Norwegian Environment Programme and the Karnataka Forest Department in 2002. Such was the success of this project that the Karnataka Government thought it fit to invite Mr. Jen Stoltenberg, His Excellency the Prime Minister of Norway to inspect the restoration achieved. Similarly Nagawara tank/lake was rehabilitated under the National Lake Conservation Programme funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The petition argues that the very same lakes that have been rehabilitated are once more being handed out to private profit making entities under the guise of rehabilitation, restoration and maintenance, and is a highly questionable exercise of authority. Further, such action is inconsistent and opposed to the principles embodied in "Conservation of Wetlands in India: A Profile (Approach and Guidelines)" issued by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. The submissions were made by Mr. Sunil Dutt Yadav, Advocate, on behalf of Environment Support Group and Mr. Leo Saldanha appeared as party in person in support of the petition. A copy of this PIL can be downloaded from www.esgindia.org. Bhargavi S. Rao Dolly Kalita Environment Support Group -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-177 Size: 10771 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080408/d84673f3/attachment-0001.bin From mail at change.org Thu Apr 10 14:15:38 2008 From: mail at change.org (sharad mahajan) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:45:38 -0700 Subject: [Urbanstudy] sharad mahajan has invited you to Change.org Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080410/d6022485/attachment.html From janjaria at ucsc.edu Thu Apr 10 21:40:03 2008 From: janjaria at ucsc.edu (Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:10:03 -0400 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP: The City in South Asia Message-ID: <7DB401A8-E2F7-43CC-AB27-A642DE0FF4E7@ucsc.edu> Hi, Colin Mcfarlane and I are putting together a volume on new work on the city in South Asia. I'd really appreciate it if you could post the CFP. thanks best, Jon ————— CFP: ‘The City in South Asia: Re-thinking subcontinental urbanism’ Colin McFarlane and Jonathan Anjaria Durham University, UK and University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Within the new scholarship on the city in South Asia, significant questions relating to contemporary and historical urbanism in the subcontinent remain unexplored. In part, gaps in scholarship on urban South Asia are due to critical attention to processes associated with globalization and neoliberalization at the expense of other, less visible, phenomena. We believe that while it is laudable that studies of transnational process brought the South Asian city new academic prominence within and beyond the subcontinent, this has overshadowed attention to diverse processes, including colonial and postcolonial histories, national and subcontinental connections, and everyday urban life, that comprise the distinctiveness of cities. We seek papers for an edited volume with a major international publisher on the city in South Asia in comparative perspective. To date, South Asian urban studies privilege a handful of cities, and one country—which overlooks the great diversity, as well as commonalities, of urban experiences spanning the region. Thus, in addition to papers on New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, we welcome papers on lesser studied cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Kathmandu and Dhaka. We believe that a fresh look at contemporary changes in cities in South Asia requires careful consideration of the specificity of the city, as well as a comparative perspective. In this way, we approach comparison not simply as a method, but as a mode of thought that can reshape the nature of urban theory. Conceptually, we are interested in papers that suggest new ways of thinking about the city in South Asia, move away from blanket terms such as neoliberalism and globalization to explain processes of urban reconfiguration, and/or critically investigate the novelty of contemporary urban phenomena. For instance, we are interested in contemporary and historical studies of street life, ‘encroachment’, conflicts over infrastructural development, the politics of mobility, the interwoven nature of ‘state’ and ‘society’, the uneven movement of capital, and projects to create modern or bourgeois urban space. We are also interested in papers on contestations over sanitation, water, work, and housing, as well as explorations of cross-border urban connections. We welcome contributions from a variety of fields, including anthropology, geography, sociology, urban studies, and history. While the concerns of this volume suggest papers with a field-based ethnographic approach, we are interested in work based on historical and textual analysis as well. Deadline: One page proposals should be sent to Colin McFarlane (colin.mcfarlane at durham.ac.uk) and Jonathan Anjaria (janjaria at ucsc.edu) by June 1, 2008. First drafts are due by December 1, 2008, and should be no longer that 8000 words (including notes and references). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080410/762cd1d9/attachment.html From bawazainab79 at gmail.com Fri Apr 11 21:03:02 2008 From: bawazainab79 at gmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:03:02 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Of Urban Politics and the Positions that we take Message-ID: I have been following the construction of the Metro in Bangalore and the various kinds of conflicts that have arisen during the construction process. Almost daily, newspapers report of court cases where people are fighting for their right over private property and are unwilling to give up their land for the construction of the Metro. It seems like this is an interesting phase in the trajectory of Bangalore City. A week ago, a friend told me about how they have formed a group to protect Nanda Road. Nanda Road, located in Jayanagar, is one of the few green roads in the city. According to the plans, a Metro station will appear right at Nanda Road, thereby destroying the road forever. The group out to save Nanda Road consists of residents of the area. Some of my friends in Bangalore who are not from this city, but who have lived in Jayanagar, have also mentioned how they would be keen to protect Nanda Road since it is one of the only few green roads in the city. It seems like people develop affiliations and emotions with a place even if they are not long-time residents of the city. And the city is vested with these forms of affect. Last week then, I was discussing the Save Nanda Road initiative with a group of journalists. When I mentioned that this group has been formed around Nanda Road, consisting of residents of Jayanagar, one of the journalists remarked, "Ah, this is a middle-class initiative!" and almost rubbished the initiative. I defended weakly stating how people who are not born in Bangalore, who have lived along the road, have memories of the place and some form of emotional attachment and would be willing to protect the road. But she was convinced that this is a middle-class initiative and implied that it did not deserve to be paid attention to. That evening, I wondered about how we position ourselves around issues of development and politics in the city. Does a progressive line of thinking have to take an anti-middle class stance on issues? Or does urban politics demand an examination of every unique issue before positions can be taken? -- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher Between Places ... http://wbfs.wordpress.