From yanivbin at gmail.com Tue Feb 1 00:37:34 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 00:37:34 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] New Delhi: Apartheid city Message-ID: http://infochangeindia.org/Urban-India/Cityscapes/New-Delhi-Apartheid-city.html *New Delhi: Apartheid city * By *Kalpana Sharma* There are chilling parallels between the building of the ‘new’ Delhi by Edward Lutyens exactly 100 years ago and the construction of the global city today. Then as now, the men and women who actually built this increasingly segregated and fissured city have no place in it In another hundred years, will Mumbai resemble even closely the urban chaos it represents today or will it become an orderly megacity where everything functions? Will Delhi ultimately fulfil its aspiration of becoming a global city? And in the process what will these cities lose and what will they gain? Documenting Indian cities today is a tricky affair. For they are changing at such a pace that even as you produce a document on a city, it gets outdated. In Mumbai, for instance, what were once the landmark textile mills that gave the city its nickname ‘Manchester of the East’ have been erased and replaced in less than a decade by glass and chrome structures that display not a hint of the city’s industrial past. Everyday there are reports of plans to replace the old with the new and destroy arrangements that have served a diverse population. The changes in India’s national capital are in some ways even more emphatic. 2011 will mark 100 years since the British notified Delhi as the capital of India through a proclamation by King George V. It is a fascinating century to study for it witnessed not just the dramatic political changes accompanying India’s move from colonial rule to independence but the physical transformation of an old walled city to one that aspires to become a ‘global’ city. What is striking is the disturbing continuity in attitudes and policies of the colonial rulers and those of an independent India. *Finding Delhi, Loss and Renewal in the Megacity* (Viking Penguin 2010), an edited volume by Bharati Chaturvedi, attempts to address the changes in the national capital from the perspective of those who are a low priority for the planners. Perhaps more than any other city in India, Delhi exemplifies the pitfalls of huge investments that produce a city that fails to satisfy the basic needs of the majority of its residents. Of course things could change and the city could yet become a more democratic and less segregated space. But from the lived experience of millions of Delhi’s residents, especially those who have been rendered virtually invisible by the visioning exercises of a ‘global city’, ‘new’ Delhi seems less democratic, more fissured, than the old and historic Delhi. Chaturvedi’s edited volume is an important addition to urban literature in the face of the direction of transformation in Indian cities. Unfortunately, although she acknowledges that there are gaps in it – such as chapters that look at the disappearing trees and green spaces – the real gaps are articles that look hard at the economics and politics of land use and the absence of an affordable housing policy. For in the final analysis, no Indian city will ever be deemed liveable if the desperate need for decent shelter by a growing number of city dwellers is not addressed with a sense of urgency. Yet neither local governments, nor state government, or even the Centre, address affordable housing on a priority basis as part of urban policy. Despite such gaps in the volume, at least a couple of the essays are important both for the perspective they provide and for the direction for the future that they indicate. Lalit Batra’a essay, ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Slumdwellers in “World-Class” Delhi’, suggests that Delhi today is an ‘apartheid city’ that is the outcome of an exclusionary planning process. He points out that while the colonial government made no pretence of being inclusive, the post-Independence governments of a ‘free’ India seem to have abandoned all attempts at being inclusive. The turning point in Delhi’s history was 1857, following the anti-colonial uprising. Delhi then was seen as a dirty congested place that needed to be ‘improved’. A municipal committee was set up in 1863 and tasked to improve and ‘sanitise’ it with the help of public nuisance laws that could be used to discourage activities considered unsuitable in a modern city. Thus tanneries, keeping draught animals and milch cattle, roadside hawking, slaughter houses etc were banned. (There is an eerie similarity to the current attitude towards some of these activities, particularly roadside hawking, something that gives millions of migrants their first opportunity of earning something when they arrive in a city.) In 1911, Edward Lutyens was given the task of building a new city, away from the old walled city of Delhi, “as the perfect embodiment of limitless imperial power”. Lutyens’ Delhi continues to be the embodiment of power even as other parts of the city struggle to survive. Batra’s essay brings out the chilling parallels between the building of the new capital a hundred years ago and the construction of the global city today. Then as now, the men and women who actually built it had no place in it. A hundred years ago, construction workers crowded into an already congested old Delhi or went to live on the outskirts. Today, they find places in slums that have survived demolition or move to the relocated slums outside the city. The pressure for affordable housing has been a constant in Delhi, greatly exacerbated first by the wave of refugees post-Partition, an estimated 4.5 lakhs, and thereafter the steady stream of migrants from the states surrounding Delhi and further afield. As early as the First Five-Year Plan, the presence of slums in urban areas was noted and they were seen as a “national problem” and a “disgrace to the country”. The Second Five-Year Plan acknowledged that any policy dealing with slums should ensure minimum dislocation of slum residents. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Delhi Master Plan were supposed to address the need for affordable housing. Indeed one of the features of the plan was “getting rid of slums by providing standard ‘decent’ housing for everyone.” Yet between 1959-75, the slum population grew rapidly as provisions in the master plan were routinely violated. By the late-1990s, despite these efforts at planned development, Delhi had 3 million people living in 1,000 slum clusters. By the time the age of liberalisation dawned, even this attempt to deal with the problem was abandoned, argues Batra, and was replaced by the concepts of “legal and aesthetic”. Slums that were illegal and certainly not beautiful could have no place in such a vision. And so began the policy of slum removal and relocation outside the city. Batra estimates that between 1998 and 2010, an estimated 10 lakh poor people have been displaced in Delhi. That is an astoundingly large figure. The result of such a policy towards the urban poor is the creation of a city that has the superficial markers of a modern city but is based on making invisible the people who actually make the city work. A vivid description of exactly who these people are comes through in Vinay Gidwani’s fascinating essay on Delhi’s recycling industry. It mirrors such industries in other cities, where thousands of silent workers pick, sort and remove the growing mountains of waste that modern urban living produces. Yet, even as the service they render is being recognised at a time of growing environmental consciousness, there is little or no attention paid to their wages or their health. A memorable section of the essay describes women removing the PVC outsoles from discarded sneakers. “As the soles heat up, along with the adhesive that binds them to the body of the footwear, plumes of noxious grey smoke waft into the air. The smoke catches the back of the throat, so acrid that it is difficult to suppress a staccato of coughing. ‘Dioxins’, my colleague mutters. The women, who have no safety gear at hand, merely cover their noses with their *chunni* or *pallu*.” What will be the lifespan of these women workers who inhale poisons on a daily basis? Gidwani rightly argues that the recyclers of waste illustrate well the interdependence in the urban economy of the formal and the informal. Yet while the formal is valued, the informal is not. “How different might Delhi look if its ruling classes learnt to recognise the sprawling universe of people, places, activities and things that they currently scorn as marginal, peripheral, illicit or annoying as the enablers of their own lives in this city.” Yes, indeed, all our cities would look different if the ruling classes had such an epiphany. The volume also contains an essay on the Yamuna River by Manoj Misra. Delhi is described as a city located on the banks of this 1,400-km-long perennial river. Yet the part that flows past Delhi is pure poison and the city’s residents know little and care even less about this. Manoj Misra of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan illustrates in his essay the callous and ignorant attitude of city planners toward the river and the flood plains that in the past absorbed the excess water in the river during the monsoon. Today, the threat of flooding has become greater because the Delhi authorities have chosen to exploit what they deem are ‘vacant’ lands. Despite expert advice to the contrary, they have gone ahead and built a Metro Rail Depot and station, an IT park, the Akshardham Temple, the Commonwealth Games Village, an electric sub-station and a mall on these flood plains. Needless to say, the poor communities that lived around this area have been pushed out. Perhaps the volume should have been called ‘Losing Delhi’. For it is clear from the essays in the book and other writing on Delhi that what marked it out as a city with a history, a beautiful environment and a diverse population is quickly being replaced by an unsustainable and unequal megacity. FINDING DELHI, Loss and Renewal in the Megacity*, edited by Bharati Chaturvedi, published by Viking Penguin 2010, pp 171, Rs 350* *Infochange News & Features, December 2010* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Thu Feb 3 11:59:00 2011 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 11:59:00 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Invitation to attend 'Privacy Matters' - Saturday Feb 5th, 2011 at TERI, Domlur Message-ID: Dear all, Sorry for cross-posting. Privacy India and the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore invite you to attend “Privacy matters” on February 5th at 10:30 at the TERI Southern Regional Center, Bangalore. The conference will focus on discussing the challenges to privacy that India is currently facing. