From esgindia at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 23:00:47 2011 From: esgindia at gmail.com (ESG India) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 23:00:47 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Landmark initiative of Karnataka High Court stops the destruction and degeneration of lakes of Bangalore In-Reply-To: <4D6FB8C8.6050208@esgindia.org> References: <4D6FB8C8.6050208@esgindia.org> Message-ID: Press Release : Bangalore : 03 March 2011 *Landmark initiative of Karnataka High Court stops the destruction and degeneration of lakes of Bangalore* *Over 400 lakes to be immediately protected and rehabilitated in an ecologically wise and socially just manner spread over 1200 sq. kms. of Bangalore urban region* In a landmark ruling today, the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka accepted the Report of a committee it constituted to examine the ground realities and prepare an Action plan for the preservation of lakes in the city of Bangalore. This report was sought by an interim direction of Chief Justice Mr. J. S. Khehar and Justice A. S. Bopanna of the Principal Bench of the Hon’ble High Court on the basis of the Public Interest Litigation filed by Environment Support Group and Leo Saldanha (party in person) (WP No. 817/2008) challenging the privatisation of lakes in Bangalore by Lake Development Authority. Entitled *“Preservation of Lakes in the City of Bangalore”*, the report was prepared by a committee headed by Hon’ble Shri Justice N. K. Patil, Judge, High Court of Karnatataka and Chairman, Karnataka High Court Legal Services Committee and involved the Chiefs of of Dept. of Revenue, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Karnataka Forest Department, Bangalore Development Authority, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, Minor Irrigation Department, Lake Development Authority and Dept of Town Planning. The Committee accepted many of the submissions made by ESG and also enlisted petitioner Saldanha and Dr. S. Subramanya, Professor, University of Agricultural Sciences (Blore) in formulating recommendations for ecologically sensitive restoration of the lakes. The report has been prepared based on a framework that has evolved out of two key prayers in the PIL. One was seeking “necessary directions directing (the Government) to frame a scheme for the effective administration of lakes and tanks in consonance with the Principle of Intergenerational Equity and Public Trust Doctrine, in terms of the recommendations of the Lakshman Rau Committee and also in conformance with principles for wetland conservation and management as laid down by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests”. The Petition also sought “necessary directions (to the State) to ensure that any scheme regarding the preservation and conservation of tanks, lakes and such other water bodies protects free Right of Access to all publics in exercise of traditional and customary rights, and of enjoyment of nature and its resources in a responsible manner”. In the preface to the report, Justice Mr. N. K. Patil records the anguish of the Court over the state of Bangalore's lakes as follows: “Bangalore is on a course of rapid expansion, transforming itself from a metro to a Mega city. During this process, the worst hit (sector) are the lakes of the region, which are put to misuse, threatening the water security, ecology and environment of the region. The estimated population of Bangalore by the year 2020 would be around 120 lakhs (12 million) and it demands a very proactive regulation, planning and execution system in place, to face the challenges of water scarcity and to keep the City habitable.” *Honest appraisal exposes precarious state of Bangalore's lakes:* *In a rare departure from the past, the 137 page report accounts that the Bangalore region under intense urbanisation (BDA planning area, including BBMP and BMICAPA areas) has about 386 lakes left, and that the status of 121 lakes is unknown*. The report also acknowledges that upto 100 lakes have disappeared as they have been converted to various urban uses including bus stations, roads, layouts, garbage dumps, truck stands, etc. Providing an overview of the status of the existing lakes, the report indicates the extent to which they have been encroached, polluted, and protected, and the agency which is the custodian of the lake. Such information is being made available in the public domain for the very first time. *Each of the agencies which participated in the preparation of the report has listed out its specific responsibilities in ensuring the lakes are protected as prescribed in the report.* The report observes with concern that “were it not for tanks (lakes) providing water security in an otherwise semi-arid area, it is more than likely that the journey (of Bangalore) towards a successful metropolis would have been truncated centuries ago. The critical importance of tanks to the success of this emerging urban area has been recognised by every ruler from Kempegowda, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan and the British as well”. It also observes that evidence of such creative crafting of landscape into a water terrain is evident in any toposheet prepared by the Survey of India, with its last most authoritative account of 1972 revealing not one valley or depression being left uncared for; instead they are all sites to harvest rain and runoff, thus significantly enhancing water security and productivity of agriculture and horticulture.”. *Comprehensive effort to protect and rehabilitate lakes proposed:* Key recommendations include immediate action to remove encroachments from lake area and also the Raja Kaluves (canals interconnecting lakes). This is sought to be done by conducting a thorough survey of legal limits of all lake and canal areas, and thus protecting the entire watershed. The strategy proposed is “survey, removal of encroachments, fencing, watch and ward, clearing of blocked and encroached raja kaluves and drains, waste-weir repairs, and de-silting to the extent absolutely required”. The report recommends that “lake restoration is to be taken up based on lake series/sub-series and not in isolation” and that “lake preservation is not limited to lake area itself, but very much dependant on catchment area and the drains that bring rainwater into the lake”. There is significant thrust in the report to ensure that entry of raw sewage into lakes becomes a thing of the past, and to strictly penalise offenders. One of the key action items is to select lakes that are relatively undisturbed and rehabilitate them into drinking water reservoirs by blocking off sewage entry altogether. Similarly, lakes which has very high biodiversity, especially of migratory waterfowl, will be notified for conservation under the Wetland (Conservation and Management Rules), 2010, per the Environment Protection Act. *Local community involvement promoted in protecting lakes:* Promoting the involvement of local communities in lake preservation and restoration, the report recommends constitution of lake management committees involving local residents and voluntary organisations. Further, the report highlights the need to protect the interest of traditional users of the lakes such as dhobis (washerpeople), fisherpeople, etc. *Legality of Privatisation of Lakes still open to Court review:* The main contention now remaining in the PIL is the validity of the lease agreements entered into by Lake Development Authority to privatise control and management of four lakes in Bangalore: Hebbal lake (Oberoi Hotel group), NAgavara (Lumbini group), Vengaiahkere (Par-C group) and Agara (Biota). Reviewing this pending issue the Hon’ble Court observed that the submission of the report “satisfies all the prayers .. except one pertaining to lease holders who have made construction in the periphery of the lake or are in the process of making such constructions. The limited issue that remains in furtherance of the instant and connected writ petition pertains to rights and obligations of lease holders”. Based on this observation the Court granted two weeks time to the lease holders to peruse the report and posted the final hearing on the remaining matter to 7th April 2011. *As a consequence of this unprecedented initiative by the High Court, Karnataka is leading the exercise of conservation of lakes and wetlands in a metropolitan area with the pro-active participation of all connected agencies. This could serve as a model for the country in building water security in a climate challenged scenario, in protecting commons and conserving biodiversity. * *(Key excerpts from the Report and ESG's Submissions to the committee may be accessed at www.esgindia.org) * Leo F. Saldanha Coordinator Sunil Dutt Yadav Counsel *Environment, Social Justice and Governance Initiatives Environment Support Group - Trust * 1572, 36th Cross, Ring Road, Banashankari II Stage, Bangalore 560070 Tel: 91-80-26713559-61 Email: esg at esgindia.org Web: www.esgindia.org -- Environment, Social Justice and Governance Initiatives Environment Support Group Trust 1572, 36th Cross, Banashankari II Stage Bangalore 560070 Tel: 91-80-26713559-61 Voice/Fax: 91-80-26713316 Email: esg at esgindia.org Web: www.esgindia.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Lakes_Report_High_Court_ESG_PIL_030311.pdf Type: image/ipeg Size: 113446 bytes Desc: not available URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 18:17:47 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 18:17:47 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Panel suggests 15% increase in urban development funding Message-ID: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/panel-suggests-15-increase-in-urban-development-funding/articleshow/7651587.cms 8 Mar, 2011, 03.47AM IST,ET Bureau *Panel suggests 15% increase in urban development funding* New Delhi: The government needs to scale up urban development funding by at least 15% per annum in the 12th Plan (2011-17) to meet the challenges of rapid urbanisation in the country, an expert committee has said. Citing the need for an investment of 32.4 lakh crore over a period of 20 years, the committee has suggested that the government needs to increase spending and revamp existing schemes to enhance urbanisation. The expert committee, headed by economist Isher Ahluwalia , submitted its report to urban development minister Kamal Nath and housing and poverty alleviation minister Selja Kumari. "There is a requirement for capacity building and institutional building to sustain growth in urban sector. We will study the report and take steps to operationalise it," said Nath after receiving the report. Noting that the progress under the government's flagship urban development scheme, Jawaharlal Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), has been slow, the committee has suggested revamping the scheme with a primary focus on capacity creation at the local government level. JNNURM was launched in December 2005 for a period of seven years and Nath asserted the need to continue the scheme beyond the 11th Plan,, which will end in 2011. The report further suggested the government to extend financial support and provide autonomy to urban local bodies (ULBs) to improve their revenue situation. "ULBs in India are among the weakest in the world, both in terms of capacity to raise resources and financial autonomy. The tax base of ULBs are narrow and inflexible," the report said. The committee has delved into seven sectors and has given recommendations regarding improvement of water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, storm water drains, urban roads, urban transport, street lighting and traffic support infrastructure. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From debsinha at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 22:08:28 2011 From: debsinha at gmail.com (Deb Ranjan Sinha) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 11:38:28 -0500 Subject: [Urbanstudy] FW: 1 PhD position Mumbai University-University of Amsterdam In-Reply-To: <32FEA771D5B68F4EA3A827206A1E08E7012A37@ketelaar.uva.nl> References: <32FEA771D5B68F4EA3A827206A1E08E7012A37@ketelaar.uva.nl> Message-ID: <00c801cbddaf$41bc0ed0$c5342c70$@gmail.com> From: On Behalf Of Beerepoot, Niels Ph.D. project:"New Middle Class Formation and Trickle Down Effects of Offshore Service Sector Development in Mumbai and Manila". Mumbai University-Department of Economics and University of Amsterdam-Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies invite applications for a 4 year fully funded Ph.D. project on "New Middle Class Formation and Trickle Down Effects of Offshore Service Sector Development in Mumbai and Manila". This Ph.D. project is part of a joint project of the above partners and funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific research (NWO). The PhD-student will be based at Mumbai University and receive academic training at the University of Amsterdam. Empirical research for this project will be undertaken in Mumbai and Manila. Profile candidate The PhD student will elaborate the theoretical and practical design of the project, carry out empirical fieldwork in Mumbai and Manila, analyse data and publish papers in international scholarly journals; together, this will provide the basis for a PhD thesis, which is to be completed within four years. The PhD student will follow courses (partly at the University of Amsterdam) and participate in seminars and conferences (and be involved in organising them). Requirements - A master's degree in any Social Science - Experience with empirical research on topics such as globalisation, new international division of labour, new middle class formation - Experience with mixed-methods research, for example in the Master's thesis - The ability and interest to operate in an international interdisciplinary research team - Proven academic writing skills - Wish to pursue an academic career Application is open to candidates from all social sciences. Selection for this position is based on Academic Record and Research Experience. Further information For further inquiries please contact Dr. Niels Beerepoot (University of Amsterdam) email: n.p.c.beerepoot at uva.nl . Application Candidates who are interested in applying for this position are requested to send a motivation letter, CV and a short sample of academic writing (e.g. article, chapter of MA thesis, essay) to: uvamu.phdapplication at gmail.com (addressed to Prof. Neeraj Hatekar and Dr. Niels Beerepoot). Shortlisted candidates will be invited for a short writing assignment on the subject. For details on the project and application procedure, see: http://home.staff.uva.nl/n.p.c.beerepoot/page3.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sumandro at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 11:29:38 2011 From: sumandro at gmail.com (sumandro) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 11:29:38 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] mod workshop on 'urban security' - invitation | friday, 11 march 2011 Message-ID: To whom it may concern, *mod* is organising a day-long workshop on 'urban security' on Friday, 11th March 2011. In the workshop, we will begin by questioning the ongoing framing of 'urban security' in terms of 'hard security issues' and explore the multiple meanings of 'security' in an urban context. We will also collectively produce a draft map of in/secure spaces and atmospheres in Bangalore. Please see the attached .pdf for further details. If you want to join us in the workshop, R.S.V.P. with a brief introduction of yourself at this email address: sumandro at gmail.com Please note that the workshop has limited seats. Regards, sumandro *mod * workshop.mod.org.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mod workshop on 'urban security' - invitation.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 49689 bytes Desc: not available URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 21:20:31 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 21:20:31 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] BETWEEN HIGH PROMISE AND LOW PERFORMANCE The city of Calcutta Message-ID: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110303/jsp/opinion/story_13657550.jsp# *BETWEEN HIGH PROMISE AND LOW PERFORMANCE * The city of Calcutta should look both east and west in order to reinvent itself as a functioning, modern metropolis, writes *K.C. Sivaramakrishnan* New town, old problems Nearly 40 years ago, some of the best professionals across the world joined an Indian team of planners, engineers, economists and sociologists to launch a metropolitan planning and development effort in Calcutta. During the late 1960s and 1970s, it was a battle school of sorts where many lessons were learnt in devising a practical and, more importantly, an equitable approach in dealing with a city’s numerous ills. While these lessons formed the substance of urban development discourses in planning schools abroad, in Calcutta itself they were forgotten. Governance in metropolitan Calcutta has always oscillated between high promise and low performance. Surendranath Banerjee’s dreams of self-government, the *swarajist* insistence on full democracy even though it meant subjecting the city to crippling communal and party formations, and finally, the supersession of the corporation itself coinciding with India’s independence, are a part of the city’s tortuous history. The travails of Partition, industrial recession and obsolescence were reflected in the Cassandra-like refrains of leaders from Delhi, including Jawaharlal Nehru, that “the city was going to pieces”. Partly because of B.C. Roy’s dogged efforts, and later Indira Gandhi’s decisive prescription, a rescue package for the city became available. During the 1980s and 1990s, projects picked up from previous dispensations were continued. The bridge across Hooghly was completed at its laborious pace. A single metro line was built and run more as a symbol than as part of an extensive network planned and promised earlier. In recent years, multi-storied buildings and shopping malls have come up here and there in the city and around its fringes, more as part of the real-estate game being played across the country. The promise of a functioning metropolis as a renewed focus of development remains unfulfilled in eastern India. It was refreshing, therefore, to participate, in early February this year, in a symposium for Calcutta’s development organized by the Institute of Town Planners and the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority. The debates started well and there were people from Bangalore and Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, to share their experiences. In the course of the debate, three sets of issues received some attention. One was economic development, the second was sustainability and the third was governance. Calcutta is yet to come to terms with the current reality that it is no longer a prime centre of manufacture as it used to be. A 2007-08 estimate places the gross domestic product of the Calcutta metropolitan area at around Rs 44,000 crores. About 52 per cent of this is from business and services and another 24 per cent from construction and trade. The share of manufacturing was less than 9 per cent as compared to 19 per cent in Mumbai and Pune and 17 per cent in Chennai. Looked at another way, 35 per cent of the 5 million jobs is from business and other services and 28 per cent from construction and trade. Surprisingly, 25 per cent is still from manufacturing. Does this mean that a significant portion of Calcutta’s factories are still labouring hard to produce goods of limited economic value? Be that as it may, the trend is clear that Calcutta’s economic future lies in services. That, in turn, demands a rigorous and reliable level of performance. It also means Calcutta’s ability to reach beyond its boundaries and sustain business relations within the region. The partition of the country carried two painful consequences for Calcutta. One was while Calcutta remained east of the river, the rest of the country lay west. The second was a major chunk of its traditional hinterland went to Bangladesh, a terrain sharing a common language and culture but kept apart by numerous man-made barriers. The new Hooghly bridge was to be part of a regional plan to help Calcutta to connect better with the rising hub of Durgapur. “Go west and grow up with the country” was the promise offered by the new bridge. But for years, the bridge was left hanging at the Howrah end till the national highway programme enabled the connections to be made. Unable to decide whether Calcutta should look west or look east, the powers that be have now opted for an easier course of densifying Salt Lake and filling up the adjoining wetlands to the east. What has emerged in these past 10 years beyond the eastern metropolitan bypass and touted as a new town is a sparse and uninspiring collection of largely unoccupied high-rise apartments with some office towers and shopping malls. Complaints about lack of water and connectivity are legion. Rajarhat is more like a tent settlement strung along the road in the hope of emerging as a new town sometime in the future. A Look East policy is relevant not only to West Bengal. It is as important and critical for the country as a whole to maintain and foster economic links with the Northeast, with Bangladesh, Myanmar and beyond. China understands this and has evolved a Look West policy for itself. For the past 10 years, the Yunnan province, with Beijing’s blessings, has kept up the Kunming Initiative with annual meetings of Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar held in the different capital cities. The Kunming Initiative focuses on trade and economic links and physical connectivity. Kunming is one of the few cities connected to Calcutta by three flights a week. A part of the old Stilwell Road going northwards from Kunming towards the Myanmar border is substantially completed. New rail and road links are forging ahead towards Laos and Cambodia. A Kunming-Calcutta rally has been on the cards for sometime with a possible alignment through Bangladesh. Kunming, and therefore Beijing, are also planning links to Sitwe and Chittagong ports. Within the next decade, it is likely that road and rail connectivity will significantly improve. If Calcutta is to take advantage of this, it has to make sure that its historical links with Bangladesh, ruptured during Partition, are restored and improved. The Sheikh Hasina Wajed-Manmohan Singh declaration of January 2010 provides a roadmap for this. Whether it is the improvement of the Petrapol transshipment point or setting up of the energy grid, this is not something to be relegated as a Central government task. It is in West Bengal’s interest that the implementation of the Delhi accord proceeds. Calcutta’s ecological sustainability appears to be more difficult to reach. Surprising as it may seem, metropolitan Calcutta is running out of water. One of the objectives of the Farakka barrage was to push down salinity intrusion from the sea in the Hooghly river. Saving the Calcutta port was its main purpose. That port itself has now moved farther down the river. Instead of drawing from the fresh water of the river, the numerous municipalities in the metropolitan area are digging below their feet, only to find that tubewells are bringing up water contaminated with pollutants and arsenic. Flooding, poor drainage and solid waste continue to be major problems in the old and so-called new parts of the metropolis. Thanks to the changed context and features of the economy, some hope is emerging to Calcutta’s west. Loyalist Calcuttans now seem to realize that Durgapur and Asansol are not that far off and can be possible destinations for the future. Durgapur is not a collection of sweatshops or soot-filled chimneys. It is the creation of professionals of post-Independence India. Shopping malls, coffee shops and multiplexes might not have been part of B.C. Roy’s dream of transforming Bengal from its feudatory somnolence to an industrial economy, but if these are what our young people are attracted to, so be it. For long we had grappled with the problem of Durgapur being a collection of company townships in search of a city. Fortunately, back in 1970, the then chairman of Hindustan Steel, K.T. Chandy, responded to the request to give back to the development authority a fair chunk of land which is now the City Centre. But, as in Ranchi or Bokaro, Bhilai or Rourkela, getting around within these towns continues to be a problem. West Bengal will do well to pay some attention to enhancing connectivity and provision of transport within Durgapur. Instead of loosing so much political capital and economic opportunity in the needless battle for Singur, one wishes, West Bengal had prevailed on the Tatas to take the large built-up space or adjoining industrial land available in the defunct mining and allied machinery corporation in Durgapur. After all, West Bengal can claim expertise in taking over derelict factories for one rupee