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080411/8480c278/attachment.html From gautam.bhan at gmail.com Sun Apr 13 23:04:54 2008 From: gautam.bhan at gmail.com (gautam bhan) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:34:54 -0700 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Swept off the Map : Book Release : Apr 19 : 3pm : IIC, New Delhi Message-ID: Dear All, Over the past three years, I and Kalyani Menon-Sen have been conducting research in Bawana, a resettlement site for evictees from Yamuna Pushta in Delhi. Our findings, based on a 2600-household sample intended to quantify the impact of eviction and resettlement, were an attempt at a direct response to governmental claims of improvement of life in resettlement colonies. The write-up is being published as a book by Yoda Press in Delhi [ www.yodapress.com]. Details of the book are here: http://www.yodapress.com/Forthcoming.html#f_21 The launch is a release by journalist P. Sainath. The list doesnt allow attachments, so please treat this email as an invite to attend. 3pm April 19th Conference Room 2 Indian International Centre Lodi Road, New Delhi best, Gautam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080413/9cdf34cd/attachment.html From prem.cnt at gmail.com Tue Apr 15 09:44:58 2008 From: prem.cnt at gmail.com (Prem Chandavarkar) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:44:58 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Great Asian Street Symposium Message-ID: <7e230b560804142114v7c13db23h619f544276578326@mail.gmail.com> The Great Asian Streets Symposium: a conference that seeks to examine Asian urban space. 5-7 December 2008, National University of Singapore http://www.arch.nus.edu.sg/conferences/gass2008/index.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080415/61e96076/attachment-0001.html From secular2002 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 17 22:45:09 2008 From: secular2002 at hotmail.com (Citizens Agenda) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:45:09 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Invisible is the city Message-ID: Invisible is the city Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Monday, February 11, 2008 at 0106 hrs IST It could be argued, without much exaggeration, that the future of India will be determined by the character of its urbanisation. Yet paradoxically, the there is almost no discourse around urbanisation in India. There are particular set of discourses related to urban problems: traffic, water, power, property taxes, and municipal finance. But the idea of the city as a distinctive space with an identity premised on a delicate set of connections between the built environment and social life, with an organic economy of its own, and the site of new forms of aesthetic imagination have all but disappeared from public discourse. Indeed in many ways the situation is even worse. Much of what passes as urban planning is premised on a willful disregard of all those elements that make a city a city. None of our master plans have the slightest understanding of the organic sinews of a city’s economy or the delicate capillaries of social life that sustain it. The political economy of land prices has seriously distorted sensible zoning. In a society marked by serious social inequality, the idea of the city as a shared public space was always under stress. Whatever creative adjustments cities had made to become more inclusive are being willfully dismantled. We confuse cities with a series of engineering projects. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that there was more of a serious urban discourse in India in the fifties than there is now. This absence of an urban discourse is at odds with its importance. India’s prospects for inclusive growth will depend crucially upon the capacity of its towns and cities to absorb migration from rural areas. The higher the formal and informal entry barriers for new migrants to participate in an urban life and economy, the less likely we are to succeed in sustaining inclusive growth. Thinking in spatial terms, those regions that do not have livable towns and cities will find it more difficult it to expand opportunities for their populations. There are all kinds of explanations given for the differences between regions that are doing well and those that are stagnant. But one striking difference is the availability of livable cities. Cities drive both growth and an expansion of opportunities for inclusion. It is truly odd that we think of inclusive growth as a rural versus urban issue rather than understanding that the road to inclusion at some point passes through the urban. It is convenient for us to insist on our unfettered right to development. But the blunt truth is that sustainability is an important issue. Rather than simply worry about the costs of dealing with sustainability issues, we can also look at the opportunities. India is at the threshold of rapid urbanisation. A little regulatory smartness up front on a range of things, like building codes, transport systems, assessments of the ecological footprint of cities, can entail huge savings down the line. Part of the reason we are intimidated by this issue is that much of the attention of the little urban discourse there is focuses on the cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, rather than on the real areas of growth and targets of opportunity: tier two towns and cities. As with growth and inclusion the question of sustainability cannot by pass the cities. Cities historically are, for good or for ill, the sites of new forms of sociability and new kinds of politics. As so much research has shown, the patters of violence in a society are profoundly shaped by forms of urbanisation in so many different ways. Crime rates are a function of many things. But they are crucially influenced by the spatial architecture of the city. Cities that are conducive to more people being out on the streets, where populations are not starkly separated in spatial terms by class, where use of space mixes different kinds of activities like residential and commercial are, other things being equal likely to have less crime than cities segregated by gated communities and stark segregations of populations by