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g., the TRAI Act for telephony or RBI guidelines for banking, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. This lack of uniformity has led to ironically imbalanced results. In India today one has a stronger right to privacy over telephone records than over one‟s own medical records. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. – people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected. The emergence of information and communications technologies over the past two decades has radically transformed the speed and costs of access to information. However, this enhanced climate of access to information has been a mixed blessing. Whilst augmenting our access to knowledge, this new networked information economy has also now made it much easier, quicker, and cheaper to gain access to intimate personal information about individuals than ever before. As people expose more and more of their lives to others through the use of social networks, reliance on mobile phones, global trade, etc., there has emerged a heightened risk of privacy violations in India. As privacy continues to be a growing concern for individuals, nations, and the international community, it is critical that India understands and addresses the questions, challenges, implications and dilemmas that violations of privacy pose. Who We Are Privacy India was set up in collaboration with The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore and Society in Action Group (SAG), under the auspices of the international organization „Privacy International.‟ Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies, the media and the public in a number of countries (see www.privacyinternational.org). Its Advisory Board is made up of distinguished intellectuals, academicians, thinkers and activists such as Noam Chomsky, the late Harold Pinter, and others, and it has collaborated with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Privacymatters_agenda-Bangalore.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 159535 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PrivacyMattersBangalore.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 329881 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Privacy Matters write up- Bangalore.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 346673 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Feb 4 05:31:13 2011 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 16:01:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Studio X Mumbai February 10-13 Message-ID: <210037.11732.qm@web57411.mail.re1.yahoo.com> (from Rajeev Thakker) To Celebrate the Launch of STUDIO-X MUMBAI MARK WIGLEY Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University and RAJEEV THAKKER Director, Studio-X Mumbai Invite you to the opening events for ARCHITECTURE OF CONSEQUENCE February 10 - 13, 2010 Studio-X Mumbai Kitab Mahal Fourth Floor 192, D N Road Fort Mumbai 400 001 EXHIBITION PREVIEW Thursday, February 10 6:30pm Reception 7:00pm Social Responsibility in Design with OLE BOUMAN Director, Netherlands Architecture Institute MARK WIGLEY Dean, Columbia University | GSAPP UNSOLICITED ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP The Architecture of Community Sunday, February 13 2:30pm Special guest critics will review the proposals of four design charrette groups comprised of GSAPP faculty and alumni, NAi and local architects for how architecture can build social value and bring a positive effect to four different neighborhoods in Mumbai. LEARN MORE: http://www.arch.columbia.edu/studiox http://www.architectureofconsequence.nl E-mail StudioXMumbai at columbia.edu with questions. ABOUT ARCHITECTURE OF CONSEQUENCE: DUTCH DESIGNS ON THE FUTURE Architecture of Consequence, an international traveling exhibition curated by the Netherlands Architecture Institute, shows that architecture can play a part in formulating solutions to widespread global problems through sustainable designs for the future. Contributors include 2by4-architects, De Zwarte Hond, Doepel Strijkers Architecten, MVRDV, Studio Marco Vermeulen, West 8, CONCEPT0031, Anne Holtrop, Next Architects, seARCH, 2012 Architecten, Atelier Kempe Thill, Biq Stadsontwerp, MUST Urbanism, OMA/AMO, ONIX, Powerhouse Company, Rietveld Landscape, Stealth.ultd, Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten, Venhoeven CS, ZUS. ABOUT THE STUDIO-X GLOBAL NETWORK INITIATIVE Studio-X is GSAPP’s global network of advanced research laboratories for exploring the future of cities. With locations in New York, Beijing, Amman, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow, it is a new platform for incubating conversation about the future of the built environment – intense collaborative workshop by day, energizing event space by night. SPONSORED BY The Netherlands Architecture Fund Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science DutchDFA Dutch Embassy in New Delhi Dutch Consulate General of The Netherlands Niloufer Kapadia Vijay Raheja Design Construction The Advantage Raheja GSAPP Studio-X -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrajaya at yahoo.com Fri Feb 4 18:27:16 2011 From: jrajaya at yahoo.com (jayaraj s) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 04:57:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: Judgment on Common Lands by Supreme court of India Message-ID: <552246.10082.qm@web110803.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Attached is the judgment given by Supreme court of India for Common Lands. Thought the list members might be interested to read this; if you havent already come across.  Best Jayaraj http://personal.lse.ac.uk/sundares -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Common land supreme court judgment.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 117423 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk Sat Feb 5 09:51:26 2011 From: anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk (anant maringanti) Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 09:51:26 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: Judgment on Common Lands by Supreme court of India In-Reply-To: <552246.10082.qm@web110803.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <552246.10082.qm@web110803.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Dear Jayaraj, Thanks for the alert. I read the news reports in passing... but did not realise its significance until I read the attachment you sent. (Those who did not receive the attachment can download the judgment from http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/content/supreme-court-order-village-community-lands-dated-28-january-2011) On first reading, I thought the judgment is interesting for the following reasons... (perhaps others can fill in). 1) It is a ruling in a case involving a particular process of privatising common lands which has become quite prevalent in the last three decades: collusion between local elected body, district administration and investor: Build first and then regularise it by paying a penalty which can be negotiated. 2) The SC has not closed the case. It is monitoring it and has asked for reports from state governments. This has now become an established practice at the Supreme Court where cases of bad governance are involved. Merging judicial and executive functions and thus opening up all kinds of possibilities. Except that in this particular case there is no designated monitoring committee (as is the case in the Right to Food case and in at least two environmental cases). But I think the SC will accept counter affidavits while going through the reports from state governments on May 11th. 3) The headline in ET says the SC ruling is about 'squatters'; a term which largely refers to poor people using common resources and as such, in the absence of on the ground opposition, it will be possible to use the ruling against everyone but those towards against whom it is intended. 4) The term 'gair mumkin toba' is rather blandly rendered in the judgment as village pond. The revenue category 'gair mumkin toba' must have a history going back to the Mughal administration ?? Or is it an artifact of he British revenue settlement? Anyways.. the first part of it literally means 'not possible'. Not possible what ? Private ownership? Digging into these meanings can be potentially enrich the Indian jurisprudence and serve a public education purpose. anant -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carol.upadhya at gmail.com Sat Feb 5 19:58:51 2011 From: carol.upadhya at gmail.com (Carol Upadhya) Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 19:58:51 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Workshop on 'Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City', with Prof Michael Goldman, Saturday Feb 12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear friends, The Urban Research and Policy Programme of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, invites you to a workshop with Professor Michael Goldman (University of Minnesota). ** > > The workshop will be a discussion of a forthcoming article by Goldman entitled *'Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City'.