'Smart city' status? Give Shimla its lost lungs first, please

Dharamsala  hogged the headlines this week on being granted the status of a second state capital, evoking mixed reactions. Our first capital Shimla has been in the news too: city planners are reported to have been busy figuring out how to make Shimla a ‘smart city’. With a  chuckle, I wondered, “Are they really serious?”     

To me, what Shimla needs right now is admission in the ICU rather than its guardians  getting worked up about making it ‘smart’.  It is groaning under the weight of ugly, reckless urbanisation. Government lands have been encroached upon by the rich and powerful with impunity. Trees have been felled on one pretext or the other. Illegal, multi-storeyed, haphazard constructions have gone on at an alarming rate unchecked, defying safety codes and regulations. Spurred  by unabashed 'greed-and-gain' (लोभ-और-लाभ ) mania , even steep slopes have not been spared in this mad scramble for building and owning a property in the capital city by the unscrupulous manipulators. Sadly, the successive governments and the civic authorities have - either overtly or covertly - been a party to the brazen loot and plunder of land and nature, utterly unmindful of the environmental costs that would eventually follow.  It has been going on for decades. And they still pass acts to condone and regularise these criminal transgressions of all kinds and even holding up a protective umbrella for these perpetrators and beneficiaries.

Shimla for me is almost a dying city. In the summers it suffers acute water shortages putting the hapless residents and the visiting tourists to nightmarish hardships. Or, the water is contaminated causing hepatitis, jaundice and gastroenteritis. And there are dead bodies - having gone unchecked for weeks and months - rotting in the water storage tanks. Traffic jams are a routine occurrence, a part of daily ordeal. Space for vehicle parking is woefully deficient. In winters, the scenario is much worse. One heavy spell of snowfall and life at once comes to a grinding halt. No water, no power, roads blocked, communications hit…as we saw 2-3 weeks back… and for days together. Health services are a shambles. How shocking that a new-born died in a reputed hospital owing to power outage and there being no adequate back-up!

The way the Shimla hills have been eroded, degraded and dynamited, the way the buildings defying norms, defying earthquake restrictions, defying basic structural safety standards superimpose each other, Shimla sits on a virtual time bomb of a major catastrophe. If an earthquake strikes see what great tragedy of unimaginable proportions would unfold.  One shudders to think. God forbid!

Respected planners and thinkers, sirs and madams, Shimla is gasping for breath right now.  It has already become nearly unlivable. Please, resuscitate it first. Give it its lost lungs. Inject some oxygen and blood. Then and then alone it would make any sense to hold these brain-storming sessions in your cushy, centrally heated VIP chambers for making it a ‘smart city’. And also please stop these appeasement doles. Bestowing ‘freebies’ at the cost of public money and thereby crippling the state’s economy may (or may not) yield quick, short-term political dividends  but it certainly is bad governance and bad politics in the end. Stop pampering the violators of law at the cost of the fragile ecology of this (erstwhile) ‘Queen of the Hills’, at the cost of the law-abiding citizens. Please make your development plans robust, visionary, futuristic and environment/eco-friendly. Lastly, rev up and rejuvenate your Disaster and Relief Control  units, and give muscle and wings to your fire departments  so that these services are able to provide timely help and succour to those in need, as was needed in fire-ravaged Tangnu.

Before spending crores on ‘smart cities’ (and second rajdhanis even, I dare say), please provide basic facilities such as safe transport, good communications, and prompt, adequate health care in the hinterlands so that the pregnant and ailing women do not have to walk long miles on foot or have to be ferried on cots and chairs for miles by the good Samaritans.

Please for God’s sake let's  get our priorities right. History and public are silently watching and they spare none.
And I say it all as an आम  आदमी, without any bias or prejudice for or against any political party because इस  हमाम में हम सब  नंगे  हैं !