class. Adam Smith had noticed a profound truth as early as the eighteenth century, when he was trying to explain the differences in crime rates between London and Paris: the poor do not commit crimes because they are poor. They are driven to commit crimes only if the city excludes them spatially and socially, if they find no space in the city. Kolkata was a striking example of a city with low crime and an astonishing degree of urbanity in the best sense of the term, despite its great poverty. Cities whose regulatory regimes spatially segregate the classes starkly are setting themselves up for trouble. Urbanisation is profoundly going to shape our politics. Again we know historically that forms of communal violence are shaped, to a certain degree, by the characteristics of cities. If the delimitation of constituencies is notified our politics is going to be transformed. Though precisely how remains to be determined. And finally, there has always been a deep connection between aesthetics and politics. How citizens feel is in many ways a function of the way the aesthetics of their built environment. In his own way Lutyens understood that truth. The list could go on. But the simple proposition is that there is no significant policy challenge that can be met without confronting the challenge of urbanisation: growth, sustainability, governance, patters of violence, the relations between classes, and even the possibilities of aesthetic and social expression. Yet the shape of our cities does not fire up our imaginations. This is so for a variety of reasons: collective action around cities seems difficult; cities marked by social inequality find it hard to hold onto the idea of cities as a shared space; the governance architecture of most cities is not conducive to the city acquiring an identity as a city; the influential middle class is seceding from the idea of the “public” with great rapidity. But there has also been a spectacular failure of our intellectual, moral, social and artistic imagination. In this field, as in so many others, we are paying the price of a decrepit academic system, which simply has no capacity for a rigorous, yet imaginative engagement with these issues. Our citizens often creatively compensate for the follies of the state. But it is an uphill task. No wonder what passes for urban discourse in India is a series of land scams, ill thought projects, and idiotic attempts like Raj Thackeray’s to give cities an identity in a perverse kind of way. The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research pratapbmehta at yahoo.co.in _________________________________________________________________ Education: Are exams worrying you all the day long? Write to MSN education experts for help. http://education.in.msn.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080417/3be629e7/attachment.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Fri Apr 18 11:51:40 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:51:40 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Discussion-Kasturirangan Report and political manifestos on Bangalore- 19.04.08-10AM-1.30PM Message-ID: <86b8a7050804172321m32d4eb6x73fe6084c09af0ef@mail.gmail.com> * CIVIC Bangalore* has great pleasure in inviting you to a public interaction on the *Kasturirangan Committee Report * on a new governance structure for Bangalore & Manifestos of political parties on Bangalore Dr. A. Ravindra, (Retd.) IAS Former Chief Secretary, GoK, & Member, Kasturirangan Committee *will make a presentation on the Committee's recommendations * *Response by* * * Prof. B.K. Chandrashekar Hon'ble Chairperson, Karnataka Legislative Council Responses & presentation of party manifestos on Bangalore by Mr. P.R. Ramesh Ex-Mayor of Bangalore, KPCC (I) Mr. Srikanta Murthy President, Bangalore City Unit, Janata Dal (S) Mr. Vijayakumar President, Bangalore City Unit, Bharatiya Janata Party * Mr. M. Muniyappa* * Karnataka State President , Bahujan Samaj Party Mr. Venkatesh Bangalore District President, Samajwadi Party ******** Mr. V. Balasubramanian, (Retd.) IAS Former Additional Chief Secretary, GoK, & Advisor, AT Ramaswamy Committee * * *will preside* Date: Saturday, 19th April 2008 Time: 10.00 AM to 1.30 PM Venue: Institution of Agricultural Technologists Queen's Road, (Opposite Sanje vani) Bangalore 560052 ALL ARE WELCOME Kathyayini Chamaraj Executive Trustee, CIVIC * Awaiting confirmation *Programme Schedule* **10.00 AM: Tea and registration 10.15 AM: Welcome and objectives 10.20 AM: Presentation on the Kasturirangan Committee Report by Dr. A. Ravindra 10.45 AM: Response & Presentation of Citizens' Charter on urban decentralization by CIVIC Bangalore 11.00 AM Response by Prof. B. K. Chandrashekar 11.15 AM Responses by political party representatives & presentation of their party manifestoes for Bangalore 12.30 PM: Open discussion 1.15 PM: Chairperson's remarks by Mr. V. Balasubramanian 1.30 PM: Vote of thanks & Lunch *CIVIC Bangalore* *(Citizens' Voluntary Initiative for the City)* # 6, Kasturi Apartments, 35/23 Langford Road Cross, Shanthinagar Bangalore 560025,. www.civicspace.in, civicblore at gmail.com Ph: 22110584 / 22711001 /41144126 Cell Nos: 98803 97401, 98809 63996 __._,_.___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080418/e9721c39/attachment-0001.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Wed Apr 23 13:09:08 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:09:08 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Editorial: Buses are inescapable Message-ID: <86b8a7050804230039u55d1b3fdh46f96f5226838c01@mail.gmail.com> Editorial: Buses are inescapable http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=BO&autono=320882&msg=post Business Standard / New Delhi April 23, 2008 The 5.6-km-long road corridor in the southern part of the Capital, where the trial runs for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system started on Sunday, has presented a picture of confusion if not chaos. Those overseeing the project's implementation have not been properly prepared, and Delhi's traffic police failed to ensure that the rules with regard to segmented traffic movements within the identified corridors were followed. The combined effect of these was evident in the non-functioning of traffic signals till 9.30 in the morning, though the trial run had begun more than two hours earlier, traffic pile-ups and widespread anger. Officials of the Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System, which is implementing the project, admitted to problems arising out of inadequate signage and signals that were not synchronised with traffic movements. In the resulting chaos, cars and other private passenger vehicles strayed into the corridor reserved for buses, and powered two-wheelers encroached on the space earmarked for cyclists. This is no way to implement a project. The larger danger is that poor execution will kill an idea that deserved a fair trial. The very idea of segmenting