and trying to revive them. Transforming ready-built and largely empty sheds into a motor-car factory could not have been that difficult. On the governance front, little has been done. Within Calcutta itself, the mayor-in-council system was a useful new initiative which did not have to wait for Rajiv Gandhi’s 74th amendment initiative. But it has remained there. On the contrary, the elevated constitutional status for municipalities, big and small, has made it difficult for a metropolitan view to be sustained. The Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Committee, supposed to provide the vision and strategy for development, has remained a sub-critical group. The development authority was expected to provide cerebral support to this group, but that body itself has been preoccupied with projects of one kind or another. What goes by the name of planning in the metropolitan area now is “plotting” by individual developers, and that too in the wrong side of the city. A compelling observation at the symposium was that the CMDA and the government have to urgently revisit their planning perspective, strategy and governance machinery. For the hapless people of West Bengal, the defence or capture of Writers’ Buildings cannot be an end in itself. It is not even an answer to the problems of the metropolis. The sooner this is understood, and the real problem grappled with, the better. The author is a former chief executive of the Durgapur and Calcutta Development Authorities -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From janjaria at bard.edu Thu Mar 10 06:43:48 2011 From: janjaria at bard.edu (Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:13:48 -0500 Subject: [Urbanstudy] New book on Urban South Asia Message-ID: <4D7825CC.4000801@bard.edu> *Urban Navigations: Politics, Space and the City in South Asia* Eds, Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria & Colin McFarlane Routledge India Originals Hardback: 978-0-415-61760-4, Price: Rs 895, Pages: 360 _Table of contents_ Introduction: Conceptualising the City in South Asia Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria and Colin McFarlane Part I: Contested Landscapes 1. The Nuisance of Slums: Environmental Law and the Production of Slum Illegality in India D. Asher Ghertner 2. Poverty as Geography: Motility, Stoppage and Circuits of Waste in Delhi Vinay Gidwani and Bharati Chaturvedi 3. Shillong: The (Un)Making of a North-East Indian City? Daisy Hasan 4. The Divided City? Squatters' Struggle for Urban Space in Kathmandu Urmi Sengupta 5. Spectacular Events, City Spaces and Citizenship: The Commonwealth Games in Delhi Amita Baviskar Part II: Infrastructures and Materialities 6. The Embeddedness of Cost Recovery: Water Reforms and Associationism at Bangalore's Fringes Malini Ranganathan 7. Ignoring Power: Knowing Leakage in Mumbai's Water Supply Nikhil Anand 8. 'No Horn Please': Self-Governance and Sociality in a Kathmandu Housing Colony Andrew Nelson 9. Housing Complexes as Packaged Fantasies: A Meeting of the Local and the Global and the Standardisation of Taste in Colombo Sasanka Perera Part III: Imagining the Urban 10. Sri Lanka: Terror, Anxiety and the Unstable Nation -- A Physical Biography of Violence Anoma Pieris 11. City of Lights: Nostalgia, Violence and Karachi's Competing Imaginaries Huma Yusuf 12. Sacrifice and Dystopia: Imagining Karachi through Edhi Yasmin Jaffri and Oskar Verkaaik. This volume brings together an interdisciplinary and international range of established and emerging scholars working on the city in South Asia. It examines the diverse lived experiences of urban South Asia through a focus on contestations over urban space, resources and habitation, bringing together accounts from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In contrast to accounts that attribute urban transformation mainly to neoliberal globalisation, the book vividly demonstrates how neoliberalism in fact functions as just one of the many drivers of urban change. South Asian urban studies privilege a handful of cities, thus overlooking the great diversity, as well as commonalities, of urban experiences spanning the region. In addition to chapters on New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, the book includes critical urban chapters on lesser studied cities such as Karachi, Kathmandu and Colombo. The articles provide not just a sense of the new forms of urbanism emerging in contemporary South Asia, but shed light on new theoretical possibilities and directions to make sense of transnational processes and urban change, insisting 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. They are animated by actual experiences of the city rather than generalized theories of large-scale sociological processes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From harishpoovaiah at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 12:10:33 2011 From: harishpoovaiah at gmail.com (Harish Poovaiah) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:10:33 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Invitation: Consultation on new Garbage Tender of BBMP on Wed, 16th March 2011 from 3PM to 6PM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: CIVIC Bangalore has great pleasure in inviting you to a public consultation on * * *The new Municipal Solid Waste Management tender of BBMP:* *Does it have the solution for Bengaluru’s garbage challenge?* *Chief Guests* * * *Mr. Manjunatha Reddy,* *Chairman, Standing Committee, Health, BBMP* * * *Mr. Satish* *Chief Engineer (SWM), BBMP* * * *Mr. Sadashivaiah** *Chairman, Karnataka Pollution control Board.* Presided by *Mrs. Almitra Patel,* *Member, Supreme Court Committee for Solid Waste Management* ** *Date: Wednesday, 16th March 2011* ** *Time: 3PM to 6 PM* ** *Venue: SCM House* ** *# 29, 2nd Cross, Mission compound, off Mission Road, Bangalore 560002 * * * * * ** ** ** ** *All are welcome* * * **To be confirmed* * * * * *CIVIC Bengaluru (Citizens' Voluntary Initiative for the City of Bangalore)* *# 6, Kasturi Apartments, 35/23 Langford Road Cross,Shanthinagar, Bengaluru 560025* *Tel: 22110584/Telefax: 41144126, (M) 97318 17177*** *Web: www.civicspace.in / Email: **info at civicspace.in* * * * * *Programme schedule*** * * *3.00 PM Tea & Registration* *3.30 PM Welcome & objectives – CIVIC* *3.35 PM Presentation of Draft Tender Guidelines on SWM- BBMP* *4.00 PM Comparative analysis of MoEF’s Municipal Solid Waste Handling Rules 2000, Urban Development Policy on SWM and Draft Tender Guidelines of BBMP - CIVIC* *4.20 PM Open discussion* *5.00 PM Responses by Chief Guests* *5.45 PM Chairperson’s remarks – Ms Almitra Patel* *6.00 PM Vote of thanks* * * *The new Municipal Solid Waste Management tender of BBMP:* *Does it have the solution for Bengaluru’s garbage challenge? * * * Bengaluru generates close to 3500 tonnes of waste each day. Some of it is collected. Some is dumped in vacant places in the city to rot. Some is left on the street. People are left to cope with the unsightly mess, bad smell, mosquitoes, flies and rodents. Stray dogs feast on it and multiply. Plastics clog the drains. Dump yards pollute soil, water and air. The problem of the city becomes the problem of villages. The management of city waste remains a challenge. The BBMP has a budget of Rs. 160 crores for the year 2010-11. While the earlier contracts for solid waste collection and disposal expired in 2009, a new tender is being called through e-procurement. The objective of this public consultation on this tender is to understand: Ø What is in the tender Ø Whether this tender follows the MoEF MSW Handling Rules, 2000, and Urban Development Department’s Policy on MSW Ø Whether it provides a process that can lead to end to end (total) solution at the ward level Ø Whether the roles and responsibilities of BBMP, contractors and door-step collectors are explicit and apt Ø What are the obligations and role of the waste generators, the citizens Ø Whether waste can become a source of income for the city? How can its collection and transportation be integrated to SJSRY, a scheme of the BBMP to generate self-employment Ø What roles can the RWAs/ CBOs/ NGOs play in the process Ø And ultimately to find a way forward to make Bengaluru a clean city with zero waste. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 13:16:10 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:16:10 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Sanjaya Baru: Private wealth public squalor Urban reform cannot be imposed from Delhi, state governments have to step in Message-ID: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sanjaya-baru-private-wealth-public-squalor/428349/ *Sanjaya Baru:* Private wealth public squalorUrban reform cannot be imposed from Delhi, state governments have to step inSanjaya Baru / New Delhi March 14, 2011, 0:52 IST You don’t have to travel very far from the epicentre of power in India to grasp the challenge of urban governance. Take a walk to Delhi’s hip and happening Khan Market. Watch the BMWs squeeze their way in, and the glitzy crowd walk quickly from chauffeur-driven car into fancy restaurant or fancier boutique, noses covered with handkerchief! There is no experience more sobering for the perfumed than a walk down the inner lane of Khan Market — it stinks. Khan Market has become the latest metaphor for private wealth and public squalor in urban India. If New Delhi’s central government is unable to address the challenge of urban governance next door, and is not willing to empower the chief minister of Delhi, forget about the titular mayor of Delhi, how can one expect a new 74th Constitution amendment bill type of intervention to make a difference to urban governance, when the old one has made hardly any difference to rural governance?! However, a report of a ‘high-powered expert committee on urban infrastructure and services’ (HPECUIS), chaired by Isher Ahluwalia and including some very knowledgeable persons, sees such a legislation as key to addressing the problem of urban governance, which the committee calls “the weakest and most crucial link, which needs to be repaired to bring about the urban transformation so urgently needed in India.” Accepting a widely held view that the original Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) has failed to meet its mission objectives — namely urban reform — the HPECUIS has recommended a New Improved JNNURM (NIJNNURM!) But the JNNURM failed because a weak coalition government in Delhi was unable to impose reform on unwilling state governments that were quite happy to take the money and not pay much attention to reform. How an even weaker central government will now be able to get an assortment of political parties around the country that are still dragging their feet on tax reform to agree to not just “reform”, but in fact a transfer of power from the state government to local governments, with empowered mayor and municipalities is not clear. India has a three-tiered governance structure captured best by the statement that power in India revolves around three offices — DM, CM & PM (district magistrate, chief minister and prime minister). Possessed by a fanciful view that New Delhi can administer top-down reform in India via legislation, the Rajiv Gandhi–Mani Shankar Aiyar duo amended the Constitution to transfer funds and powers from Delhi to the districts, bypassing the state capital. Andhra Pradesh’s irreverent and irrepressible chief minister of the day, N T Rama Rao, got back with the oneliner — the Centre is a conceptual myth — and showed that any attempt to bypass the state capital will be disastrous for the success of any centrally-sponsored initiative at the local level. The initiative for empowerment of local government will have to come from state governments and through public pressure from below. This is the single biggest lesson to have been learnt from the actual experience of the 74th amendment to the Constitution. A highly regarded and knowledgeable member of the HPECUIS, Ramesh Ramanathan of Janaaagraha, Bangalore, has long lamented the delinking of reform from funding in JNNURM. This delinking has happened not because the Centre has no clout with urban local bodies, but because the Union ministry is under pressure to disburse funds even when not much reform is happening on the ground. Funds once created are normally not allowed to lapse in government. Not using funds is as much of a crime as misusing them! I am surprised that even Mr Ramanathan thinks NIJNNURM will succeed where JNNURM failed. India’s cities do not necessarily lack