On our way back from a beautiful village on the Konkan coast, me and my wife got talking about why Indians are abandoning the vast countryside and moving to ever so cramped and inhospitable cities. We have long toyed with the idea of moving out of the city but never have actually done much in the matter. So we decided to list the things in the city that mattered to us. We rated them on a scale of 1 to 10 and found that only a few made it over 5. Basic amenities like electricity and water got a 10 on 10, while business amenities like banking, transportation and Internet connectivity got an 8. Schools, hospitals and security got 7. Social life and recreation facilities got a 6. Surprisingly the hotels, restaurants, multiplexes and shopping malls that take up so much of our attention in the city barely made it on our charts.
pune
Land Of The Young, Rich & Healthy – Welcome To Youngistan
A new Pepsi ad has coined the phrase ‘Youngistan’ by combining Young & Hindustan. The actor in the ad claims to be an alien from the planet Youngistan. However is Youngistan really a planet in outer space or is India and Youngistan one and the same? I say this as I can’t help but note that India is being totally customized for the young, rich and the healthy. I certainly don’t have anything against the Youngistanization of society. The young definitely should enjoy the prosperity and the growing disposable incomes of new India, but not by steadily ignoring other segments of society.
Read more
Us vs Them – The Mantra Of Politics
After extensive research at Oak Labs, we believe we have discovered the secret of success in politics. It revolves around the simple concept of “Us vs Them”. The key to getting a mass following, winning elections and being a popular leader lies in the ability of the politician to clearly define an “Us vs Them” pattern.So throughout history and in all walks of life, the successful politician always has a clear understanding of who ‘Us’ is and who ‘Them’ are. It is the ability of the politician to convey this understanding that decides how successful he or she is. Here are some examples of Us vs Them. Rulers vs Natives, White vs Black, Democracy vs Dictators, Indian Cricket vs Aussie Cricket, Locals vs Migrants, Secular vs Communal, Believers in a Faith vs Non-believers, Underdeveloped vs Developed Countries and so on.
Indian Sport of Spitting On The Streets Needs To Get Its Due Recognition
“World Spitathon Champs”
Indians might have the strongest lungs on the planet. Not because of any genetic reasons but because of the exercise that they make their lungs undergo by firing spit missiles every couple of minutes. Across the country we have great exponents of this art, hard at work on every street. While walking, driving, through cars, buses and every other vehicle you will find spit missiles fired with great dexterity and regularity. Although the best performances come from tobacco consumers, even those who are not, often put in scintillating performances.
A Car For Every Indian – Questions Posed By The Tata Nano
“Citizens cannot be denied the comfort they deserve, innovators the recognition“
A couple of days back, the Tata’s launched the much hyped 1 lakh car, the Nano. The car is believed to be the cheapest in the world and is expected to revolutionize travel in India. The car looks good and also seems to come with a decent set of features. Considering that hardly any Indian companies consider research and innovation a priority, the Nano is a significant achievement for the Tatas.
Where’s the real Pune? Where’s the city centre?
With cities like Mumbai where an overwhelming majority of citizens travel south for work but stay up north, it’s quite obvious where the city centre is. However it’s intriguing how city centre means different things to different people in Pune. A friend was recently telling me how his company located in Kalyani Nagar refuses to give bus transport to employees stating that the company was located in the city and so bus transport need not be provided. Considering that he stays in Kothrud and believes that the old city and the Deccan area is the real Pune, he found the company’s suggestion that Kalyani Nagar was ‘in’ the city quite ludicrous.
San Francisco Days – Experiences @ Oracle Technology Conference
I am writing this column from the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on an Internet connection that’s as fast as the Internet speed of half of Pune put together. It’s strange how fast Internet connections always put me in a good mood. Anyway, talking of OpenWorld, it’s an annual event that has over 40,000 people coming to San Francisco from over a 100 countries. It’s amazing that the city can pull off such a mammoth event fairly easily and the infrastructure doesn’t collapse under the load.
The city administration seems to go the extra mile to ensure that delegates have an enjoyable and safe visit to the city. Although OpenWorld is the biggest, it is just one of the many events that happen all year round at the Moscone Center. Each event not only gets people to San Francisco and works as a great public relations exercise for the city but also pumps millions of dollars into the economy of San Francisco.
Articles on Pune City, Urban Planning and Environment
Geologist Suvrat Kher has written a five part series of articles on Pune City and environment. He integrates geology and high-resolution images from Google Earth to highlight and discuss urban planning and environment issues.