road lanes for exclusive use by public transport vehicles has come in for attack in a city where the public transport system has seen progressive decay (till the Delhi Metro brought about a marginal improvement), with an increasing number of people relying on their own vehicles. The project's execution has caused avoidable traffic bottlenecks, and the trial runs were postponed to allow the project authorities time to remove the snags in the system. But going by what has happened this week, the agencies involved with the implementation of the BRT system have failed on the job. Rational debate, however, must start with the recognition that even if the BRT project is scrapped, as it might well be, Delhi (like other big cities) has a traffic problem to deal with. Road space in Indian cities is more limited than in many countries, and a minority of road users (in private vehicles) end up hogging the bulk of the available road space. Fly-overs, expressways, signal-free stretches and road widening have all been tried, but end up being short-term palliatives in a country that turns out 10 million vehicles every year. If the traffic snarls are not to get worse, all cities have to make a decisive choice in favour of quality public transport systems that use air-conditioned buses. The metro presents one option that Delhi and other cities are adopting, but this will not do more than handle a part of the increased traffic that is projected for the future. In short, there is no escape from reducing the percentage of road space taken up by private vehicles, and having more public buses on the road. The BRT project may fall victim to poor implementation, anger on the part of private vehicle users and difficulties with the concept itself, but if it does get junked, something else will have to be tried. The congestion charge that London imposes, and the licensing of cars that Singapore has used, are two options. The media has been overtly influenced by the concerns of those using cars and two-wheelers, who were obviously inconvenienced by the dedicated corridor for public transport vehicles. The same share of voice has not been given to those who use the bus service (who after all are the majority), and there has been little debate on whether the cycle corridors are a good idea when cyclists are among the most vulnerable on the city's roads. Biased reporting makes the search for a transport solution more difficult than it already is. From sannihitahyd at yahoo.com Wed Apr 23 16:24:06 2008 From: sannihitahyd at yahoo.com (sannihita) Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:54:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Hyderabad a victim of development Message-ID: <104002.55546.qm@web90503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear vinay I have read yur article and am completely agree to what u are sayng. In this context i would like to share with you that... In Hyderabad the traffick is sooooooooooo bad. Especially it is due to cars, who try to overtake from. they actually never are regulated to move in a line. There is no one to question. But if you ask any person, from pedastrian to bus driver will express the same. that no one follows rules and everyone has complaints against others. Bus drivers, are in terrible stress and they run over people, and it is not the problem of an individual but it is to do with the traffick. Many are afraid of the car of one lakh rupee. if they are on the roads, then people will prefer to walk rather than taking any vehicle. But the trains in the air... will tke another 10 years, but i doubt about the efficiency of planning and implementing this project. Inthe process they cut more trees, and have no control over electrical poles. In Hyderabad RTC x roads, Ameerpet there are subways. but they are locked. pedascrians especiallly women cannot go into those subways, as they become addas of people who are homeless, and women are afraid of various reasons. We can suggest the govt to build shops and give them to the foot path vendors, but it does not listen so easily. In koti which is a center place that connects to old city, Dilsuknagar, abids etc., also there are so many street vendors and footpath vendors who can be shifted to the subway and so that they do not lose the livelihood, and people middle class do not lose them and have fruits, vegetables, clothes etc. can be bought for an affordable price. If these people are been displaced ( (as per the zonal division) then it is not only losing the livelihood of the poor vendors but also increase of the cost of living of the poor and lower middle classes. About the bridges that are built for crossing the road if had escalators then everyone will use, and accidents can be avoided. But they have put steps and there are many steps. In India after 35 most of the women become half disabled due to various health disorders.Knee pains, back aches etc., when planning such things i wonder why these important, things which needs a perception of gender, poverty, cultural aspects do not stuck them. I observed no one is using these crossing bridges. they all cross dividers, and get on to the divider and cross, in the nights, where there is no light, or where there is tooo much light these people on bycicles, and women in dark saris cannot be seen. Most of the times they end up up in meeting with accidents. Many do not understand the meaning of zebra crossings both riders and pedestrians. Many do not have any idea about things like diagnal crossing, crossing the road only when three is red signals etc., When we think about the signals, out of ten only one person follows. Many people jum signals, irrespective of any vehicle, bus, car, two wheelers, and auto valas. The perception of the people is that since there is no one coming from the other side, or its not a busy time, etc., etc., some people very casually cross the road putting hand on the shoulders of his friend and talking to other friend with the cell phone, does not even bother to see if there is any vehicle is coming. For many in India especially in our Hyderabad Orange colour in the middle of the signal means increase the speed and cross the cross road before the red light comes. If people like me slow down my two wheeler understanding that it is a caution for the red light and we must stop, then some times we may even die because the people behind will chase u and are very near to u so if you stop means you are in troubel, actually our life is in trouble. Especially when you have a APSRTC bus is behind you never stop any where, or just give a side to it. If we stop in the myth of good citizenship people will give us very ugly looks especially auto drivers. They think we are new to the world, or to the city, or have no work etc., etc., The dividers and speak breakers are most dangerous and they have caused many people to die. in night when someone has gone to High teck city and returning in the middle of the night never even can