* Prof. Goldman will introduce the article and the participants will then ‘workshop’ it. The participants are requested to read the piece prior to the workshop and engage in the discussion. *The article will be sent to participants who register for the workshop - please **e-mail Rito at *ritajyoti at gmail.com. *Date and time: * Saturday, February 12, 2011, 2:30-5.30 pm * Place: * Jaaga, # No. 16/1, Rhenius Street off Richmond Road Opposite Hockey Stadium Shanthinagar, Bangalore - 560025 (for directions see: *http://www.jaaga.in/contact*) *Please feel free to circulate this announcement. Abstract**: * This article explores the process of making Bangalore, India into a ‘world city’ by focusing on specific world-city projects, the parastatal government agencies managing them, the explosive IT industry as the putative engine behind this world-city making, and the inter-urban dynamics across world cities such as Dubai and Singapore. Most of these activities are linked to the highly remunerative challenge of transforming rural economies into urban real estate. Land speculation and active dispossession of those working and living in the rural periphery, on land upon which the new world-city projects are being built is the main business of government today in Bangalore. This article suggests that this temporary ‘state of exception’, with both its attendant suspensions of civil and human rights as well as their institutionalization into government practices, reflects a shift into new forms of ‘speculative’ government, economy, urbanism and citizenship. > > *About the speaker:** * Prof. Michael Goldman teaches Sociology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. His most recent book, based on a decade-long ethnography of the World Bank, is *Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization* (Yale University Press 2005; Orient Longman India 2006; Kyoto University Press [in Japanese] 2008). His current research, “Speculating on the next Global City,” focuses on the highly uneven social and spatial transformations occurring in Bangalore, India and across other 'competing' cities in Asia. -- Carol Upadhya Professor 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) 97408 50141 carol at nias.iisc.ernet.in carol.upadhya at gmail.com Programme Co-Director, *Provincial Globalisation: The Impact of Reverse Transnational Flows in India's Regional Towns * http://www.aissr.uva.nl/movingmatters/projects.cfm *http://www.nias.res.in/research-schools-socialsciences-provincial.php* Co-anchor, *Urban Research and Policy Programme* -- Carol Upadhya Professor 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) 97408 50141 carol at nias.iisc.ernet.in carol.upadhya at gmail.com Programme Co-Director, *Provincial Globalisation: The Impact of Reverse Transnational Flows in India's Regional Towns * http://www.aissr.uva.nl/movingmatters/projects.cfm *http://www.nias.res.in/research-schools-socialsciences-provincial.php* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sbalakr at fas.harvard.edu Mon Feb 7 11:34:31 2011 From: sbalakr at fas.harvard.edu (Sai Balakrishnan) Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2011 01:04:31 -0500 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP_Housing Panel for Wisconsin South Asia Conference. Message-ID: <1297058671.4d4f8b6f11c94@webmail.fas.harvard.edu> Dear friends, This is a call for papers for an inter-disciplinary panel on "The Political Economy of Housing in South Asia" at the Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Please find attached the details on the panel. The due date for abstracts is 25 February, 2011. The South Asia conference will be held in Madison, WI, on October 20 - 23, 2011. Please address all queries and abstracts to Sai Balakrishnan (sbalakr at fas.harvard.edu) and Namita Dharia (ndharia at fas.harvard.edu). Looking forward to hearing from you. Sai Balakrishnan PhD Candidate in Urban Planning Harvard University -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CFP_PE of land and housing S.Asia.doc Type: application/msword Size: 27136 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bawazainab79 at gmail.com Tue Feb 8 18:00:06 2011 From: bawazainab79 at gmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 18:00:06 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Support for SPARROW Message-ID: Dear all, I am putting out some of my books for sale. I am selling these books to raise a total of Rs. 10,000 as my commitment for support to SPARROW. Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW) is an organization based in Mumbai. It is an archival repository that has been collecting oral history and visual material connected with women’s lives and experiences in India and South Asia for the past twenty years. In the words of C S Lakshmi, one of the trustees of SPARROW, “We record histories of individual women from various walks of life such as educationists, artists, writers, feminists, women from left and other progressive movements, freedom fighters, traditional medicine practitioners and so on. Sometimes, we even interview women who may not be “achievers” but who have taken decisions that have affected the lives of members in their family. In sum, what we are recording is what we call the politics of everyday life.” I believe that it is very important to support archives such as SPARROW in order to access histories and narratives of everyday politics. These stories and accounts can have a powerful impact on people’s perspectives and worldviews, thus holding a great possibility of bringing about change in our society. SPARROW is currently in need of funds in order to support their digitization work and to continue to sustain. I am making a very small attempt in the direction of supporting SPARROW, which actually involves nourishing persons like myself who have learnt and grown - emotionally, intellectually and politically - from the insights of other people’s lives. Please support me in this endeavour. 1) Joe Studwell's "Asian Godfathers - Money and Power in Hong Kong and South East Asia" - Rs. 700 2). Pinki Virani's "Once was a Bombay" - Rs. 200 3). Vikram Kapadia's "Black with Equal" - Rs. 65 4). Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" - Volume 1 - Rs. 250 5). Bimal Jalan's "India's politics: a view from the back bench" - Rs. 250 6). Louise Brown's "Sex Slaves - the trafficking of women in Asia" - Rs. 300 7). Howard Becker's "Tricks of the Trade - How to think about your research while you're doing it." - Rs. 250 8). John Pickering and Martin Skinner's "From Sentience to Symbols - Readings on Consciousness" - Rs. 400 9). Sampurna Chattarji's "Sight May Strike You Blind" - Rs. 50 10). R. K. Narayan's "The Financial Expert" - Rs. 95 11). Paul Theroux's "Kowloon Tong" - Rs. 80 12). Charles Landry’s “The Creative City” - Rs. 400 Regards, Zainab -- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher http://writerruns.wordpress.com/ ... ambling along roads and courses, not knowing whether I am running towards a destination or whether the act of running is destination in itself -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Feb 11 22:27:01 2011 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:57:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Vertical Urbanism website Message-ID: <567286.57051.qm@web57403.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Hi all, Andrew Harris has brought to my attention a website that he recently published on the web: www.verticalurbanism.comThe site is composed of research materials from a project that examined the construction of flyovers and skywalks in Mumbai. (The site is optimized for browsers other than Internet Explorer). Do visit the site! -Curt ------- www.verticalurbanism.com Dr Andrew Harris Lecturer in Urban Studies and Geography UCL Urban Laboratory Department of Geography University College London 26 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AP Tel: 020 7679 5528 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab MSc Urban Studies www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanstudies -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Feb 11 22:18:33 2011 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:48:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP: CinemaSpace, Rice University Chao Center for Asian Studies Message-ID: <331423.80256.qm@web57412.mail.re1.yahoo.com> CALL FOR PAPERS CinemaSpace A TWO‐DAY CONFERENCE ON INDIAN CINEMA AND THE CITY 3 – 4 November 2011 Organized By Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University CinemaSpace proposes to bring together scholars working on Indian cinema in an attempt to refocus our attention on questions of technology, aesthetics and the production of cinematic space. The structuring of the cinematic city will be the organizing thread of the conference. The city here is understood as a placeholder for bringing together and delineating concerns of aesthetics, technology, modernity and development. In the last decade, with the emergence of a globalized cultural industry that has been termed ‘Bollywood’, a segment of Indian cinema has been receiving much attention in Western academia both in terms of research and courses being taught. As has been noted by film scholars, narrative difficulties such as song‐dance sequences and complex plot lines that were seen as hindrances to the appeal of Indian cinema in the West has today become infused with cultural and economic value. Scholarship that focus on this cultural value of ‘Bollywood’ and its critique based on the argument of multiplicity of cinemas in India (or regional cinemas as they are called) continues to read aesthetics as cultural difference. This takes attention away from cinema’s specificity as a techno‐aesthetic, which has salience across regional/national particularities. This move away from particularities cannot be ‘post‐’ or ‘pre‐’, but is grounded on the national itself, hence the focus in this conference on one national cinema. The conference attempts to initiate new conversations between papers that address the aesthetics and narrative forms of Indian cinema from different standpoints. The different axes around which city space is organized in Indian cinema within, without and at the edges of the diegetic frame will be of interest. It proposes to think through the production of space in Indian cinema