funds, they lack a political focus that only state governments can provide. To end the ugliness of private wealth and public squalor, India’s cities require local mobilisation, not national incentivisation. The key to urban reform and development is to get state governments to push for them. In Uttar Pradesh, it is chief minister Mayawati, who is finally driving urban reform. If UP’s cities develop, it will be because of chief ministerial leadership, neither the incentive of funds from Delhi nor the incentivisation of local government leadership. Hyderabad offers a good example of a city that improved rapidly under chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s leadership and has since deteriorated due to the neglect of a successor government that shifted its focus away from the city to the countryside. In fact, in this case the Union urban development minister was from the same state and a resident of the city, and was implementing JNNURM. Yet, Hyderabad saw little governance reform, and instead experienced deterioration of urban services. Almost all the ideas in the HPECUIS are very good. Indian cities need better governance, better services, more investment, etc. etc. A lot of the suggestions made in the report are useful and will help. But if urbanisation in India has to move forward there can be only two ways forward — either the central government takes over an entire city (as has been the case with New Delhi and Chandigarh, and such an option has been suggested before for Mumbai and, more recently, for Hyderabad); or, state governments get involved in urban development, as happened in Andhra Pradesh with Mr Naidu, and more recently is happening in UP with Ms Mayawati. The HPECUIS view that central funds and Constitutionally-empowered local leadership, trained by Indian Institutes of Urban Management and such like institutional interventions from Delhi, will transform Indian cities appears fanciful. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kiccovich at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 15:01:40 2011 From: kiccovich at yahoo.com (francesca recchia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:31:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Support Behind the Tin Sheet: Garage Sale in Bangalore Message-ID: <594136.92354.qm@web113213.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Dear all, Ekta and Yashu are trying to complete their film "Behind the Tin Sheets". The film documents the lives of the workers who are involved in building the Bangalore Metro Rail. The film narrates the transformations that the city has undergone through the lives of the workers and the process of construction of the metro rail system. A sneak preview of the movie is available on http://www.tinsheets.in/ Currently, Ekta and Yashu need Rs. 1,00,000 (one lakh) to finish the post-production work including sound, editing, etc. They have run out of the fellowship amount they had received for making the film. In an effort to raise funds to help them complete the film, we are organizing a Garage Sale in Bangalore featuring books, paintings, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts and many other knick-knacks. The items in the sale have been contributed by people who want to support the fund raising effort. We are all keen and passionate that Ekta and Yashu complete this film. So come one, come all and take your pick from the Garage Sale! And, pass this information to your friends, acquaintances and near and dear ones! And, if you want to send in money directly to Ekta and Yashu for helping them complete their film, see details on http://www.tinsheets.in/appeal Date: Saturday, 26th March Time: 4 PM to 8 PM Venue: Off Church Street, on the street opposite where Premier Bookshop used to be For more details, write to Ekta Mittal on forekta at gmail.com and Zainab Bawa on bawazainab79 at gmail.com P.S. People who want to contribute items for sale, please write to us individually. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bascom at guffin.net Wed Mar 16 20:02:03 2011 From: bascom at guffin.net (Bascom Guffin) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:02:03 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP AAA 2011 - Wannabe Cities: Everyday Strivings and Emergent Urbanisms Message-ID: <124DDEE0-9EEE-4124-A6CE-1E8FEC15127D@guffin.net> Call For Papers 2011 American Association of Anthropology Annual Meeting Montreal, November 16th-20th, 2011 “Wannabe Cities: Everyday Strivings and Emergent Urbanisms" Imaginaries - whether they be global, national, regional or local - always play an important role in how cities are understood and hence come into being. Hierarchies of status pervade these imaginaries, placing some cities in the limelight of social and cultural importance while leaving others to grapple with their secondary status. Saskia Sassen's rubric of "global cities," for instance, has long proved seductive both for academics seeking to classify cities and, maybe more important, for policymakers and citizens striving to elevate their cities to "world class" status. While anthropological inquiry tends to focus on so-called "premiere" or “important” cities placed at the top of global and regional hierarchies, and rural communities relegated to the bottom, our discipline largely overlooks cities caught between these two positions. But this is where much of the world's urban growth is taking place. As such, these cities are extraordinarily dynamic fields of social and spatial change. They play host to people forging new ways of living and associating. They are spaces where people individually and collectively strive to define and achieve ideals of what it means to be urban, to be members of a modern world, and to live a good life. Some ways these aspirations manifest are how people pursue their personal visions of success, how they perform status, how they consume, and how they act out their moral visions of the way a city should be organized and its members should behave. This session invites papers that address some of the following questions: What does it mean for a city to be considered unimportant, always emerging but not quite, caught in the middle, or even failed? How do these cities desire, aspire, and strive for recognition? What roles do residents play in a city's striving to emerge? How do the ways people live their lives affect a city's social and spatial development? How do ideas of what makes a good, successful city play out on the ground? Deadline for abstract proposals: Thursday, March 31st Please send paper title, abstract (no more than 250 words), affiliation, and contact information to: Timothy Murphy at temurphy at ucdavis.edu (PhD Candidate, Anthropology, UC Davis) and Bascom Guffin at mbguffin at ucdavis.edu (PhD Candidate, Anthropology, UC Davis). ======== Bascom Guffin Doctoral Candidate Department of Anthropology University of California, Davis mbguffin at ucdavis.edu +91 95812 07179 From veena at doccentre.net Wed Mar 16 12:27:57 2011 From: veena at doccentre.net (veena) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:27:57 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Sharing Session: Management Knowledge for NGO enterprise Message-ID: <4D805F75.4060606@doccentre.net> Knowledge in Civil Society SHARING SESSION # 23 with *Ranjeet Ranade & Bablu Ganguly* *CREAMing Management Knowledge **for NGO enterprise* Tuesday, 22nd March 2011 2.30 pm to 6.30 pm CED, Bangalore CREAM <#CREAM> is a barefoot management course for grassroots level entrepreneurship managers. A group of mainstream managers have got together and devised a field based management course for people from NGO and CBOs. The course was crafted such that certain basic knowledge from the mainstream is adapted culturally and organizationally to suit the NGO and CBO environment, and ethos. Two years and several graduates after, Ranjeet will share with us the knowledges and learnings of the CREAM experience. Bablu from Timbaktu took a hard look at three decades of his activism and nature work, and went into Timbaktu Organics full steam to test his dream of a strong local and decentralised economics. Sharing Sessions are walk through the bylanes of experience, exploring the knowledge residing in them, and relating them to communities, and the engagement with development, justice, equity, and "progress", "change" etc. So they are not timed lectures or presentations, where the chairperson is breathing down the presenter's neck. The idea is to develop conversations between activists, academics, and concerned people, and explore these knowledges. The idea is not to know about Management or Local Enterprises, but more to get a feel of how a dream/philosophy/politics works out during engagement -- in short a sharing on the State of the Art - Knowledge, Practice and Future. This invitation comes to you from Centre for Education & Documentation No.7, 8th Main, 3rd Phase, Domlur 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560071. Ph:25353397, 9341248784 Directions here All are welcome. RSVP preferred. The genesis of CREAM is from the thoughts of Bablu Ganguly of Timbaktu Collective which were on these lines -- "The people we work with should participate in larger markets and they should do so from a position of strength. We must work on equipping them with skills and knowledge to do so..." Rural attitude towards entrepreneurship is changing in a positive way. NGOs want to encourage the population they serve to take on livelihood (business-like) initiatives. But people involved in these initiatives often don't know how to own, start, and manage a business. Supply can't handle these challenges as the standard MBA is high cost, elitist and hence beyond access for this population. The current scope of Bachelor of Commerce and other degrees don't address their needs. CREAM (Course in Rural Entrepreneurship, Administration and Management) attempts to fill this gap between the demand and the supply. CREAM is a travelling program which is spanned over 6 months with 5 days of teaching every month. The delivery is bilingual (English and the local language) and the coverage does the balancing act between breadth and depth of a number of business management areas such as finance, sales & marketing, operations etc. The first program and was conducted in Andhra Pradesh from June 2009 to December 2009. There were 18 participants which had business managers managing businesses initiated by NGOs. The second program was run in Kerala for its state government poverty eradication mission (Kudumbashree). The objective was to train 30 micro-enterprise consultants who in turn are providing business consulting services to 15,000 micro-enterprises started with the help of Kudumbashree. The next program was for Vikas Bazar Network which is a network of 15 or so organizations in the state of Jharkhand. Their work is in the field of providing market-based intervention. The focus of this program was to cover basic business functions as well as basic project management processes such as planning, monitoring, and risk management. CREAM is in the process of starting two programs. The first one is for Seva Mandir in Udaipur with a focus on training their functionaries as well as rural entrepreneurs. The second program is for the leaders of women's thrift cooperatives covering business viability concepts. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 5200 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 15584 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ghazalajamil at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 00:05:32 2011 From: ghazalajamil at gmail.com (ghazala jamil) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:05:32 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] invitation for workshop at Delhi School of Social Work "Advanced marginalities on Delhi streets: Care deficit among urban poor children" Message-ID: Dear friends, We are organising a workshop to call for a broad based discussion on destitution and ‘care deficit’ among poor children in Delhi. As recent as a decade ago we could have spoken confidently about ‘street children’ who were mostly runaways or orphans, who had no contacts with their families. Different from these were children trafficked by labour contractors etc. These children worked, earned and sometimes maintained some form of contact with their families sending them their earnings whenever they could. These were called child labourers. Street children and child labour were two different categories of children for development NGOs and in a way remain so in the development dictionary referred to by them. Organisations working in this area note that later (neo-liberal policies gaining strength and ground) there were also children on streets whose families lived in slums or very poor colonies (*Valmiki Bastis* etc) and resettlement colonies of Delhi. Often both parents work. Children go back to their homes in the evening or every now and then- which may be anything between a few days to a few months. Some INGOs such as Amnesty International and organisations such as UNICEF, thus, began to differentiate between children ‘of’ and ‘on’ the streets. This essentially refers to children who spend all or substantial part of their day on streets, respectively. In the beginning of last decade, a lot of attention was given, for the first time, to homelessness in Delhi. It was observed that the homeless people were predominantly male and lived alone on streets (AAA 2000 Survey). A lot of them were destitute and had no connection whatsoever with their families. But some daily wage labourers were also homeless. They worked and earned meagre wages, and remained homeless in order to save as much as possible to send back to their families in the rural areas form where they had to migrate. The situation confronting us today is far more intricate and compounded further by the unfortunate fact that we also now have ‘homeless families’ in Delhi. By corollary, there are also homeless women *and* children. Children are under the ‘care’ of their parents but are on streets- *uncared for* as the parent are striving hard to just survive. Many students and faculty members at our department are engaged in practice learning with organisations that respond to children of various different hues who spend some of their time on, or work on, or live on, or have been rescued from Delhi streets. Increasingly, we have realised that the language available to us to talk about or relate to these children fail to grasp the new, more complex and more grim realities lived by the children. Consequently, we feel that the design, planning and implementation of our responses to these critical but lived realities also display the same kind of lacunae. We began asking ourselves some questions which we seek to also raise at the workshop. These are: - Is the street life a defining feature of these children (being called ‘street children’) or is it their destitution? Does measuring/comparing these children’s lives with normative views of childhood augur well for designing responses for children who have lived in destitution? Do such views not actually stigmatise the children in their own minds as well as in the minds of the significant others? - With a lot of intervention from state (ranging from helpful to not-so-helpful to absolutely detrimental) are we witnessing a new and ‘advanced’ kind of marginalisation of the urban poor and the homeless? What impact does this advanced marginality has on the shelter rights of urban poor in general and urban poor children, more specifically? - What are the reasons that the conditions of ‘street children’ in Delhi have not improved and have rather worsened, in spite of the concerted efforts by several organisations working specifically with these children and/or related issues such as their health, education etc? - Can the learning, experiences and perspectives of social work students and teachers help articulate the emergent concerns in a manner which may contribute in alteration of the conventional discourses regarding ‘street children’ and thus, the consequential care strategies? We thus, invite you to engage with these and any other related questions at the day long workshop on MARCH 22, 2011 at 10:00 am at Department of Social Work, University of Delhi. The workshop is titled "Advanced Marginalities on Delhi Streets: Care Deficit among Urban Poor Children". Please come and participate in this collective exercise of assessing the responses till date, taking stock of the prevailing situation, and reframing and/or redrawing the future responses. Thanks in anticipation. Sincerely, Ghazala Jamil Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work (Delhi School of Social Work) University of Delhi 3, University Road, Delhi-110007 ph: 91-9891469956 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arkaja at gmail.com Thu Mar 24 18:43:17 2011 From: arkaja at gmail.com (Arkaja Singh) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:43:17 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CSH-CPR Urban Workshop Series Workshop No 14 Message-ID: Dear All, Please see below announcement for the CSH-CPR Urban Workshop Series. Best wishes, Arkaja *theindiancity.net* * * * * *Urban Workshop Series * *Rule by Aesthetics* *World-Class City Making in **Delhi*** Asher Ghertner Lecturer, Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics *3:45 pm** **Tuesday, 29 March 2011*** Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi If “modern” cities are supposed to be built through techno-scientific procedures of urban planning and government—such as maps, censuses, and zoning—the conspicuous shortage of such techniques in the world-class redevelopment of Delhi raises the question of how rule there is achieved. If we apply western models of government and planning to the Delhi context, this shortage looks like a type of failure. But, the Delhi case shows that this is not about failed government, but a different mode of governing space. In this talk, I offer various slices into how urban aesthetics has replaced maps and statistics as a key technology of government. In addition to discussing the theoretical implications of an aesthetic mode of rule, I will describe how middle class codes of appearance and civility have been used to project a new vision of urban space, and how slum residents have received, taken up and reworked these codes in pursuit of their own dreams of a “world-class” future. *Asher Ghertner *is a human geographer based at the LSE whose work focuses on the technologies and tactics through which mass displacement is conceived, justified and enacted. His research uses the contemporary politics of slum demolition and world-class city-making strategies in Delhito challenge conventional theories of economic transition, urban planning and political rule. He has conducted extended ethnographic fieldwork in Delhi's informal 'slum' and elite residential settlements on the politics of land access, and has published on Delhi’s Bhagidari scheme, slum-related legal discourse, and everyday struggles in informal settlements. Asher obtained his PhD in 2010 from the University of California, Berkeley. *This is the fourteenth 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 **Zérah at ** marie-helene.zerah at ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha at cprindia.org *** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 11:51:20 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:51:20 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Workshop by Asher Ghertner on "Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi" on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3.45 p.m. In-Reply-To: <4d8c2c82.04ae960a.2949.ffff9c7cSMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> References: <4d8c2c82.04ae960a.2949.ffff9c7cSMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: fwded msg:================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As part of our new Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a Workshop by *Asher Ghertner, *Lecturer, Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics on *Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class City Making in Delhi.* *Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2011* *Time: 3:45 pm* *Venue: Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021* If “modern” cities are supposed to be built through techno-scientific procedures of urban planning and government—such as maps, censuses, and zoning—the conspicuous shortage of such techniques in the world-class redevelopment of Delhi raises the question of how rule there is achieved. If we apply western models of government and planning to the Delhi context, this shortage looks like a type of failure. But, the Delhi case shows that this is not about failed government, but a different mode of governing space. In this talk, I offer various slices into how urban aesthetics has replaced maps and statistics as a key technology of government. In addition to discussing the theoretical implications of an aesthetic mode of rule, I will describe how middle class codes of appearance and civility have been used to project a new vision of urban space, and how slum residents have received, taken up and reworked these codes in pursuit of their own dreams of a “world-class” future. *Asher Ghertner *is a human geographer based at the LSE whose work focuses on the technologies and tactics through which mass displacement is conceived, justified and enacted. His research uses the contemporary politics of slum demolition and world-class city-making strategies in Delhi to challenge conventional theories of economic transition, urban planning and political rule. He has conducted extended ethnographic fieldwork in Delhi's informal 'slum' and elite residential settlements on the politics of land access, and has published on Delhi’s Bhagidari scheme, slum-related legal discourse, and everyday struggles in informal settlements. Asher obtained his PhD in 2010 from the University of California, Berkeley. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is the fourteenth 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 related 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.fror Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha at cprindia.org We look forward to welcoming you to CPR for what promises to be an interesting discussion. Please feel free to share this invitation with friends and colleagues who may be interested. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cugambetta at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 03:16:44 2011 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:46:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: Reminder / 2 Discussions / 29 and 31 March / Cities, Architecture and Development... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <828322.90119.qm@web57415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> See below some upcoming events at Arbour, Mumbai. -Curt From: Arbour Research Initiatives in Architecture Subject: Reminder / 2 Discussions / 29 and 31 March / Cities, Architecture and Development... Arbour - Research Initiatives in Architecture invites you to... on 29 March, 2011 at 6:30 pm at the Arbour AV Space Ideas, Architecture and Practice The Conversation Series [edition 2.2] Neera Adarkar and Kalpana Sharma in conversation with Mustansir Dalvi Continuing our series of discussions and conversations that attempt a mapping and documentation of ideas that shaped, and continue to shape architectural practice in India. The concern is to understand practice, ideas and the variety of issues under which notions of architectural practice, design and aesthetics changed, developed, and responded to various influences. Our earlier two conversations, between Kamu Iyer and Mahendra Raj, and Sen Kapadia and Atul Dodiya, with Kaiwan Mehta discussed shared histories, shared concerns, and relationships that architects and architecture shared with engineering or the arts. Then cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote engaged two artists, Mehlli Gobhai and Sudhir Patwardhan in a conversation on their works and the architectonics of the imagery and forms, practice and shared dictionaries with architecture. In this conversation we now explore the theme of architecture, cities and development, with a focus on housing. Neera Adarkar is an architect and urban researcher, and recently edited a book on the Chawls of Mumbai. Kalpana Sharma is a journalist, formerly Deputy Editor with The Hindu, and author of Rediscovering Dharavi. Mustansir Dalvi is an architect and professor at Sir J J College of Architecture, and writes on architecture and cities. (for more details see attached poster) on 31 March, 2011 at 6:30 pm at the Arbour AV Space [The Process and Theory series] The European City A talk by Dr. Hartmut Häussermann Professor of Sociology His main areas of interest are urban renewal and development, immigration and urban development, and the sociology of housing. In 2003 he received the highest-endowed sociology award in Germany, the Schader Prize, together with his colleague Walter Siebel. He has been professor of urban sociology at Universities of Kassel, Bremen and Humboldt, Berlin. In this talk he will take the reference from Max Weber’s division between European and Asiatic cities, a term that is mostly concerned with the European tradition of cooperative self-government. Although the idea of self-government has formally disappeared, it is still an important part of the self-image of the politicians and the citizens of the city and generally, the identification with “The City” is fairly strong, even with migrants. This event is in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai. The Director, Dr. Marla Stukenberg, joins us in inviting you for this event. (for more details please see attached poster) Please join us for tea at 6:00 pm on both days. Arbour AV Space is at First Floor, Karim Chambers, Ambalal Doshi Marg (Hamam Street), Next to Bombay Stock Exchange, Milan Coffee House, Kandeel Restaurant, Fort, Mumbai 400 023. -- Kaiwan Mehta Director Prateek Banerjee Managing Trustee (Under the aegis of the Priyanath Banerjee Memorial Trust) Arbour - Research Initiatives in Architecture First Floor, 3 - Karim Chambers, Ambalal Doshi Marg (Hamam Street) Near Bombay Stock Exchange Fort Mumbai 400023 tel: +91 (0)22 22652505 / (0)22 22655170 [Rights of admission reserved] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Conv 4.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 592261 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Euro City.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 591503 bytes Desc: not available URL: From noopur.raval at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 13:17:51 2011 From: noopur.raval at gmail.com (Noopur) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:17:51 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: Angela Y. Davis lectures in Delhi, Pune In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Navayana Publishing Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 8:48 AM Subject: Angela Y. Davis lectures in Delhi, Pune To: reader-list at sarai.net The Second Navayana Annual Lecture ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS 5 April 2011, 7 p.m. "Contemporary Quests for Social Justice," followed by a dialogue with Gail Omvedt at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre Lodi Road, Delhi Entry only by invitation for the 5 April 2011 Navayana lecture Collect cards from 25 March 2011 from Navayana: 26494795 IHC Program Desk: 43663090 IPDA: 26402040 The Caravan: 9873338291 CWDS: 23345530 Scholars Without Borders: 9971763322 1 April, 7 p.m. A Place for Rage, screening of documentary by Pratibha Parmar featuring Angela Davis, June Jordan and Alice Walker 52 min, Gulmohar, India Habitat Centre, Delhi 4 April, 3.30 p.m. "Prison Abolitionand the Challenges of Feminism". J.P. Naik Memorial Lecture, Convention Centre (Opp. Arts Faculty), Delhi University, Chhatra Marg, New Delhi-7, Delhi Univ/CWDS 6 April, 3 p.m. Prison Abolition and the Challenges of Feminism Namdeo Hall, KSPWSC, Pune University Angela Davis is Professor Emerita at the History of Consciousness Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of seven books, including Angela Davis: An Autobiography. Women, Race & Class 284 pages | Rs 295 Are Prisons Obsolete? 128pages | Rs 150 For more details on the events please see http://navayana.org/?p=1363 -- www.navayana.org To reach Navayana use this map: http://navayana.org/?page_id=8 Navayana 155, Second Floor Shahpur Jat New Delhi 110049 Landline: +91-11-26494795 Mobile: +91-9971433117 -- Noopur Raval Student Arts and Aesthetics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Ph: 9650567690 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 14:50:29 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:50:29 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Most JNNURM infra projects miss deadlines Message-ID: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/most-jnnurm-infra-projects-miss-deadlines/767404/ Most JNNURM infra projects miss deadlines *Kirtka Suneja* Posted online: Sat Mar 26 2011, 09:34 hrs *New Delhi : * Despite being one of the largest components of the Jawaharlal National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the strike rate of the Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) component is only 16%. Of the 526 infrastructure projects sanctioned so far in the 62 towns and cities under UIG, only 84 have been completed. The funds committed for the scheme were R27,878 crore of which R11,860 crore have been released. These 526 projects were approved under the scheme at a cost of R60,215.44 crore. Maharashtra leads all states in the number of projects sanctioned at 79 closely followed by Gujarat at 71, West Bengal at 56 and Andhra Pradesh at 50. Launched in December 2005 for a period of seven years, the JNNURM comprises four schemes. It funds specific projects for urban infrastructure and basic urban services in 65 cities of India through two schemes that is the UIG and the Scheme for Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP). The other two schemes that is the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) and the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) cover non-Mission cities and towns with the aim of integrated provision of basic entitlements and services to all including the urban poor. On an average, the JNNURM funds released by the states and union territories for UIG are almost 42.5%. According to the High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure chaired by Isher Ahluwalia, 41% of the spending was on water supply followed by 24% on roads and transport. Almost 19% of the spending was done on sewerage, 12% on drainage, 3% on solid waste management and only 1% on urban renewal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From yanivbin at gmail.com Sun Mar 27 12:36:10 2011 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:36:10 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] JNNURM 2.0 Ramesh Ramanathan Message-ID: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jnnurm-2.0/765978/0 JNNURM 2.0 *Ramesh Ramanathan* Posted online: Wed Mar 23 2011, 03:39 hrs **The world’s great cities weren’t born great. Consider this: “Household liquids and waste water were cast on the ground and flowed through the streets... It was common for city dwellers to use streets as a dumping ground for all manner of refuse.” (New York City, 1900s, from Sanitary City by Martin Melosi.) “The ‘Abyss’ is a pit of despair, into which pours a flood of vigorous life that perishes by the third generation. The city is a large maw into which tumble down the exploited millions, who eke out their lives in misery, dumb desperation and filth.” (London, 1900s, from People of the Abyss by Jack London.) These cities have come a long way from overflowing sewers and intergenerational hopelessness. The message: India’s cities can also be fixed. However, this requires evangelising the urban cause and a great deal of hard work. Cities transcend traditional sarkari definitions of being social or economic sector; they engulf education, health, infrastructure, housing, economic activity, environment and sustainable development within their boundaries. Hence, the idea of fixing our cities is not about finding a magic elixir or a silver bullet. Rather, it is about defining an enabling framework within which cities will improve, and — when they face challenges — self-correct. The first step is to make cities relevant, moving the locus of debate away from chandeliered conference rooms. Compared to the somnolence of the preceding decades, India’s urban narrative has come alive over the past five years. Today, most policymakers accept that urbanisation is a big challenge. Political parties acknowledge the importance of urban India. Media houses cover the travails of our cities with greater granularity. Corporate leaders regularly include “urban” in their “top 10 issues” lists. Academics and civil society institutions hold regular workshops on a variety of urban themes. It is in this context that the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM, launched by the government of India in December 2005) needs to be evaluated. If the mission were a movie, I would call it The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While it is tempting to label JNNURM as having “succeeded” or “failed”, public policy is rarely black or white, and a single initiative rarely delivers a comprehensive outcome. JNNURM’s most significant value is that it made “urban” relevant, highlighting the challenges that confront urban India. Given how the process of any change in India is like the proverbial manthan — where the poison must first gush out before the nectar is extracted — JNNURM has unquestionably stirred the urban cauldron. We now need to focus on moving ahead from JNNURM, which ends in 2012. Here, we need mature, nuanced debates, not pugilistic rhetoric that gets thrown across entrenched corners of the ideological boxing ring. The urban space, by its very existence, challenges ideological fundamentalism of both stripes — left and right. For any debate, context matters. And the recent report of the high powered expert committee (HPEC) on urbanisation is as good a context setter as any (visit www.niua.org to access the full report). *Among its recommendations, HPEC calls for a New Improved JNNURM (NIJNNURM*), an idea that has stirred criticism. Solving our urban challenges will require more money for urban infrastructure creation, more technical manpower for urban management, etc. The most important factor, however, is political will: state representatives willing to cede political space to mayors and corporators. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that politicians hate giving up power. Also, since 2008, our newly delimited electoral constituencies have had an unexpected effect on urban politics: positive for urban representation, with more urban MLAs and MPs, but negative for urban decentralisation, with bigger dogfights over political space. Add to this urban land and money politics, and the ground reality for “political will” is actually getting worse. There are three — not necessarily independent — routes to solve this problem. One, get the courts to enforce constitutional amendments. Two, create public pressure. Three, design a mission that enables decentralisation, even if slowly and incrementally. On the first, a recent spate of court rulings have not been positive for decentralisation activists. As to the second, generating public support is the sine qua non of a democracy. But our history as a “holding together” federal system has urban voters expecting the chief minister to fix their roads, and MLAs to clear the garbage — urban India’s knowledge of local government is inversely proportional to its importance. This is exacerbated by error-ridden urban voter rolls. Two years ago, in collaboration with the Election Commission, my organisation Janaagraha undertook a study of voter rolls in Bangalore. We found error rates to be over 60 per cent. With high migration into and movement within cities, current systems of electoral roll management barely keep pace. This is where NIJNNURM fits in. It would be wrong to position a central initiative like NIJNNURM as the answer to India’s urban problems. But it can be a sutradhar of urban change, catalysing responses and coaxing out the nectar, even as the manthan is churned. One final point on our urban future, not about big-ticket infrastructure issues, but about individual urban residents, poor and rich. Whatever our “architecture” of urban reforms, we need to give people a voice in their mohallahs and neighbourhoods. The role of a government cannot just be about providing public goods, but also nurturing this sense of citizenship, by creating spaces for us to learn the art of collective decision-making. In a feudal society like ours, citizens as well as governments see the state as a “provider” of services, at best treating citizens as “customers” but always outside the decision-making process. Given our development challenges and social heterogeneity, debates about deepening democracy are often seen as luxuries that we cannot afford, good only as esoteric ideas for drawing-room conversation. In fact, the very origins of local government in India are rooted in training for citizenship. In Ideologies of the Raj, Thomas Metcalf writes of the sweeping local government reforms that Lord Ripon instituted: “As a liberal, Ripon introduced for the first time the objective of training Indians for self-rule. In the 1882 resolution, he said, ‘local government is an instrument of political and popular education’.” We cannot build a vibrant society only on one wing of economic liberalisation; we also need to flesh out our civic identities. If not, our coping mechanism when faced with challenging public issues is to withdraw, pulling ourselves into a tightly wound cocoon of ever-shrinking personal space that we can control. If we treat local governments as political kindergartens for our citizens to learn the ropes of democracy, the benefits are enormous — better quality of life in our cities, with local problems being solved locally; better quality politicians; and, most importantly, more harmony among classes, castes and communities. *The writer is national technical advisor, JNNURM. He was a member of the high powered expert committee that recently submitted its report on urbanisation* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vinay.sreenivasa at yahoo.com Mon Mar 28 00:32:21 2011 From: vinay.sreenivasa at yahoo.com (vinay sreenivasa) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:02:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Wed, 30 Mar, 10.30am : Indefinite Dharna demanding Shivajinagar Street Vendors be given back rightful vending spaces Message-ID: <634128.45709.qm@web36304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkotaya Andolana A city level campaign of Street Hawkers, Dalits, Human Rights Activists, Social and Progressive Organizations   End our evictions. They are unconstitutional and contrary to the National Street Vendors Policy Value our contributions to the society. Respect our fundamental rights.   