imagin that some ghada, or divider which is black and cannot be seen, built in the day and never painted, no red cloth, no caution note have killed many youngsters. (that is why these days if we have to bless someone we should not say that long live etc., but say die naturally, without any accident) The other thing about the dividers - for ex., in Himayatnagar - its long, people who walk, and have bycycles have no other way but to violate rules, and take the risk to cross the road and the divider. If the road is of 60' feet only 20 feet is usable, and other 3/4 road is bad in shape and cannot be used by even common people. Especially when in the rainy season the people have to either walk on the middle of the road, or forget about the dress and go in that water.. (man holes also might be there and they may be welcoming u in) last year 2 women and 5 children have died due to manholes which were open in the rainy season). The roads that are used by private telephone companies, use the roads for pipelines and never are aeither punished or fined for not maintaining them properly, or replace them. the roads that are widened are used to parking space for cars. So all of us have no option. we have to take this development shit. We have to do sacrifices for companies of ford, general motors, Hondai, Maruthi Suzuki, Benz - Tata motors - toyota, mitsubisha, Fiat, etc, etc., All resources on loans for the so called development for flyovers, road widenings are for car users, take the loan, buy a car and dump it on the road, all flyovers of Hyderabad is to reach Shamshabad Airport, or hight tech city. (YSR is planning another 3 flyovers ) Road widenings are for parking space of the CARS and two wheelers, autos. mostlly cars. what ever is the left land - remove parks and make space for cars. so sleep, eat, breath, smell, dream about cars cars cars cars.. take loans, buy cars. take loan buy two wheelers. For petrol serve developing countries, for petrol ruin gulf countries........... is the moral that we all have to forcibly accept. Old, Weak, disabled, blind, pregnant women, old woman, illiterate people, lack of education all are NALAYAKS... (useless human waste, unresourceful) and knowledge of development.......... please die, r go to other world is what developmen paradigm difines. ooooooooooooops if u are opposing 'development' u are a traitor. USHA RANI.V Hyderabad --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-2841 Size: 9307 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080423/d8ee7ea6/attachment.bin From varanashi at gmail.com Thu Apr 24 11:39:26 2008 From: varanashi at gmail.com (varanashi) Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:39:26 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban Space Event Message-ID: <48102425.20018e0a.4fc3.ffff843d@mx.google.com> Friends, The 2nd in the series of Bangalore Urban Space Events, initiated by Max Muller Bhavan and coordinated by UDBHAVA, would happen at Whitefield on Apr. 26 2008, starting around 3.15 pm. All those who are interested are welcome. The first experimental event at Gavipuram, saw more than 100 people, with nearly 40 people staying upto the end of the event at 6.30 pm. We had not expected such a participation!!! However, architects, academicians, designers and such other professionals were conspicuos by their absence. We should look at participation not merely as an act of being there, but as a mode of demonstrating our passion for the city and learn to look at its past. Some of us feel, this looking back is important if we are to be appropriate in our looking ahead, in shaping the future of our city. Anyway, due to unpreceedented construction activities, architects find it difficult to attend any city related public events. Yet let us retain our concern for the city and act upon it when time comes. Some detail follows in the mail below and the rest in the web link: http://bcp.wikidot.com/city-walks:whitefield-urban-space-event warmly sathya _____ From: maureen.gonsalves at bangalore.goethe.org [mailto:maureen.gonsalves at bangalore.goethe.org] Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:21 PM To: bangalorevent-lis at goethe.de Subject: bangalorevent-lis: What's on at MMB Bangalore - April 2008 What's on at MMB Bangalore - April 2008 Welcome to our update on cultural events! This newsletter serves as a personal invitation-cum-reminder about current events. Bangalore City Project Whitefield Urban Space Event on April 26, 2008 Bangalore City Project invites you to Part 2 of its events-in-the-public-space series - this time in the still-sylvan surroundings of Whitefield. Get to know what Whitefield was, what it is now and hopefully play a part in shaping the way it will be... If you missed the Gavipuram Urban Space Event on March 8th, this is your chance to make good. Join us at 3.15 p.m. on April 26th at the Memorial Church in Whitefield. The Whitefield Urban Space Event, organised by UDBHAVA, is designed not only to raise awareness about a unique historical settlement but also to emphasise the need for integrated, sensitive planning and development. Whitefield, for decades a peaceful rural haven, has been swallowed up by the suburban sprawl of Bangalore and also faces immediate threats due to ad-hoc, haphazard and unplanned development. What will become of the Memorial Church, the park in the Inner Circle, the tree-lined avenues and colonial bungalows? Be informed, play a part... And please be on time - we are working on a tight schedule! For directions and further details: Whitefield Urban Space Event If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter, you may unsubscribe from the mailing list (bangalorevent-lis at goethe.de) at any time: Unsubscribe C Goethe-Institut -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080424/39703e5b/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 19354 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080424/39703e5b/attachment-0001.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 71 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080424/39703e5b/attachment-0001.gif From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Apr 25 22:09:11 2008 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:39:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: Fwd: My Thesis Colloquium :: 4 pm, 29th April 2008 :: Seminar Hall, Department of Management Studies, IISc Message-ID: <518445.50453.qm@web56814.mail.re3.yahoo.