as linked to cinematic and other art practices in other parts of the world with which it has been in constant contact. These links, although more visible to us in the last two decades, have been a feature of Indian cinema from its inception. The imagining of the cinematic city is a significant thematic that will allow us to think through the structuring of space in Indian cinema outside culturalist assumptions, and to help us understand its aesthetic practice as historical and internationalist at the same time. For analytic purposes, the conference would propose to bracket off the understanding of cinema as a space of representation to focus on the aesthetic concerns governing it. Rather than cinema being a space through which one finds traces of real cities, the conference attempts to think of space of the city in cinema as a frame of intelligibility. The questions that the conference will address include, but are not limited to: • The aesthetic of cinematic city • City, modernity and the film frame • Internationalisms and the cinematic city • Realism, melodrama and the city • Trajectories of film aesthetics beyond the nation • Film industry, capital and commodity • State formations, film policy • Location shooting and the studio floor • Camera, projector and the eye • Aurality and space • Choreographed bodies • Architecture in/of cinema • Movements and the city • Cartographies, habitations, navigations • Celluloid and digital city spaces • City limits Prof. Moinak Biswas, Department of Film Studies, Jadhavpur University, Kolkata (India) will give the keynote address. Abstracts of not more than 500 words along with a short bio‐note should be sent to Ratheesh Radhakrishnan at rr16 at rice.edu latest by April 10, 2011. Emails should have “film conference” as its subject line. Acceptance notifications will be sent by April 25, 2011. The Chao Center will be happy to host the selected scholars in Houston for the duration of the conference, but will be unable to cover travel costs. Selected workshop proceedings will be submitted for publication consideration as a special journal issue to the journal positions: asia critique (currently titled positions: east asia cultures critique) in 2012. Inclusion in the proposed special number is subject to a provisional review process; acceptance and publication are secured only through the journal's double‐blind peer‐review process. For future updates on the conference: http://chaocenter.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=650 Ratheesh Radhakrishnan Postdoctoral Fellow Rice University Chao Center for Asian Studies, MS‐475 Houston, TX 77005 USA rr16 at rice.edu http://asia.rice.edu ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CINEMASPACE_Call for Papers.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 177629 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Feb 11 22:30:33 2011 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:00:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: A Season of Footage and Films, Part 8. The City Plays Itself. Sunday, Feb 13th at CAMP Message-ID: <661426.69973.qm@web57403.mail.re1.yahoo.com> ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: ashok sukumaran To: camp at lists.mailb.org Sent: Fri, February 11, 2011 9:33:55 AM Subject: A Season of Footage and Films, Part 8. The City Plays Itself. Sunday, Feb 13th at CAMP Dear all, This Sunday, February 13th, 6:30 pm onwards, we present: The City Plays Itself. Two films by film critics, who cut and paste their own very different paths into cities (or neighbourhoods) that "play themselves", in cinema. In Los Angeles and in Bandra, it was possible to make a film about this idea, rather than write a book, a review, or a conference paper. It was not possible to "release" the resulting films, but they still, as you can see, have a life of their own. Bandra in Bollywood Amrit Gangar 2006, 75 mins Los Angeles Plays Itself Thom Anderson 2003, 179 mins at CAMP roof 301, Alif Apartments, Chium village, Khar (w) Mumbai- 52 See you there! (attached, still from Baaton Baaton Mein, 1979) For questions and responses email info(@)camputer.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: bandrainbollywood.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 52607 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kchamaraj at gmail.com Sun Feb 13 18:31:31 2011 From: kchamaraj at gmail.com (Kathyayini Chamaraj) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:31:31 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Article on Karnataka's Community Participation Law in Citizen Matters Message-ID: http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/2760-diluted-community-participation-bill BENGALURU CITIZENS CUT SHORT AGAIN? Community Participation Bill leaves out the community In order to not lose the funding from JNNURM, Karnataka government passed community participation bill without any discussion. But it was a watered down bill, giving little power to citizens. By Kathyayini Chamaraj 11 Feb 2011, Citizen Matters Citizens of Sagayapuram (Ward 60) of Bangalore recently prepared their own programme of works for their ward. They had wanted - among other wishes - community toilets, nursery school renovation and footpaths for 24 lakh rupees, but the BBMP sanctioned 27 lakhs just for street name-boards. This shows the stark lack of community participation in decision-making even 18 years after passing the 74th Constitutional Amendment (74th CAA) or Nagarapalika Act, which mandated "Power to the People" in urban areas. Karnataka's Community Participation Bill *Amendments that do nothing to strengthen community participation* The 74th CAA was to bring in decentralisation, proximity, transparency, accountability and people's participation in urban governance, but these objectives are far from being realised yet. While there has been some change in rural areas in this direction under the parallel 73rd CAA or Panchayat Raj Act, urban areas have seen little progress in this regard. To make recalcitrant States fulfill these objectives, the central government-run Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) imposed a conditionality on state governments that to receive funds under the mission: States should fully implement the 74th CAA; bring in a Community Participation Law (CPL) to supplement its provisions. Karnataka dragged its feet even on this, but faced with the prospect of not receiving further JNNURM funds from the centre, drafted amendments to the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act in great secrecy to bring in community participation. The Model Nagararaj (CP) Bill circulated by the Centre's Ministry of Urban Development under JNNURM calls for the division of each ward into ‘areas' comprising a polling area of a few contiguous polling stations. All persons registered as voters in that ‘area' shall be members of the ‘area sabha' and shall elect their Area Sabha Representative (ASR) who shall be a member of the ward committee. Contrary to this, Karnataka's CP Billsays that the ASR, instead of being elected, shall be ‘nominated' by the municipality on the recommendation of the Councilor. The nomination process will make the ASR a mere ‘henchman' of the councilor, unaccountable to the people of the area. Moreover, the ASR shall not be a member of the ward committee which is the main decision-making body. This will de-link the Area Sabha and ASR from the ward committee and render them decorative and powerless, created merely to fulfill the conditionality under JNNURM. * * CIVIC procured a copy of the Bill and held a public consultation on it. However, even before the changes suggested by citizens at CIVIC's discussion could be incorporated, the Bill was passed in the Assembly with no debate and with the Opposition staging a dharna outside. The irony is that there has been no community participation in framing the community participation law! *What the ward committees are supposed to do* The ward committee is supposed to consist of a different set of ten members. Of the ten, there shall be at least two SCs/STs, three women and at least two representing residents' welfare associations or other interest groups. But even these members shall be ‘nominated' by the Corporation instead of being selected by the various interest groups themselves. All this makes a mockery of the concept of citizen participation. To top it all, the Councilor shall be given veto powers over ward committee decisions, strengthening the prevalent wrong perception that elected representatives are our ‘rulers' and not our ‘representatives'. A progressive South African booklet on ward committees cautions against political parties influencing how ward committees are appointed on the ground that it may simply reproduce the views of political forces already represented in the Council and it will therefore become difficult to hear anything new from local civil society. When ward committees are seen to be controlled by a single political party, interest groups and individuals aligned to other parties inevitably become alienated from the ward committee and feel that there is little point in participating as their opinions will not be listened to. *The need for Area Sabha Representative* There is much opposition among elected representatives to the idea of 'elected ASRs' as they are perceived to weaken the powers of the directly-elected Councilor. The point is that one needs elected ASRs to plug the weaknesses of the 74th CA compared to the 73rd CA. The 74th CA does not provide for proximity to the elected representative (in a GP, there is one representative for every 400 people, whereas there is one elected representative for 30,000 people in urban areas like Bangalore. Bureaucrats themselves admit the lack of proximity when they say that a Councilor cannot attend all area sabha meetings. This is the reason why there is need for a greater degree of representation in urban areas by having elected ASRs for every 3000 people at least. One could even think of indirect election of the ward Councilor by ASRs, like in GPs. On the concern that there that there might be conflicts between elected ASRs and the