Wednesday, 30 Mar, 10.30am Indefinite Sit-in Dharna at the BBMP Head Office   On July 07, 2010, the BBMP and Police Department, without any notice, evicted 350 vendors from Central Street and Meenakshi Koil Street in Shivajinagar. We have been conducting their business in these streets since many years, with some vendors being there from 1975.   Since the evictions we and our families are struggling to survive as we have been left with absolutely no source of income – we are unable to pay the school fees for our children and many have been pulled out of school, our landlords have given us notice as we have not paid our house rent. Street Vending is an integral part of Bangalore’s daily life. From the vegetable vendor, to the cobbler, the coconut vendor, the flower sellers, the tea seller, the santhes, etc., the general public depend on us for their daily needs and convenience.   After the evictions, we did the rounds of the local police station, the concerned ACP's office and the local BBMP offices; however we were not allowed to resume our business. We had a dharna at the BBMP office on Oct 21, 2010. The Mayor came along with the opposition leader and addressed us. He said that they will support vendors to carry on their business on the streets. He had promised to fix a meeting date before the 28th of October. However that meeting never happened and we forced to protest again on Nov 22nd. This time, a meeting date was fixed for Dec 15th. However since the mayor was unwell, the meeting was postponed.   We however had the meeting with Mayor on February 08, 2011. In this meeting we updated him on how the Commercial Street Police Station evicted us on the basis of what they claim to be a verbal order from the BBMP. The Mayor clarified that there was no such order. The Mayor stated that he was in favour of ensuring that no illegal evictions took place under any circumstances. However, Due to the absence of the Commissioner, the Mayor decided that he would fix another meeting with the Commissioner, BBMP officials in charge of the local area and the concerned police officials.He assured us that we will get back our places to carry out vending and would ensure that justice is done to the street vendors. Based on this assurance from the Mayor, we agreed to wait for the next meeting. However this meeting has not yet been fixed. We have reminded the commissioner and mayor of this several times, but to date no meeting has been fixed.   Hence we now have no option but to sit in the BBMP office on Wednesday, March 30th and stay there till our demands are met. Our demands are-   1.      The 250 vendors who have not been allowed to resume business should be allowed to resume business from the place they were evicted from and a space of 1mtr X 1mtr must be allotted to each vendor on the extreme side of the pavement to carry out their hawking. 2.      The BBMP must reframe its Street Hawking scheme in accordance with the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court judgments and the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009 3.      The BBMP must undertake not to carry out any evictions without following the due process of law. Atrocities against vendors should be stopped immediately. In the name of beautification, BBMP must not evict any vendors anywhere in Bangalore.   Request the people of Bangalore to please join us and strengthen our struggle For the Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkoraya Andolana   S.Syed Zameer    - 9844519806 Isaac Amruth Raj - 9448411863 Vinay Sreenivasa - 98805 95032   -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ramesh at janaagraha.org Mon Mar 28 06:38:04 2011 From: ramesh at janaagraha.org (Ramesh Ramanathan) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:38:04 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Wed, 30 Mar, 10.30am : Indefinite Dharna demanding Shivajinagar Street Vendors be given back rightful vending spaces In-Reply-To: <634128.45709.qm@web36304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <634128.45709.qm@web36304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000a01cbece4$9aac8fd0$d005af70$@org> Dear Vinay and the Andolana people Keep up the work, we are with you. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help. I am also copying our internal mailing list – janahouse. Regards Ramesh Ramanathan Be the change you want to see cid:3339135295_4096616 Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy 4th Floor UNI Building Thimmaiah Road Bangalore 560 052 INDIA Tel: +9180 4127 7102-3 Fax: +9180 4127 7104 web: www.janaagraha.org From: urbanstudygroup-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:urbanstudygroup-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of vinay sreenivasa Sent: 28 March 2011 00:32 To: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net Subject: [Urbanstudy] Wed, 30 Mar, 10.30am : Indefinite Dharna demanding Shivajinagar Street Vendors be given back rightful vending spaces Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkotaya Andolana A city level campaign of Street Hawkers, Dalits, Human Rights Activists, Social and Progressive Organizations End our evictions. They are unconstitutional and contrary to the National Street Vendors Policy Value our contributions to the society. Respect our fundamental rights. Wednesday, 30 Mar, 10.30am Indefinite Sit-in Dharna at the BBMP Head Office On July 07, 2010, the BBMP and Police Department, without any notice, evicted 350 vendors from Central Street and Meenakshi Koil Street in Shivajinagar. We have been conducting their business in these streets since many years, with some vendors being there from 1975. Since the evictions we and our families are struggling to survive as we have been left with absolutely no source of income – we are unable to pay the school fees for our children and many have been pulled out of school, our landlords have given us notice as we have not paid our house rent. Street Vending is an integral part of Bangalore’s daily life. From the vegetable vendor, to the cobbler, the coconut vendor, the flower sellers, the tea seller, the santhes, etc., the general public depend on us for their daily needs and convenience. After the evictions, we did the rounds of the local police station, the concerned ACP's office and the local BBMP offices; however we were not allowed to resume our business. We had a dharna at the BBMP office on Oct 21, 2010. The Mayor came along with the opposition leader and addressed us. He said that they will support vendors to carry on their business on the streets. He had promised to fix a meeting date before the 28th of October. However that meeting never happened and we forced to protest again on Nov 22nd. This time, a meeting date was fixed for Dec 15th. However since the mayor was unwell, the meeting was postponed. We however had the meeting with Mayor on February 08, 2011. In this meeting we updated him on how the Commercial Street Police Station evicted us on the basis of what they claim to be a verbal order from the BBMP. The Mayor clarified that there was no such order. The Mayor stated that he was in favour of ensuring that no illegal evictions took place under any circumstances. However, Due to the absence of the Commissioner, the Mayor decided that he would fix another meeting with the Commissioner, BBMP officials in charge of the local area and the concerned police officials.He assured us that we will get back our places to carry out vending and would ensure that justice is done to the street vendors. Based on this assurance from the Mayor, we agreed to wait for the next meeting. However this meeting has not yet been fixed. We have reminded the commissioner and mayor of this several times, but to date no meeting has been fixed. Hence we now have no option but to sit in the BBMP office on Wednesday, March 30th and stay there till our demands are met. Our demands are- 1. The 250 vendors who have not been allowed to resume business should be allowed to resume business from the place they were evicted from and a space of 1mtr X 1mtr must be allotted to each vendor on the extreme side of the pavement to carry out their hawking. 2. The BBMP must reframe its Street Hawking scheme in accordance with the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court judgments and the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009 3. The BBMP must undertake not to carry out any evictions without following the due process of law. Atrocities against vendors should be stopped immediately. In the name of beautification, BBMP must not evict any vendors anywhere in Bangalore. Request the people of Bangalore to please join us and strengthen our struggle For the Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkoraya Andolana S.Syed Zameer - 9844519806 Isaac Amruth Raj - 9448411863 Vinay Sreenivasa - 98805 95032 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 9525 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sumandro at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 10:09:02 2011 From: sumandro at gmail.com (sumandro) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 10:09:02 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] urban security - constructing the idea and form of security infrastructure Message-ID: urban security solutions from siemens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHWYn1FfPBk sumandro *mod* www.mod.org.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sumandro at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 15:55:30 2011 From: sumandro at gmail.com (sumandro) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:55:30 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fwd: 4th ASSOCHAM International Conference on CYBER & NETWORK SECURITY, 2011 In-Reply-To: <4d9060e3.5246340a.5d33.3288SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> References: <4d9060e3.5246340a.5d33.3288SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: fyi sumandro *mod* www.mod.org.in ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kaushal Mahan, ASSOCHAM Date: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 3:38 PM Subject: 4th ASSOCHAM International Conference on CYBER & NETWORK SECURITY, 2011 To: kaushal.mahan at gmail.com * * * * Greetings from ASSOCHAM, We are pleased to inform you that* 4th ASSOCHAM* *International Conference * on* Cyber & Network Security* with the theme as *“Safeguarding the Digital Economy”* scheduled on *Friday, 1st April, 2011* *at Hotel Shangri La, New Delhi *has truly drawn International Cyber Security experts from leading countries like *USA, Isreal, France, Singapore, Belgium*. We are pleased to inform you that this international conference is*“Officially Supported” *by* Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India *and have key speakers confirming to address the conference from* Ministry of Home Affairs, **Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT), NIC, Department of Telecom, Government of India and Cyber Cells of the police departments.