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: H S Sudhira Date: Apr 25, 2008 3:07 PM Subject: My Thesis Colloquium :: 4 pm, 29th April 2008 :: Seminar Hall, Department of Management Studies, IISc To: Vinay , lalitha kamath , Malini Ranganathan , Michael Goldman , Carol Upadhya , "Dr. Gopinath" , Vishwanath Srikantaiah Dear All, I have great pleasure in inviting you for my thesis colloquium on 29th April, 2008 at 4 pm in the Seminar Hall of Department of Management Studies, IISc. Please find the invite for the same below. I will be very grateful for your presence and look forward for any suggestions/comments on the same. Thanks and best regards, Sudhira ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Centre for Sustainable Technologies and Department of Management Studies PhD Thesis Colloquium Name of the student : Mr. H. S. Sudhira Department : Centre for Sustainable Technologies and Department of Management Studies Day & Date : Tuesday, the 29th April 2008 Time : 4 pm (1600 hours) Venue : Seminar Hall, Department of Management Studies, IISc Title of the thesis : Studies on Urban Sprawl and Spatial Planning Support System for Bangalore, India Thesis Advisors : T V Ramachandra and M H Bala Subrahmanya Abstract: Urban sprawl is the uncontrolled and uncoordinated outgrowth of towns and cities. Noting the various studies, the pattern of urban sprawl is characterized by using spatial metrics based on the extent of paved surface or built-up areas. The process of urban sprawl can be studied by capturing the dynamics leading to rapid urban spatial expansion. With an understanding of the patterns, processes and causes of urban sprawl, the consequences of sprawl can be explored which are reflected by the patterns, thus eventually aiding in the design of spatial planning support system. Following the sequence of patterns, process, causes and consequence, sets the research agenda as the framework for this research. The current research addresses the issue of urban sprawl in the context of Bangalore, India. We propose a theoretical framework to explore the interaction of planning and governance on the extent of outgrowth and level of services. Reviewing the different indicator frameworks, we also propose urban sprawl indicators and operationalize the same for Bangalore. The indicators comprises spatial metrics (derived from temporal satellite remote sensing data) and other metrics obtained from house-hold survey and secondary sources. The interaction of different indicators with respect to the core city and the outgrowth is determined by multi-dimensional scaling. The analysis reveal the underlying patterns - similarities (and dissimilarities) that relate with the different governance structures prevailing here. Subsequently, we attempt to understand the process of sprawl. An attempt was made to capture the dynamics using systems approach and finally the insights gained were translated into agent-based land-use model. Noting the evolution of spatial planning support system (SPSS), the consequences of sprawl are explored. The SPSS developed on an agent-based modeling environment, is essentially a process-based land-use model. We highlight the need for an integrated SPSS, illustrating its development and evaluation. The drawbacks in SPSS and challenges for future research for improvising the SPSS are noted. In the present context, with the escalating problem of urban sprawl, the evolution of a SPSS in the form of the BangaloreSim model is the first step in this direction. The SPSS aids in undertaking policy analysis for certain policy measures and its consequences on urban land-use. The research concludes outlining the challenges in addressing urban sprawl while ensuring adequate level of services that planning and governance have to ensure towards achieving sustainable urbanization. ALL ARE INVITED - -- Dr. Carol Upadhya Fellow, School of Social Sciences National Institute of Advanced Studies Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore 560012 India office: +91 80 2218 5000/ 5141 (ext) cell: +91(0) 93413 11453 cupadhya at vsnl.com carol at nias.iisc.ernet.in ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080425/97647585/attachment.html From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Apr 25 22:12:51 2008 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:42:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: invite to judicial 90's workshop Message-ID: <883444.13190.qm@web56813.mail.re3.yahoo.com> If in Bangalore, do check this out! -curt ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Aarti Mundkur To: alf at altlawforum.org Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 8:01:03 AM Subject: invite to judicial 90's workshop Please find attached an invitation to the Judicial 90's workshop on the 10th and 11th of May 2008, organized by Alternative Law Forum and Christ College of Law, Bangalore. Apologies for cross posting. Warm regards, Aarti Mundkur for ALF __________ Alternative Law Forum 4, Ground Floor 3rd Cross Vasanthanagar Bangalore 560 052 Ph: +91 80 2235 6845/ 2237 0028 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: The Judicial Nineties - Invitation.doc Type: application/msword Size: 36352 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080425/0ed1e316/attachment-0001.doc From yanivbin at gmail.com Sun Apr 27 10:30:02 2008 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:30:02 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: BRT petition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <86b8a7050804262200t781fd050v2f45203576e08c73@mail.gmail.com> FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dunu Roy Date: Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 11:44 PM Subject: BRT petition Dear fellow scientists and friends, We are sending you a letter addressed to the Times of India, which is attached, protesting against the vilification campaign being carried out against two of our colleagues in the Indian Institute of Delhi who are trying to uphold the best traditions of people-supportive research. Such innuendo hurts us all and denigrates the value of all science. Please do let us know by return mail if you would agree to sign this letter, giving your name and designation. Please do also circulate to others who may wish to sign the letter. Thanking you in anticipation Dunu Roy, Imrana Qadeer To The Editor The Times of India Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg New Delhi 110002 The High Capacity Bus System has found many ardent advocates the world over as a relatively inexpensive and efficient mass transport system. Renamed – somewhat incorrectly – as the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) in the city of Delhi, it has been designed not only for the most widely used form of public transport (the bus carries about 40% of the 15 million passenger trips per day in the city), but also provides demarcated space for the cyclist and the pedestrian (who account for another 42%), while leaving a substantial two lanes for the private cars and two/three-wheelers (which account for the remaining 8% and 10% respectively). Nevertheless, some media channels – particularly the Times of India – have been carrying on a sustained campaign against the first BRT corridor being constructed in Delhi calling it, amongst other things, a "manic mess", "killer corridor", and "Tughluqian disaster". These various newspapers and television channels (who seem to be more intent on being