Comments on Tidbits here and there: Musings on the Telangana matter

Concur, which is why i indicated this has to be ta...

2009-12-18T19:51:12.713+08:00

Concur, which is why i indicated this has to be taken forward in the best spirit.
And a consistent policy is but a mirage in our polity, given our propensity to vest power, only in the unworthy.

Well Said @errlog. I am not saying the demand is u...

2009-12-18T10:18:40.502+08:00

Well Said @errlog. I am not saying the demand is unjustified. The key is to have a well thought out and consistent policy, both for fragmentation and delegation.

Also, if the Government wishes to check out prototypes, we did a bunch of these about a decade ago - Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal and the likes. So we don't need to specifically have yet another experiment, specially one that involves so many people and their lives.

Anyhow, with the demonstrations in the state(s), this is taking an interesting turn.

Well thought out post. For a start, the decision t...

2009-12-18T10:14:15.023+08:00

Well thought out post.
For a start, the decision to split the state is against public opinion(The key proponent for statehood does not have a mandate to be making this demand). Having said that, the demand in itself is not unjustified.
It also provides the nation with an opportunity for a prototype for future governance(If taken forward in the right vein).

Hi Shreeni, I'm not confusing stuff b/w public in...

2009-12-14T17:29:46.783+08:00

Hi Shreeni,

I'm not confusing stuff b/w public interest and public sentiments. All I was saying is - Not always the interests of every public will coincide. Some public's interest will hurt other people's sentiments and taking calls at that time is not easy. Hope you get to understand what I'm saying.

Simple thing - When we say 95% of people should stay in cities the immediate question that arises is which 95% should stay in cities? Answering that is not easy. Even developed nations don't have a nice sustainable model for this.

Any ways, the debate can continue for quite some time, may be we can use some other forum for this :).

@Venkatesh To answer to your first point regarding...

2009-12-14T16:44:15.359+08:00

@Venkatesh
To answer to your first point regarding piece of land for road work and sentiments, you are confusing public interest with public sentiment. They are a world apart. I am not against the Government acting on public interest, but I am against their acting on public sentiment.

@Venkatesh @Deppe
On the issue of cities, I am not talking about filling all 1 billion into one city. I am just saying that the majority of the population - say 95% should be concentrated among many many cities. This way, providing infrastructure and social engineering, both can be achieved at lower cost. On the other hand, the agriculture can be taken care of by the few who remain who can control more land and hence be more efficient.

I am sure you both would agree that current model adopted for farming is not scalable to a billion people and we are seeing the effects already.

Oh, and @Deppe, I am not talking about the Suburbia model - thats the most dangerous thing that can happen - I am talking about concentrated cities.

Interesting post. On the point of focusing on citi...

2009-12-14T11:41:48.799+08:00

Interesting post. On the point of focusing on cities, I have to agree with Venkatesh. I am skeptical about taking western cities as an example for all development (or for that matter Singapore or Dubai, which I believe can't remotely be a model for a billion people, 70% of whom are farmers). Western Suburbia was constructed in the days of cheap oil during a civilization that was tolerant of gross inequities. Ah! I have too much to say on this topic to put it in a comment section. Maybe I'll make a post about it :)

Also we know - every other political party except ...

2009-12-14T10:55:28.863+08:00

Also we know - every other political party except Congress had splitting of Andhra into Telangana and rest of Andhra as a very big agenda item. They were the ones playing with sentiments of people.

Think what center has done now is - challenged those political parties now by actually going ahead with the split.

Shreeni, there is good difference between saying a...

2009-12-14T10:43:48.855+08:00

Shreeni, there is good difference between saying and doing.

I'm sure even you'll go berserk if some government body asks you to give up even a part of your house because say the road near your house has to be widened. Given that all of us have purchased properties in the most unregulated system. That time nobody can tell that sentiments is a very negative way of thinking.

Coming to cities being developed and people migration to cities, that'll be much more dangerous than current scenario. What we need is a uniform development everywhere and not developments in only selected cities. We've seen how bad Bangalore turned out during IT boom and eventually when IT companies started looking out in other Tire 2 and 3 cities did the mad rush stop. Take for ex. the case-study of formation of SEZs etc... Development can't be concentrated to selected pockets. Nobody will be happy with that (neither the people living in that place, nor the people who migrate into that place).

@Venkatesh Babu: Responses to your comment. #1: N...

2009-12-14T10:17:44.268+08:00

@Venkatesh Babu:
Responses to your comment.
#1: No, I never covered negative points of cities. Mumbai is a specific and an extremely sad state of affairs. Most other cities have been the vehicle of growth and provide for opportunities to improve the life of its citizens. Even Mumbai, despite the MNS misgivings, has done the same over the past half century.

#2 Indian Government has only created local entities but none of them have the power to implement change. I am talking about entities which can do something to improve its residents' life.

#3 "Sentiment of people" is a very negative and an extremely dangerous way of thinking. "Sentiment of people" is what is easily affected by unscrupulous politicians and even then its a case of squeaky wheel getting the most oil. If "Sentiment of people" is to be honored, more Godhras, 1984s and Mumbai Riots will happen. Its the law makers who are to raise above that and set to empower the weak. In the case of fragmentation, it has to be strictly done in a manner consistent with each other and with a national policy.

#4 Point taken. All I am saying is that - as much as it is society's task, the government needs to use a firm hand in making sure that the society doesn't run away with it's whims.

#5 Point taken. :-)

Srinivas as you have rightly pointed out the solut...

2009-12-13T23:09:14.066+08:00

Srinivas as you have rightly pointed out the solution is to empower the local governance.
Today people don't even know the mayor of Hyderabad and thats the significance of our local govts. Look at who is elected as Mayor of Hyd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uu0ujRnIy8 (this is for telugu readers of your blog, the gist the interview pathetic she doesn't do anything apart from saluting Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi).
www.loksatta.org is a new age political party fighting for empowerment of local governments. It has proposed ward level govts. It has also proposed to build 1200 towns of economic centres to create oppurtunities locally.
These along with an independent monitoring authority can greatly help development of our India cities.

Hi Shreeniwas, Good to see your ideas listed. Thi...

2009-12-13T21:19:30.028+08:00

Hi Shreeniwas,

Good to see your ideas listed. Think you should give more thoughts to all the ideas.

For your point #1 of focusing just on cities - your blog has already covered the negative points w.r.t that, as you and all of us know - what has happened to Mumbai and with the people in-flow into that city

For your point #2 - Think Indian government has done enough on the lines of having governance at grassroot levels - Be it Panchayats or local self governments, not sure what other delegations you are talking about

For your point #3 - I don't think you can have any deterministic policy for division or union of states. Population is not the only criteria involved in making decisions. At the end of the day it boils down to the sentiments of people nothing more than that. Hope you have some ideas on combined families and when the people of families decide to part ways (not just on population basis).

For point #4 - Homogenizing the country is not the work of government. United India should be in spirits of people and not driven by government.

For point #5 - All of us know rewriting the brains is impossible, but definitely replacing politicians is possible, so a smarter and better person determined to change system is always welcome.