directly-elected councilor; If rural areas can be considered to need one elected representative for every 400 population, why not the urban populace? Ward committees need to be empowered to plan and supervise all institutions in the ward, such as the ration shops, PHCs, dispensaries, family welfare centres, primary schools, anganwadis, day-care centres for 0-6 and the elderly, livelihood centres, workers' facilitation centres, residential hostels/schools for SC/STs, OBCs, etc., social housing, etc. over which the ward committee has jurisdiction. Ward committees should have the power to impose financial penalties on such government officials, who report to ward committees and with whose functioning the ward committee is dissatisfied. Given the need to fulfil the enlarged mandate given by the 74th CA of ensuring social justice, the ward committee shall plan and ensure that there are sufficient affordable rental housing units, no homeless persons, that all eligible are provided social security, adequate skill training facilities and credit facilities at low interest rates, wage-employment on municipal works for all those unemployed, implementation of all labour laws. *Diluted powers to the ASRs* The 74th CA and the current CPL do not give the ward committee or ward sabhas the powers given to GPs and grama sabhas in rural areas. If rural areas can be given the privilege of having self-governing insitutions with a great deal of participatory and direct democracy, why are the urban people being denied the same privileges? The Area Sabha has been given the functions of merely ‘suggesting' plans and remedies for deficiencies in a few basic services, such as water supply, sanitation and street lighting, and ‘assist the activities' of public health centres ‘promote' harmony, ‘cooperate' with the ward committee, etc. It shall also select eligible persons for beneficiary-oriented schemes and forward for ‘approval' by the ward committee or corporation. This is contrary to the concept that the people are sovereign in a democracy and should have decision-making powers over their areas which other higher levels shall not have the power to change or overrule. *Why the opposition?* Opponents oppose this on the ground that ours is a ‘representative' and not a ‘participatory' or ‘direct' democracy. However, one needs to move towards greater participatory democracy rather than mere representative democracy given the crisis of confidence in our elected representatives prevailing in the country. In the current situation, it is necessary to keep checks and balances on the elected representatives, who one is seeing are indulging in one scam or another on a daily basis and have become totally unaccountable to the people, with a few exceptions only. More direct democracy is also required by giving more powers of decision-making to the people themselves through area sabhas, keeping in view the large-scale disregard of people's rights to life and livelihood taking place in the country in the name of development, and the displacement and loss of land and assets that is happening. All these regressive decisions are being taken by elected ‘representatives', but these are not what the people really want. The elected representatives are perceived to be not behaving like our 'representatives', but like our 'rulers' or modern-day maharajas. The cynicism with the current state of political affairs is because the so-called development happening appears to be a euphemism for the loot of the nation's resources and a transfer of assets from the poor to the rich through a nexus of the elected representatives, bureaucrats and corporates. This prevailing context of the country makes it imperative to think out of the box to make 74th CA more effective and not be status quo-ists harping on technicalities, which those in power appear to be doing. * ⊕* Kathyayini Chamaraj 11 Feb 2011 The writer is Executive Trustee of CIVIC Bangalore. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Sun Feb 13 23:54:07 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:54:07 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] The US Water Trade Mission to India In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kshithij Urs Date: Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 8:59 PM [image: Poster 1.JPG]Dear Friends, *This is an Urgent Invite and an Appeal. * An exclusive group of American business executives are coming to Bangalore on the 28th of February under the protection of the US department of Commerce and in their own words, they will be here on a mission to *“Tap the $50 billion (2.5 Lakh Crore) Indian Water Market”*. Though this *US Water Trade Mission* will be visiting only Bangalore and Mumbai, the whole of India needs to wake up to this overt effort action by the Americans. The USAID has been consistently working on water reforms for more than a decade but this is the first time that such a ‘mission’ is being planned. The peoples’ campaign for right to water-Karnataka is organising a *planning meet on the 15th , SCM House, off Mission Road, Bangalore between 10 AM and 2 PM .* The people of Karnataka have to plan a series of actions against the mission including a mass protest on the 28th. A base paper on the event has been attached for your reference. Please attend the planning program. Warmth, On behalf of the peoples’ campaign, Rajendran Prabhakar - 9449820566 Issac Arul Selva - 9480452037 Kshithij Urs- 9845452242 ------------------------------ This email message has been delivered safely and archived online by Mimecast. For more information please visit http://www.mimecast.com ------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 65688 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: The US Water Trade Mission to India - Press Note.doc Type: application/msword Size: 41472 bytes Desc: not available URL: From arkaja at gmail.com Wed Feb 16 13:29:04 2011 From: arkaja at gmail.com (Arkaja Singh) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:29:04 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] =?iso-8859-1?q?CSH-CPR_Urban_Workshop_/_N=B013?= Message-ID: Dear All, As part of our Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a workshop titled *Spatializing Knowledge in Urban Governance *by* Isa Baud and N. Sridharan*, University of Amsterdam/ School of Planning and Architecture. Best wishes, Arkaja Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 Time: 3:45 pm Venue: Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021 *theindiancity.net* * * * * *Urban Workshop Series * Spatializing knowledge in urban governance Isa Baud and N. Sridharan University of Amsterdam/ School of Planning and Architecture *3:45 pm** **Tuesday, 22 February 2011** * Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi New forms of urban governance require Indian local bodies to work increasingly with other partners from private sector and civil society organisations. Such networks also demand spatialized knowledge to provide legitimacy in negotiations for setting priorities, and for making processes transparent and effective. Such knowledge is available in many formats (expert, embedded, tacit, community-based), but not always recognized or generated in a usable form. Spatializing knowledge provides a means to link different types of knowledge to one locality to promote common understanding, potentially increasing legitimacy in decision-making. This presentation reports on methods developed in the Netherlands-India research programme on ‘Utilizing spatial knowledge in urban governance networks’, being carried out in four cities in India. The presentation will discuss the potential of the tools developed so far for more participatory urban governance networks. * * *Isa Baud *is professor of IDS at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Amsterdam. She is also currently scientific coordinator of the EU programme *Chance2Sustain: **City growth and the sustainability challenge**. *Her recent book publications include *New Forms of Urban Governance in India* (2008, with J. de Wit). For full information see her personal webpage at the UvA website. *Prof. N. Sridharan* is professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. He is country team leader of the EU programme * ‘Chance2Sustain’*. He is engaged in an action research project on ‘spatial data infrastructure for urban poverty eradication’ with Univ. of Amsterdam/ ITC-The Netherlands. His interests and areas of expertise include urban land, financing and access to infrastructure. He also has an interest in housing finance and was involved with setting up a housing finance subsidiary in a national bank. *This is the thirteenth in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), **New Delhi** and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: **Marie-Hélène **Zerah at ** marie-helene.zerah at ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha at cprindia.org *** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bawazainab79 at gmail.com Thu Feb 17 20:07:41 2011 From: bawazainab79 at gmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:07:41 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Call for Papers: Special Issue on Open Data, Journal of Community Informatics Message-ID: Journal of Community Informatics: Call for Papers for Special issue on Open Data Guest editors: Tim Davies, Practical Participation and Zainab Bawa, CIS-RAW fellow Call for Proposals The Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net)is a focal point for the communication of research that is of interest to a global network of academics, Community Informatics practitioners and national and multi-lateral policy makers. We invite submission of original, unpublished articles for a forthcoming special edition of the Journal that will focus on Open Data. We welcome research articles, case studies and notes from the field. All research articles will be double blind peer-reviewed. Insights and analytical perspectives from practitioners and policy makers in the form of notes from the field or case studies are also encouraged. These will not be peer-reviewed. Why a special issue on Open Data In