newsmakers) are legitimately entitled to present the views of various citizens groups – although it is striking that most of the 'citizens' interviewed are private car owners – but there is also an ethical limit to how the news and views should be presented. The recent front-page headline in the Times of India of April 25, 2008, reads, "IIT dept behind BRT gets funds from bus makers" and accuses "Dinesh Mohan and Geetam Tiwari from IIT-D's Transport Research and Injury Prevention Programme" of being patronised by the "Volvo Education Research Foundation and Ford Motor Company". We would, firstly, like to point out that it is the Government of India's stated policy to encourage all public science research institutions to raise their own funds from charitable trusts and foundations and industry and not depend solely upon the University Grants Commission – and this is part of the process of 'liberalisation' that has been enthusiastically supported and promoted by the editors of many newspapers, including the Times of India. Secondly, to resort to this kind of journalistic innuendo that, therefore, all scientific research must inevitably follow the dictates of the funding agencies casts grave aspersions on the character of objective research conducted at recognised world-class institutions like the IIT. Using discredited methods of rapid opinion-polls, which are known to be biased and a popular means of market promotion, the Times of India is challenging a system based on sound scientific research, in a clear effort to protect the interests of a minority of car drivers, without clarifying what is the rational basis for their 'research' methodology, nor what is the source of their inspiration. We condemn, in no uncertain terms, this violation of journalistic ethics by a daily that claims the pride of being India's widest read English newspaper and demand that the editors immediately publish an unqualified apology to the concerned scientists. Dunu Roy, Director, Hazards Centre, Delhi Imrana Qadeer, ex-Professor, JNU, Delhi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080427/8677336b/attachment.html From aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com Mon Apr 28 22:53:12 2008 From: aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com (Aashish Gupta) Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:53:12 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] A 'watery grave' situation: Suggest Action Message-ID: Apologies for cross posting. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: siddharth sareen Date: Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:23 PM Subject: [YSC] A 'watery grave' situation To: youthforsocialchange at googlegroups.com Cc: Suresh Saila , Chella Rajan , nityanand jayaraman , Milind Brahme , sangeetha sriram The details first. The event: it's called SNOW BALL. 15,000 sq ft of snow area; 150 air-conditioned stalls with multiple branded labels on exhibition-cum-sale; amusement rides for kids, fashion show dance floor et al for adults, Rs 150 entry. The organizers: SPELLBOUND and (beat this) TAMIL NADU TOURISM, along with MEDIAONE (global entertainment limited) Sponsors: INDIAN OIL (surprise surprise) and CHENNAI CORPORATE CLUB Event by: REDIN. Marketed by: CARROT ad works. Duration: 1st May to 1st June. Venue: Island Grounds, Chennai. event managers' numbers: 9381284844, 9840131816, 9843292924, 9884077889, 9884021759, 044-24331889 So much for the details; now for the action. We need an EIA or some estimate of the impact at the earliest possible. Aashish is drafting an RTI which should be on the group by morning for improvements and has to be sent in tomorrow. Although considering the event is beginning on the 1st of May, they can stall on the RTI, and there's an urgent need for certain things. Some immediate ideas that have emerged: 1. To organize some sort of protest/demonstration if that's feasible, or at least hand out pamphlets in Tamil and English to the target audience that's willing to pay and make the event work, 1st May onwards, until such time as it might be possible to put a stop to it. 2. To have protest voiced from groups nation wide, put up resistance, approach the authorities. It's scandalous that the State tourism department is involved, but having the government behind the event at least makes it easier to ask questions of them. 3. To have a public letter expressing concern and distress appear in the print media, if possible on the 30th. We need to get the authorities to call off the event, and in the circumstance that that doesn't work, criticize it widely. The publicity ad's been appearing in The Hindu MetroPlus off and on this month, but after having disappeared for a while, it's resurfaced and the event looks set to go unless something's done about it real fast. We're trying to get hold of a softcopy of the ad, but haven't managed to find any relevant stuff online so far. Here is one of the things I could get online http://tamil.galatta.com/entertainment/livewire/id/Namitha_Snowball_2008_Brand_Ambassador_14981.html Please get the pertinent info circulating on various listserves and rope in all groups that might be interested. - -- Siddharth Sareen Student of Development Studies IIT Madras - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the "Youth for Social Change" mailing list. To post to this group, send email to youthforsocialchange at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to youthforsocialchange-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/youthforsocialchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- - -- Chal Bulleya chal othae challeeya, jithae sarae annae. Naa koi saddi zaat paehchannae, thae na koi sanu mannae -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080428/b14d6ee6/attachment.html From aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com Wed Apr 30 10:00:45 2008 From: aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com (Aashish Gupta) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:00:45 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: URGENT: Prevent Water Abuse in Chennai - Sign a Petition In-Reply-To: References: <516b63a90804292113r10d6bcc9ubf795d3603102a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Apologies for Cross posting. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: siddharth sareen Date: Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:43 AM Subject: URGENT: Prevent Water Abuse in Chennai - Sign a Petition To: sidsareen at gmail.com Please have a look at this petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/waterH2O/petition.html Sign it if you care about the right to life and liberty, in this case access to water for residents of Chennai. This is a time-bound issue. A note to the press will be sent this afternoon itself. It would be of great value to get signatures prior to this. So please do try and inform people and organizations you are in touch with as soon as possible. Put it on listserves you frequent. Endorsing the petition even after today will also help, of course. Thanks Siddharth Sareen. - -- Chal Bulleya chal othae challeeya, jithae sarae annae. Naa koi saddi zaat paehchannae, thae na koi sanu mannae -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080430/5020088b/attachment-0001.html From bharati at chintan-india.org Wed Apr 30 10:56:15 2008 From: bharati at chintan-india.org (Bharati Chaturvedi) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:56:15 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] looking for solly benjamin In-Reply-To: References: <516b63a90804292113r10d6bcc9ubf795d3603102a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1475.71.163.8.245.1209533175.squirrel@mail.chintan-india.org> Hi All,  Does anyone know how I can email Solly Benjamin? It's important, I don't know anyone who cd tell me so far, hence this mail on the urban group.  Thks Bharati > Apologies for Cross posting. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: siddharth sareen > Date: Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:43 AM > Subject: URGENT: Prevent Water Abuse in Chennai - Sign a Petition > To: sidsareen at gmail.com > > > Please have a look at this petition: > > http://www.PetitionOnline.com/waterH2O/petition.html > > Sign it if you care about the right to life and liberty, in this case access > to water for residents of Chennai. > > This is a time-bound issue. A note to the press will be sent this afternoon > itself. It would be of great value to get signatures prior to this. > > So please do try and inform people and organizations you are in touch with > as soon as possible. Put it on listserves you frequent. > > Endorsing the petition even after today will also help, of course. > > Thanks > > Siddharth Sareen. > > > > > > > - -- > Chal Bulleya chal othae challeeya, jithae sarae annae. Naa koi saddi zaat > paehchannae, thae na koi sanu mannae > _______________________________________________ > Urbanstudygroup mailing list > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City > > To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup > -- Bharati Chaturvedi Director Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group 238 Sidhartha Enclave, New Delhi. 110014. India www.chintan-india.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-1 Size: 2130 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080430/5a963a38/attachment.bin From ndandona at gmail.com Wed Apr 30 12:08:17 2008 From: ndandona at gmail.com (nidhi dandona) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:08:17 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] looking for solly benjamin In-Reply-To: <1475.71.163.8.245.1209533175.squirrel@mail.chintan-india.org> References: <516b63a90804292113r10d6bcc9ubf795d3603102a9@mail.gmail.com> <1475.71.163.8.245.1209533175.squirrel@mail.chintan-india.org> Message-ID: <253ca7120804292338y39da1e9xa16d9f128d24314c@mail.gmail.com> Hi Bharati, Mr Solly's email id is sollybenj at yahoo.co.in Regards, Nidhi Dandona On 4/30/08, Bharati Chaturvedi wrote: > > > > Hi All, > > Does anyone know how I can email Solly Benjamin? It's > important, I don't know anyone who cd tell me so far, hence this mail on > the > urban group. > > Thks > > Bharati > > Apologies for > Cross posting. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20080430/d54e833b/attachment.html From leofsaldanha at gmail.com Wed Apr 30 20:21:56 2008 From: leofsaldanha at gmail.com (ESGINDIA Gmail) Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:21:56 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] =?windows-1252?q?ESG=92s_Documentation=2C_Books_and_?= =?windows-1252?q?Reports_List_online?= Message-ID: <4818878C.60203@gmail.com> Environment Support Group ® *105, **East End B Main Road**, Jayanagar 9^th Block East, **Bangalore** 560069.INDIA* *Tel: 91-80-22441977/26531339 Voice/Fax: 91-80-26534364* *Email: *esg at esgindia.org or* *esgindia at gmail.com * Web: *www.esgindia.org * * *Announcing the online release of * *ESG’s Documentation, Books and Reports List* 30^th April, 2008 Dear Friends, Colleagues and Researchers, This is to kindly bring to your notice that Environment Support Group’s (ESG) library and documentation has been recently updated and the catalog is now accessible online. ESG is an independent not-for profit voluntary organization whose area of work involves research, documentation, advocacy, training and campaign support on a variety of environmental and social issues. Documentation is an important area of work at ESG as well as a service offered to others. The specific focus of documentation at ESG is on issues of law and policy relating to environment and conservation. Leading dailies in English and Kannada are reviewed everyday for articles on a host of issues such as biodiversity, forestry, wildlife management, environmental decision making, dams, power sector, economic development, infrastructure, urban planning, human rights etc. We have an archive of nearly 120 files documenting the different issues over the last five years. Our news clippings archives can be consulted and photocopied at a nominal cost of Rs 2/- per page. Our growing library currently contains over 1000 books and over 900 reports published by several organisations on the various issues mentioned above. Additionally, we have a large number of articles, journals, magazines and newsletters collected over the years. Besides, ESG has also come out with some of its own publications which have been well received by the wider public. We have made this documentation accessible online in order to reach out to a larger audience so that interested people can skim through the catalog of books and reports that are available in our library before they decide to come and refer to them. Copies of a wide variety of documentary films on various social issues are also available at the ESG library at a nominal price. All these lists can be accessed at the following link of our website: http://esgindia.org/Documentation/Documentation.html These documents are used in our campaigns, training initiatives, media advocacy, lobbying and public interest litigations (PILs). The centre is constantly used by a variety of researchers, students, academicians, journalists and social workers. The information is made available through a wide range of print and electronic media. The ESG office is open six days a week to researchers, students and anybody interested in using our library and documentation centre for information and research at a nominal fee. Our office hours are: 10.30 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday, and on Saturdays from 11.00 am to 3 p.m. Please feel free to contact us to use these resources. Best wishes, Gitanjali Mahanti Learning Resources Coordinator Environment Support Group ® Email: gita at esgindia.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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