*** We are also delighted to have *Mr. Peter Swire former special assistant to President Obama on economic policy and expert on cyber security* is also addressing at the Conference *On behalf of ASSOCHAM, we take this opportunity to cordially invite your esteemed organisation to actively participate in this timely and meaningful International Conference on Cyber and Network Security and to network with Industry, Government and various other Stakeholders. The Conference Draft Agenda along with Registration Form is attached for your kind consideration and is also available on www.assocham.org *For any further information you may contact *Mr. Kaushal Mahan *on* kaushal.mahan at assocham.com *or* 09999975119.* We look forward to your early confirmation on the above. *Thanking you with warm regards,* * * *Ajay Sharma* *Director The Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India ASSOCHAM Corporate Office 1, Community Centre, Zamrudpur, Kailash Colony, New Delhi - 110 048, India Tel: +91 11 46550555, Fax: +91 11 46536481/82, 46536497/98 * * * * * * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 11073 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 6695 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Registration Form.doc Type: application/msword Size: 67072 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Proposed Agenda.doc Type: application/msword Size: 89088 bytes Desc: not available URL: From vinay.sreenivasa at yahoo.com Mon Mar 28 21:01:16 2011 From: vinay.sreenivasa at yahoo.com (vinay sreenivasa) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:31:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urgent : Protest posptponed! Fw: Wed, 30 Mar, 10.30am : Indefinite Dharna demanding Shivajinagar Street Vendors be given back rightful vending spaces Message-ID: <741169.23390.qm@web36303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear All, The protest planned for wednesday Mar 30th has been postponed to April 7th Thursday due to unavoidable circumstances. Will keep you posted on further updates. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks, Vinay ---------------------------- Streets and Their side walks are the main public places of a city; they are its most vital organs. Think of the city and what comes to the mind? Its streets – Jane Jacobs, 1961. --- On Sun, 27/3/11, vinay sreenivasa wrote: From: vinay sreenivasa Subject: Wed,30 Mar,10.30am : Indefinite Dharna demanding Shivajinagar Street Vendors be given back rightful vending spaces To: "yahoo" Date: Sunday, 27 March, 2011, 12:09 AM Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkotaya Andolana A city level campaign of Street Hawkers, Dalits, Human Rights Activists, Social and Progressive Organizations   End our evictions. They are unconstitutional and contrary to the National Street Vendors Policy Value our contributions to the society. Respect our fundamental rights.   Wednesday, 30 Mar, 10.30am Indefinite Sit-in Dharna at the BBMP Head Office   On July 07, 2010, the BBMP and Police Department, without any notice, evicted 350 vendors from Central Street and Meenakshi Koil Street in Shivajinagar. We have been conducting their business in these streets since many years, with some vendors being there from 1975.   Since the evictions we and our families are struggling to survive as we have been left with absolutely no source of income – we are unable to pay the school fees for our children and many have been pulled out of school, our landlords have given us notice as we have not paid our house rent. Street Vending is an integral part of Bangalore’s daily life. From the vegetable vendor, to the cobbler, the coconut vendor, the flower sellers, the tea seller, the santhes, etc., the general public depend on us for their daily needs and convenience.   After the evictions, we did the rounds of the local police station, the concerned ACP's office and the local BBMP offices; however we were not allowed to resume our business. We had a dharna at the BBMP office on Oct 21, 2010. The Mayor came along with the opposition leader and addressed us. He said that they will support vendors to carry on their business on the streets. He had promised to fix a meeting date before the 28th of October. However that meeting never happened and we forced to protest again on Nov 22nd. This time, a meeting date was fixed for Dec 15th. However since the mayor was unwell, the meeting was postponed.   We however had the meeting with Mayor on February 08, 2011. In this meeting we updated him on how the Commercial Street Police Station evicted us on the basis of what they claim to be a verbal order from the BBMP. The Mayor clarified that there was no such order. The Mayor stated that he was in favour of ensuring that no illegal evictions took place under any circumstances. However, Due to the absence of the Commissioner, the Mayor decided that he would fix another meeting with the Commissioner, BBMP officials in charge of the local area and the concerned police officials.He assured us that we will get back our places to carry out vending and would ensure that justice is done to the street vendors. Based on this assurance from the Mayor, we agreed to wait for the next meeting. However this meeting has not yet been fixed. We have reminded the commissioner and mayor of this several times, but to date no meeting has been fixed.   Hence we now have no option but to sit in the BBMP office on Wednesday, March 30th and stay there till our demands are met. Our demands are-   1.      The 250 vendors who have not been allowed to resume business should be allowed to resume business from the place they were evicted from and a space of 1mtr X 1mtr must be allotted to each vendor on the extreme side of the pavement to carry out their hawking. 2.      The BBMP must reframe its Street Hawking scheme in accordance with the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court judgments and the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009 3.      The BBMP must undertake not to carry out any evictions without following the due process of law. Atrocities against vendors should be stopped immediately. In the name of beautification, BBMP must not evict any vendors anywhere in Bangalore.   Request the people of Bangalore to please join us and strengthen our struggle For the Beedhi Vyaaparigala Hakkoraya Andolana   S.Syed Zameer    - 9844519806 Isaac Amruth Raj - 9448411863 Vinay Sreenivasa - 98805 95032   -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kalakamra at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 00:25:00 2011 From: kalakamra at gmail.com (shaina a) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:25:00 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Pad.ma News March 2011: Poets and Dancers in the Archive In-Reply-To: <55838.202.177.254.179.1301328234.squirrel@mailb.org> References: <55838.202.177.254.179.1301328234.squirrel@mailb.org> Message-ID: Dear all, After a winter-long break Pad.ma restarts its regular updates about collections, videos in the archive and new writings by Pad.ma fellows. This month's featured essay is on bar dancers in Mumbai, by Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh (lawyer, researcher and writer) and our featured collection showcases footage from Odissi dancer Kumkum Lal's personal archive annotated in conversation with Ranjana Dave (dancer, researcher and writer). We are keen to encourage writing in the archive, and invite anybody with research ideas around archival material in Pad.ma, to contact us at http://pad.ma/contact These essays are showcased in the beta version of a video-essay platform that links video and text and provokes new ways of writing in the archive and thinking about video (functional in Firefox and Chrome). The platform allows for essays to be linked to video clips that appear upon clicking in the right-hand side bar, along with transcripts and annotations drawn from Pad.ma. These video clips can elucidate, illustrate or show that which is elided in the process of writing. For the month of March, the archive bustles with poets and dancers, speaking about body, labour, tradition and the city of Mumbai. Namdeo Dhasal, the poet and politician, describes the city of Mumbai as his beloved whore, and the many interviews of bar dancers in the archive speak up against the oppressive ban on dancing imposed by the city's keepers of morality and Indian culture. The dubiously famous Radia tapes that include conversations largely to do with the 2G scam and spectrum allocation, have been transcribed and made searchable on Pad.ma. The conversations reveal the grimy nexus between lobbyists, politicians, industrialists and the media that plays a role in major government decisions. We also point you to 'A Little Justice Goes a Long Way', Philip Rizk's short film on labour movements in Mahalla and Cairo, Egypt in 2010. Also included are new texts from Pad.ma on the politics of archiving - an ongoing series of questions about the naming of something (an activity, a social setting, a website or online tool) as archive, or exhibition, or infrastructure. <> The Bombay Bargirl: An Archival Adventure by Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh Ghosh's essay on bar dancers traverses the archive in the search of the elusive bar dancer not imprisoned by tropes and stereotypes - the victim of circumstance as she is narrated in the law, the vamp of popular culture, Shantaram's desultory Monalisa (in the novel by Gregory David Roberts) or the radical reactionary heroine for activists and feminists. The essay is structured as fragments and annotations on different aspects of the bar dancer's life (see list of headings). The video material is largely referenced from the Majlis archive of conversations with bar dancers, television programs and debates, interviews with leading politicians, union heads and others. Ghosh says - "In the hands of an epistemological adventurer, the archive becomes a transgressive mode of knowing that rescues the plenitude of experience from the structuring order of the law and historical narrative" http://essays.pad.ma/bombay-bargirl-archival-adventure Narayan Surve - A Tribute by Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar Filmmakers Monteiro and Jayashankar remember the revolutionary poet who chronicled working class life in Mumbai, in his poems. Surve appeared in Saacha (2000), their film about Mumbai's working class, but more significantly, inspired them with his unbounded optimism. http://essays.pad.ma/narayan-surve-tribute Writing Over A Hundred Cups Of Tea by Ranjana Dave In 1986, at her temporary home in Tokyo, Kumkum Lal hosted Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and a group of musicians including the composer Pt. Bhubaneswar Mishra, for a month. Twenty five years later, Kumkum Lal revisits the Japan tour through recordings made by her husband Ashok with his first video camera. While watching Kelucharan Mohapatra outside the performance space makes everything about the footage seem out of the ordinary, Kumkum makes her way through days and nights spent choreographing, cooking, teaching, drinking tea, dancing, stopping, to take in the ephemeral, scattered moments that are windows into other lives and other stories. http://essays.pad.ma/writing-over-hundred-cups-tea A pad.ma workshop in Cairo last year, titled "Don't wait for the Archive: Part 2" gathered together artists, activists, amateur collectors and those working for government museums and institutional archives in Cairo and Beirut. The workshop was followed by a conference titled 'Speak, Memory' on the politics of archiving and (re)activation of cultural memory. At the conference, different visions and stratagems of archiving were discussed including open or closed, institutional or radical, private or government. Here we share four texts that elaborate on certain issues around archiving that interest us, including the problem of displaying the archive, legal edifice for archives, politics of technology and notes on collaboration. Outlawed or Gair Kanooni - Namita A. Malhotra http://pad.ma/texts/Cairo_Texts.html#namita Exhibition and Archive - Ashok Sukumaran http://pad.ma/texts/Cairo_Texts.html#ashok Don't Wait for the Archive - Sanjay Bhangar http://pad.ma/texts/Cairo_Texts.html#sanjay Notes on Collaboration - Sebastian Lütgert http://pad.ma/texts/Cairo_Texts.html#sebastian <