many countries across the world, discussions, policies and developments are actively emerging around open access to government data. It is believed that opening up government data to citizens is critical for enforcing transparency and accountability within the government. Open data is also seen as holding the potential to bring about greater citizens’ participation, empowering citizens to ask questions of their governments via not only the data that is made openly available but also through the interpretations that different stakeholders make of the open data. Besides advocacy for open data on grounds of democracy, it is also argued that opening government data can have significant economic potential, generating new industries and innovations. Whilst some open government data initiatives are being led by governments, other open data projects are taking a grassroots approach, collecting and curating government data in reusable digital formats which can be used by specific communities at the grassroots and/or macro datasets that can be used/received/applied in different ways in different local/grassroots contexts. INGOs, NGOs and various civil society and community based organizations are also getting involved with open data activities, from sharing data they hold regarding aid flows, health, education, crime, land records, demographics, etc, to actively sourcing public data through freedom of information and right to information acts. The publishing of open data on the Internet can make it part of a global eco-system of data, and efforts are underway in technology, advocacy and policy-making communities to develop standards, approaches and tools for linking and analysing these new open data resources. At the same time, there are questions surrounding the very notion of ‘openness’, primarily whether openness and open data have negative repercussions for particular groups of citizens in certain social, geographic, political, demographic, cultural and other grassroots contexts. In sum then, what we find in society today is not only various practices relating to open data, but also an active shift in paradigms about access and use of information and data, and notions of “openness” and “information/data”. These emerging/renewed paradigms are also configuring/reconfiguring understandings and practices of “community” and “citizenship”. We therefore find it imperative to engage with crucial questions that are emerging from these paradigm shifts as well as the related policy initiatives, programmatic action and field experiences. Some of the questions that we hope this special issue will explore are: 1. How are citizens’ groups, grassroots organizations, NGOs, diverse civil society associations and other public and private entities negotiating with different arms of the state to provide access to government data both in the presence and absence of official open data policies, freedom/right of information legislations and similar commitments on the part of governments? 1. What are the various models of open data that are operational in practice in different parts of the world? What are the different ways in which open data are being used by and for the grassroots and what are the impacts (positive, negative, paradoxical) of such open data for communities and groups at the grassroots? 1. Who/which actors are involved in opening up what kinds of data? What are their stakes in opening up such data and making it available for the public? 1. What are the different technologies that are being used for publishing, storing and archiving open data? What are the challenges/issues that various grassroots users and the stakeholders, experience with respect to these technologies i.e., design, scale, costs, dissemination of the open data to different publics and realizing the potential of open data? 1. What notions of openness and publicness are at work in both policies as well as initiatives concerning open data and what impacts do these notions have on grassroots’ practitioners and users? 1. Following from the above, what are the implications of opening up different kinds of data for privacy, security and local level practices and information systems? Thematic focus The following suggested areas of thematic focus (policy, technology, uses, impacts) give a non-exhaustive list of potential topic areas for articles or case studies. The core interest of the special issue is addressing each of these themes from, or taking into account, grassroots, local citizen and community perspectives. 1. Different policy and practice approaches to open data and open government data 2. Diverse uses of open data and their impacts 3. Technologies that are deployed for implementing open data and their implications 4. Critical assessments of stakeholders and stakes in opening up different kinds of data. Submission Abstracts are invited in the first instance, to be submitted by e-mail to jociopendata at gmail.com. Deadline for abstracts: 31st March 2011 Deadline for complete paper submissions: 15th September 2011 Publication date is forthcoming Please send abstracts, in the first instance, of up to 300 words to jociopendata at gmail.com. For information about JCI submission requirements, including author guidelines, please visit: http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions Guest Editors Zainab Bawa Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) RAW fellow bawazainab79 at gmail.com Tim Davies Director, Practical Participation (http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk) tim at practicalparticipation.co.uk | @timdavies | +447834856303 -- Zainab Bawa Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher http://writerruns.wordpress.com/ ... ambling along roads and courses, not knowing whether I am running towards a destination or whether the act of running is destination in itself -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrajaya at yahoo.com Thu Feb 17 21:26:31 2011 From: jrajaya at yahoo.com (jayaraj s) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:56:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Robert and Dilys Rawson Scholarship to study at the LSE Geography In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580391.84214.qm@web110803.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Some of the list members might be interested.   Best Jayaraj http://personal.lse.ac.uk/sundares     Robert and Dilys Rawson Scholarship to study at the LSE Geography     Potential candidates must have been offered admission to the MPhil/PhD programme within the Department of Geography and Environment|, and be a national of one of the following places:  Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. Applicants from other countries in the general region of central, southern and south-east Asia may be considered. It is also expected that candidates will have been resident in their home country for at least three years immediately preceding the beginning their MPhil/PhD programme.   The deadline for receipt of both forms is 25 March 2011   More details available from    http://www2.lse.ac.uk/intranet/students/studentServicesCentre/financialSupport/ScholarshipsLSE/PhDApp/awards/PhDDeptAwards/rawson.aspx -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sumandro at gmail.com Wed Feb 16 17:01:25 2011 From: sumandro at gmail.com (sumandro) Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:01:25 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] challenges of urban land titling and the platinum project Message-ID: The Challenges of Land Titling *With average growth of 9.0% over the last three years, India’s urban landscape is rapidly changing. While the cities have enabled economic growth, they are simultaneously impacted by the challenges of urbanization. One of the significant challenges has been the resolution of the issue of immovable property rights and land tenure systems. With economic globalization, the pressure on land increases and with it come the need for statutes that protect contractual rights and agreements.* *The Ministry of Urban Development has recognized the need to create traction on this issue under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), in close partnership with India Urban Space Foundation (IUSF). JNNURM has identified implementing the system of Property Title Certification as one of the mandatory reforms. Project PLATINUM seeks to develop a detailed framework for implementing Guaranteed Land Title in urban areas and then help develop GLT in a pilot state. Tarun Sharma, Urban Policy Associate with the IUSF, examines the role of Project PLATINUM in this venture. * Project PLATINUM (Partnership for Land Title Implementation in Urban Management) is a national level programme as a project partnership between India Urban Space Foundation (IUSF) and Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). It has been working on preparing national level guidelines for implementing a system of guaranteed land title system in India as the absence of secure land titles is one of the biggest gaps impacting planned and equitable growth of our cities. The guidelines will provide recommendations for creating a robust land title and management system along with enabling law, appropriate survey and GIS technology, detailed process mapping for easy transition to a new system and also the technology that would be required for this change. Land title reform is a key when it comes to any kind of land use and spatial planning and has clear implications for government departments and agencies for efficiently planning land use for providing services, protection of specified land parcels like environmental assets, faster implementation of infrastructure projects and so on. For citizens, it gives them an unambiguous guaranteed right to their properties, reduces unnecessary litigations on land; and also helps in a more efficient mortgage market among other socio-economic benefits. The Working Group (WG) for Project PLATINUM was constituted and approved by Secretary MoUD in July 2010. Since then, it has had four meetings at the Ministry in New Delhi over the modalities of a proposed model law as well as the