      

              'Queen of the Hills' is nearly bursting at its seams

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Of  books and women

Although company of  books and women is both inspiring and seductive, both are strictly a personal, individual choice. Therefore proffering suggestions and making recommendations for me would not only be rather arrogant and presumptuous but even hazardous- especially in the latter case (the goddamn ‘age tag’ only makes it worse!). I can however safely speak about books that I have just read or am reading and leave the rest for you to decide and judge.

One of the books I finished reading a few weeks back is: 'The Great Derangement'…. by the well-known Indian writer Amitav Ghosh.  I must confess that it is beyond my comprehension at places but on the whole it provides a deeper and wider perspective on climate change and lays bare some startling facts about its history, politics and the complexities involved in putting in place a tangible global plan to combat it.  It also poignantly informs us about what a major climatic catastrophe is waiting to hit this planet. It also exposes the hypocrisy of world powers (including the USA and Barack Obama) in addressing the  climate issues and how the Paris pact has fallen  far short of expectations.

The second book which I have read about 200 pages of, is Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee’s ‘The Gene’.  I find it gripping and engaging. The prose is scintillatingly beautiful;  the story and history of gene in all its manifestations couldn’t have been told more beautifully and elegantly. Even a non-biologist can find it  worth his time to turn its pages and marvel at the  author's erudition, the scale and depth of research and felicity of expression each sentence in the book sparkles with. A rewarding, elevating read indeed!

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Environmental facts

* Mumbai set to become hotter by 2100:study

* Soon 'green' shopping bags made from shrimp shells (DH)

* 60 % of world's non-human primates face extinction; study (DH)

* Novel solar-powered bicycle to combat air-pollution (DH)

* Humans, not climate, wiped out Australian megafauna: study (DH)

* Pollution-checking units commit fraud, fudge tests  to give clearance certificates to  polluting vehicles for a price in Delhi (India Today)     

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Quotes of the week

* Compassion and love are at the core of everything

           - Dr B M Hegde, medical scientist and

                    educationist

* Don't name public property after politicians

          -Rishi Kapoor (ToI)

* I don't believe in religion, nor in nationalism,

    I believe in one world. I believe in rights,

    humanism and rationalism

          -Taslima Nasreen, Bengladeshi writer

* Education makes people humane

          - Dr B M Hegde

* Every girl is truly a blessing to the entire family
              - Actor Shahid Kapoor

                                    

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Week's select headlines

Soon AI systems that see world as humans do

        -Deccan Herald

One in five adults secretly accesses partner's Facebook accounts

        - Deccan Herald

Three men in Uppsala, Sweden, were arrested on Sunday on suspicion of raping a woman and streaming the assault live to private Facebook group

         - New York Times

US student team plans to brew beer on the moon

         - The Hindu

Bengaluru kids healthier than peers across country

          - Deccan Chronicle

SC gives govt 9 months to bring new TB regimen

           - Deccan Herald

Kim Kardashian's stolen jewellery re-cut, sold in black market

           - Deccan Herald

Woman (in Karnataka) gives birth to baby with 4 legs and 2 male sex organs 
              - Times of India

Sitting idle for 10 hours a day can age you badly

            - The Te Cake

Eating burnt toasts, and roast potatoes, baby foods and biscuits are linked to cancer: study

             - Foods Standards Agency

                            

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Last word

It is no secret that various billionaires, corporations, and 'climate entrepreneurs' played an important part in the Paris negotiations.
                     - Amitav Ghosh in his book 'The Great Derangement'

Scale of climate change is such that individual choices will make little difference unless certain collective decisions are taken and acted upon.

                        - As above

Cell biologists look; geneticists count; biochemists clean- Arthur Kornberg

                  - Siddhartha Mukherjee in his book 'The Gene'

Like musicians,like mathematicians - like elite athletes - scientists peak early and dwindle fast.

                   - As above

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PS

'Yours truly' will be away to Northeastern lands of 'Mera-Bharat-Mahan' for two weeks. Therefore keeping a date with you may or may not happen during the period...Shall be right back after mid Feb.   

                                              

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