- Idling and Pollution
- PMT buses and Pollution
- Rickshaws and Pollution
- Urban Forests and Clean Air
- Sensing Corruption Remotely
Apart from these articles there are many others that also make for good reading. Do check out http://suvratk.blogspot.com
Using The Right To Information At The Pune City Corporation Office
For several years I have been planning to use the Right To Information (RTI) to get information and facts on things that bother me in the city. I read up on the subject, talked with friends, blogged about it, but never managed to take the most important step, that of using the right and asking for information. I even explored every possibility in which I could get information without having to visit the Pune Corporation office. Unfortunately that’s not possible. If you want information you have to work hard for it.
So I picked a Saturday when I did not have much else planned. Picked some RTI form samples from the net and filled up three forms asking for information from the PMC. The first form asked information about footpaths / pavements in Pune. The second about parking provisions that commercial buildings need to make as per corporation rules and the third asking for information about the PMC’s e-governance initiatives. I will write details of the information I sought and the response I got, when I do get the information. For the time being I will stick to the submitting the form part. A friend of mine who has been complaining for years about the stray pig menace in Shivteerth Nagar, Kothrud accompanied me hoping to submit his complaint to the relevant department and to finally rid his locality of the pigs.
(Cont…Click here for the entire article). Published as part of my fortnightly column for the Maharashtra Herald
Creating a competing and city friendly ganesh festival
Lokmanya Tilak initiated public ganesh festivals with the noble intent of creating a forum for people to come together and work for the nation’s independence. However, I am sure Tilak would have been saddened to see the avatar that his creation has taken today. Although the festival celebrated in each home is still vibrant and fun, the public festivals are loud, rowdy, political and disconnected from the ordinary masses. The demerits are endless while the benefits are a handful. Also it doesn’t end with just the 10 days of the festival, as even throughout the year the idols are placed in cabins that almost always are on encroached public land, in most cases footpaths. At times I even feel like writing to the Tilak family, saying “Please stop this thing you’ve started!”.
Unfortunately that won’t work. The fact is that ganesh mandals today are well established, used to getting their way and enjoy support from some political party or the other. So sweeping measures like banning the mandals from using public property are not going to work. Also a ban will face stiff resistance and will only result in burnt down PMT buses. Over the last decade or so, we have all experienced that the products and services that have improved have been those where healthy competition has emerged. So why not learn from this experience and create a parallel, planned and well organized version of the public ganesh festival that will compete with the public festival on the street? We can keep writing and complaining about all that’s wrong with the public ganesh festivals but that’s unlikely to make much difference. Why not instead toss ideas on how the ganesh festival could be revamped? I am sure many ideas might seem fanciful, but unless we start discussing and working on a way out of the mess we will only see things going from bad to worse.
(Cont…Click the scanned article image on the left). Published as part of my column for the Maharashtra Herald that’s published on alternate Saturdays )
Conference On Java Technology, Pune India, Oct 07
I am pleased to inform you about the IndicThreads.com Conference On Java Technology 2007 that will be held on 26th and 27th October 2007 at Pune, India.
The conference is an independent event with indepth vendor-neutral technical sessions about Web Services, Ajax, SOA, EJB, Mashups, Frameworks, JSF, Data Caching, Dependency Injection, Patterns and various other aspects of Java software development.
The event is a gathering of the best Java brains in the business and a place to learn from technology thought leaders about the latest and greatest in Java technology. It is also a great place to network and meet like-minded people from across companies and industry segments.
Registrations for the IndicThreads.com Conference On Java Technology 2007 are open. Register now to grab the very early bird discount that closes on the 31st of Aug 07.
The conference website is http://conference.indicthreads.com. Do check it out.
Being the editor of IndicThreads and a speaker at the event, I certainly will be around at the conference. Look forward to seeing you there.
Pune Corporation egovpmc.com becomes PuneCorporation.org
For reasons only known to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the PMC has now changed the official website from http://www.egovpmc.com to http://www.punecorporation.org and killed egovpmc.com.
PuneCorporation.org is definitely a better name than egovpmc, but why kill the established egovpmc.com? They could have just redirected to the new site. PMC also hasn’t shown the sense to buy the domain name PuneCorporation.com. So please note that http://www.punecorporation.org is the official site while PuneCorporation.com is a fake.
However if you are hoping to get some work done on the corporation site, it doesn’t matter if egovpmc.com or punecorporation.org is the official site, because both sites are currently not working.
I think it’s time to use the Right To Information and check which politician’s family member is minting money by bagging these contracts for the PMC websites and delivering rubbish in return.
Call For Speakers For The IndicThreads.com Conference On Java Technology Closes Tomorrow
IndicThreads.com invites submissions for the IndicThreads.com Conference On Java Technology 2007 to be held on 26th and 27th October 2007 at the Symbiosis Infotech Campus, Hinjewadi IT Park, Pune, India. The conference is the premier independent conference on Java technology in Asia and is the place to be, to learn the latest in the Java world while meeting with like-minded individuals from across the industry. You can find details of last year’s conference at http://conference.indicthreads.com