institutions and processes that are required. After deciding the mandate of the Working Group in accordance with the Terms of Reference, the work at the India Urban Space Foundation (IUSF) – the technical secretariat of PLATINUM – started. IUSF made changes to the framework law of Department of Land Resources’ (DoLR) Model law and made comparisons to Rajasthan Ordinance on land title and Andhra Pradesh’s draft law on Guaranteed Land Title (GLT). It made strategic changes to the law to make implementation easier and more compatible for urban areas. It also made changes and additions in provisions, sections and chapters of DoLR’s Draft law to make it applicable to urban areas, keep the institutions and process separate for urban and rural areas and make it a voluntary application based system rather than a compulsory government-mandated system. Experts in the domain of survey and GIS were contacted and their inputs were ensured towards framing the guidelines for conducting urban cadastral surveys and the methodology needed for implementing urban land titles. Experts included those from Urban Development Department and Survey Settlement Department, Government of Karnataka; Esri (a California-based software development and services company providing Geographic Information System software and geo database management applications); and National Remote Sensing Agency. This Working Group also met and discussed the technology infrastructure needed for urban land title system. Senior government officials from Peru’s COFOPRI and President of International Land Systems presented their experience and added valuable suggestions towards the framing of guidelines. >From the United States, Peter Rabley, President of International Land Systems (ILS), one of the leading technology solution providers on land management presented the work that ILS has undertaken. One of the components of PLATINUM is also to create awareness with the states regarding the rationale and impacts of guaranteed land titles. A big step in this direction was taken in the form of a national seminar on guaranteed land title security for urban areas organised in New Delhi on November 27, 2010 at Vigyan Bhawan. Critical international experience on the issues and challenges as well as successes in moving towards the land title was discussed and showcased. COFOPRI and ILS also made their presentation here. All the states participated through various state officials representing survey, urban development, revenue & stamps and the registration department. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) present their work on land title security and its impact for urban poor. Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) also presented their case study about slum mapping and titles. The seriousness and import of this reform has started to echo in the states as well. It is of utmost importance as it would be the states that would follow the model law (or draft their own) and undertake the entire reform starting from the survey till issue of titles and then managing it. States like Karnataka have already started with a serious approach towards this issue and state government along with Directorate of Municipal Administration has started working on a draft land titling bill for Karnataka. PLATINUM also presented its progress and key principles at the Workshop on Land Title Bill for Karnataka, which was organised by Centre for Excellence in Urban Development at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. We hope to see more states putting their efforts towards land title reforms especially because it has already been highlighted as a state level reform under JnNURM. The reform is much needed and long due and now needs a fastrack implementation for urban areas. source: http://www.ijanaagraha.org/content/challenges-land-titling -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kchamaraj at gmail.com Sat Feb 19 00:34:57 2011 From: kchamaraj at gmail.com (Kathyayini Chamaraj) Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:34:57 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CIVIC- City-level debate on Water- Mon, 21st Feb, 3-5 pm, SCM House Message-ID: CIVIC Bangalore has great pleasure in inviting you to a Panel Discussion on *Potable water in Bengaluru:* *Today and Tomorrow* * * Moderator *Mr. S. Vishwanath* *Trustee, CIVIC* * * Panelists * * * Mr. Narayana Mr. Rajendran Prabhakar * Chief Engineer Social Activist BWSSB Bangalore * * Date: *21st February 2011* * **Time:* *3PM to 5PM* *Venue:* * SCM House, * *#29, 2nd Cross, CSI compound, Mission Road, Bangalore 560002* * * *Concept note:* As the city of Bengaluru grows with its burgeoning population, the demand for water is growing with it. The current availability of 870mld will be added with another 100mld by 2012. Can it quench the thirst of Bengaluru, its people, animals, greenery, industries etc…? Will there be equitable distribution? Will it cost more? Will the BWSSB increase its efficiency and reduce the current level of unaccounted water? How can the BWSSB achieve this total solution? Many issues will determine the answers to these questions. The discussion will focus on the following issues and try to find a way forward: · Overall picture of water supply - population v/s availability - present and future · Increasing BWSSB efficiency - plans for reducing 50% unaccounted water. · Slum development package with Rs.300 Crores - implementation plan of BWSSB · Greivance redressal mechanism - Water Adalats · Public participation platforms – do we need Users' Associations to plan and monitor. Can it overlap with BBMP structures and achieve convergence of operations. · Increasing awareness, transparency and accountability. · Privatization- role of private parties as of today and as envisaged for the future. · Managing distribution of water - contractual obligations and role of valve-men, the last mile efficiency. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Water - Invitation.doc Type: application/msword Size: 177152 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mashalngo at gmail.com Thu Feb 17 14:53:19 2011 From: mashalngo at gmail.com (Sharad Mahajan) Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:53:19 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Please attend Gerry Pinto memorial program Message-ID: Respected madam/sir, Please find attached invitation of the memorial programme for Late.Gerry Pinto, President Mashal. Pls attend the same and pay homage. Regards All Mashal Staff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Condolonce meeting dt. 18.02.2011.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 61301 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: jerry.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 81525 bytes Desc: not available URL: From harishpoovaiah at gmail.com Sat Feb 19 11:07:13 2011 From: harishpoovaiah at gmail.com (Harish Poovaiah) Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 11:07:13 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Invitation from CIVIC: City-level debate on Water: Mon, 21st Feb, 3-5 pm, SCM House In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: CIVIC Bangalore has great pleasure in inviting you to a Panel Discussion on *Potable water in Bengaluru:* *Today and Tomorrow* * * Moderator *Mr. S. Vishwanath* *Trustee, CIVIC* * * Panelists * ** * *Mr. Rajendran **Prabhakar* Social Activist ** * Mr. **Narayana* Chief Engineer, BWSSB** Date: *21st February 2011* * **Time:* *3PM to 5PM* *Venue:* * SCM House, * *#29, 2nd Cross, CSI compound, Mission Road, Bangalore 560002* * * *Concept note:* As the city of Bengaluru grows with its burgeoning population, the demand for water is growing with it. The current availability of 870mld will be added with another 100mld by 2012. Can it quench the thirst of Bengaluru, its people, animals, greenery, industries etc…? Will there be equitable distribution? Will it cost more? Will the BWSSB increase its efficiency and reduce the current level of unaccounted water? How can the BWSSB achieve this total solution? Many issues will determine the answers to these questions. The discussion will focus on the following issues and try to find a way forward: · Overall picture of water supply - population v/s availability - present and future · Increasing BWSSB efficiency - plans for reducing 50% unaccounted water. · Slum development package with Rs.300 Crores - implementation plan of BWSSB · Greivance redressal mechanism - Water Adalats · Public participation platforms – do we need Users' Associations to plan and monitor. Can it overlap with BBMP structures and achieve convergence of operations. · Increasing awareness, transparency and accountability. · Privatization- role of private parties as of today and as envisaged for the future. · Managing distribution of water - contractual obligations and role of valve-men, the last mile efficiency. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Water - Invitation.doc Type: application/msword Size: 177152 bytes Desc: not available URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Thu Feb 24 17:32:34 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:32:34 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] States fail to utilise crores meant for urban poor under JNNURM schemes Message-ID: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/States-fail-to-utilise-crores-meant-for-urban-poor-under-JNNURM-schemes/754077/ States fail to utilise crores meant for urban poor under JNNURM schemes *ENS Economic Bureau* Posted online: Thu Feb 24 2011, 01:24 hrs *New Delhi : * The housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry has said 25 states and Union Territories covered under the Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme have utilised less than 50 per cent of funds allocated to them. In her reply to Parliament, housing minister Kumari Selja on Tuesday said the government has issued advisories to all states to draw up action plans and “expedite the commissioning/ implementation of projects”. States have also been told to submit plans for cancellations of projects by March 31. The BSUP scheme, a sub-mission of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), was launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2005, to improve conditions for urban slum dwellers in 63 identified mission cities in 31 states and UTs. For the seven-year period (2005-12), the government had sanctioned 479 projects for over 10 lakh dwelling units at an approved cost of Rs 27,813.58 crore under BSUP. Similarly, of the 33 states and UTs covered under JNNURM sub-mission Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHDSP), 21 have utilised less than 50 per cent of allocated funds. With Rs 9,957.72 crore to be disbursed under the IHDSP for 977 projects to build over 5 lakh dwelling units in the 2005-12 period, the government had Rs 37,771.30 crore for the two schemes under JNNURM. Selja told Parliament that while utilisation of funds under the schemes has been satisfactory, “the progress is uneven” between states and UTs. The minister, enumerating the reasons for under-utilisation of funds, said it was due to non-furnishing of project proposals for sanctioning; slow progress of projects due to procedural problems; lack of availability of litigation-free land; lack of capacity of local bodies to implement projects; and lack of additional financial resources to meet cost escalation. The worst performing state under BSUP is Punjab, which utilised just Rs 26.4 crore of the allocated Rs 444.46 crore as on February 18 this year from December 2005, a mere 6 per cent, government data showed. However, according to data released by the Planning Commission in 2007, Goa utilised 10 per cent of its allocated funds, Rs 1.15 crore of Rs 11.43 crore, in the same period. Other states that have performed poorly are Bihar, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, which used 15 per cent of their allocated funds. States that utilised over 50 per cent of allocated funds under BSUP include Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Nagaland and Sikkim. All UTs under-utilised funds allocated under the IHDSP. While Chandigarh and Lakshadweep didn’t utilise a paisa of the Rs 20.56 crore and Rs 21.03 crore allocated to them respectively, Daman and Diu utilised 1 per cent (Rs 0.29 crore of Rs 21.97 crore) and Dadra & Nagar Haveli just 8 per cent (Rs 1.68 crore of Rs 20.56 crore). Among states, Punjab was once again the worst performer, utilising Rs 16.89 crore of Rs 172.56 crore allocated, just 10 per cent. A technical group constituted by the ministry had estimated a shortage of 2.47 crore urban housing units at the end of the 10th Five Year Plan (2007-08). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From digant87 at gmail.com Sat Feb 26 19:08:21 2011 From: digant87 at gmail.com (Digant Shah) Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:08:21 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Resilient city Finalists Message-ID: http://www.resilientcity.org/index.cfm?pagepath=Competition/2010_Design_Ideas_Finalists_&id=30203 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kalakamra at gmail.com Sat Feb 26 23:33:22 2011 From: kalakamra at gmail.com (shaina a) Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:33:22 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] A Season of Footage and Films, Part 10, Women at Work. Tomorrow Feb. 27 at CAMP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear all, Apologies for cross-posting. CAMP continues our winter season of screenings exploring footage both within and without the usual capsule of "the film". This Sunday we present: * Women at Work. * Footage from the Dharavi Documentation project. 170 mins. Sunday February 27 7:00 pm. At CAMP roof 301, Alif Apartments, Chium village, Khar (w) Mumbai- 52 Film-maker, Richa Hushing, and camerapersons, Tapan Vyas and Rrivu Laha, take us through Koliwada and Kumbharwada in Dharavi. The footage visits a kiln, a congested road, a fish market and a number of workshops. It looks at women, who make a formidable percentage of the total workforce in Dharavi, and the object and spaces they interact with while they work (leather belts, fish, pots, terraces). The material was shot in 2008 around when the Dharavi Re-development Project was put on hold and is sourced from the Dharavi Documentation Project in pad.ma and is part of the digital image archive, Godaam (Majlis). See you there! For questions and responses email info(@)camputer.org To unsubscribe, simply send an email with the word "unsubscribe" as the subject to camp-request at lists.mailb.org -- camputer.org pad.ma chitrakarkhana.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Sun Feb 27 18:36:04 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:36:04 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Punjab flunks JNNURM test !!! thank god for that In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4968567 Punjab flunks JNNURM test By Chitleen K Sethi, 26/02/2011 Punjab has acquired the dubious reputation of being the slowest state in the country to implement various projects under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). A team of officers of the local bodies department, which is the implementing agency of JNNURM in Punjab, had to bear the brunt of scathing observations made by the members of the planning commission in New Delhi yesterday. The JNNURM scheme was launched in Punjab in December 2005 by union ministries of urban development and housing and urban poverty alleviation. Under JNNURM -I, schemes of Urban Infrastructure Governance (UIG) and Urban Infrastructure of Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) were launched and under JNNURM- II a scheme of Basic Service to Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) was launched. Though Punjab has been able to show some compliance for the various schemes under JNNURM -I, its utilization of funds under JNNURM -II is very poor. Punjab has utilised only 6 per cent of the over Rs 444 crore sanctioned to it since 2005 under BSUP, the lowest in the country. "The scheme cannot be implemented in Punjab because the cost of land in the state is very high. Municipal bodies are not ready to part with expensive land for the construction of houses for the poor," said chief secretary SC Aggarwal. Due to the state's lukewarm response to the schemes, the amount of funds that it receives under the JNNURM has steadily decreased since 2005, with only a trickle now left for the ongoing schemes in Ludhiana and Amritsar. Funds for the new schemes proposed by the state government under JNNURM were refused by the Centre last year following which no new projects under the mission have been undertaken in the state. Sources add that this has mainly to do with the fact that the state government has not implemented many of the mandatory reforms that go with the implementation of the scheme. JNNURM funding comes with riders asking states to undertake several urban reforms including an increase in property tax, imposition of user charges on water supply, sewerage, health services etc by the urban local bodies. Other than this the urban bodies have to show compliance of e-governance. The state is also expected to have a rent control act in place. Other than e-governance, none of these reforms are likely to be undertaken by the state in its election year. Sources add that planning commission members were told yesterday that the reform compliance of Punjab is not likely to improve this year as the state's political heads would not impose any new taxes or increase the ones already in place. "The revised draft rent control act which is ready for over an year is yet to be notified. Since the Act is supposed to negatively impact urban shopkeepers and tenants, the department of local bodies, headed by a BJP minister, Manoranjan Kalia is not notifying it fearing a dent to the BJP's core vote bank in urban areas," said an officer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fredericknoronha at gmail.com Mon Feb 28 02:18:47 2011 From: fredericknoronha at gmail.com (Frederick Noronha) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 02:18:47 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Understanding Goa... some perspectives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Students from a distant land encountered diverse faces of Goa recently, and this is what those working in fields like planning and urban sociology commented here. (Check the video *Images of Goa* in particular...) Matias Echanove, URBZ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-V3KAfKuOo Rahul Srivastava http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NHC6dvAlbc A professor of the Royal Institute of Art, Sweden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SttPXTN9pWk Can agriculture be Goa's lifeline (instead of mining which is projected as the "backbone" of the economy)? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4m0hj6UgjQ Role model approaches... in a rurban society http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8WPIMGSphw Goa reacts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYIPLGCqNZ0 Reading the watershed... in Goa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkzPhWQTwnI How the media can connect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_baPEI0s0M Images of Goa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkzPhWQTwnI (.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.) Inside/Out: New Writing From Goa http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/5465869359/sizes/l/ (.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.)-(.) From sumandro at gmail.com Wed Feb 23 13:45:45 2011 From: sumandro at gmail.com (sumandro) Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:45:45 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] govt of india uses social media in planning Message-ID: "Government of India has opened up the process of creating the 12th Five Year Plan (for the period 2012-13 to 2017-18) to public participation using social media tools: a Facebook Page and a dedicated website hosting discussions, opinion polls and idea challenges." http://workshop.mod.org.in/?p=1929 sumandro -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: