If anyone is looking for proof that will illustrate the popular adage about the cure being worse than the disease then they needn’t go far to find it. They can find sufficient proof and lots of it right here in Hyderabad. They only have to step out of their houses and look down at the road they’re standing on to find the evidence staring at them in the face.

A new take on Hyderabad from a budding author Vinod Ekbote

Dear Shri Chavan,

I hear that you recently made a trip to the United States to study the transportation infrastructure here. I hope you had a good experience.

Well, it’s a pity that we did not get to meet! I read about your trip in the papers and wanted to write to you beforehand, but you had completed your trip before I could finish writing the letter. Since I came from India to the United States to study transportation, I was going to offer you a guided tour of the transportation system of the United States. I hope you will accept this offer now and make another trip, for I promise to show you what you will not see otherwise.

 You’ll be staying with me, of course, in my small garden apartment in suburban New Jersey – no, no, I insist! Why do you want to waste taxpayers’ money on a hotel room? Now, me being a poor grad student and all, I can’t really afford a car to drive you around, so we’ll have to make do with public transport. But as chief minister of a state where the per capita income is 100 Rs a day, surely you don’t mind that? I would imagine that you would be interested particularly in how the transportation system here works for the poor!

See the discussions here

An elderly man, standing beside his daughter, is yelling and waving his arms. “A tree is overhanging his property and polluting his pond” whispers my Malayalam translator. “He wants it removed, but the panchayat has done nothing”. The man pauses briefly before resuming his offensive. His embattled target is another elderly man, a retired high court judge – the Ombudsman of Kerala. He is here in the northern city of Kannur in Kerala for two days to hold sittings and hear grievances – though they are not all as colourful as this one.

The Ombudsman – literally, the people’s protector – is originally a Swedish institution which has since been adopted widely across the world. At its core, the Ombudsman is an office which dedicates itself to receiving, investigating and resolving citizen’s complaints against government.

more on this here

Vimana Nildana Vistharana Virodhi Samithi (Local Communities Alliance Against Airport Expansion), Bajpe and Environment Support Group had repeatedly highlighted the high risk expansion of the Mangalore airport during the late 1990s. The expansion was proposed to enable flight movements of wide bodied aircrafts, such as Airbus A 320. Authorities were repeatedly informed that the proposal did not at all conform with the standards prescribed for runway design as laid down by the Director General of Civil Aviation, National Building Code of India and Ministry of Civil Aviation. Further, considering that the airport was proposed for international flights, a case was also made that the 2nd runway could not conform with International Civil Aviation Authority standards due to terrain limitations.

No one in authority cared to listen to our fervent pleas. This even when we demonstrated through a variety of representations that that the site chosen for expansion at Bajpe was surrounded by deep valleys on three sides of the runway and did not provide for emergency landing areas as required.

Doubtless, it represents one side of the story, but it lays bare the complicity of governments at the Centre and in the States, the judiciary in Delhi and Bangalore, local politicians, businesses, corporate bodies—and the apathy of the “general  public”—that resulted in 160-plus lives being snuffed out, and hundreds of families being thrown in disarray.

In case you missed reading it in churumuri

But a look out of the window of your home, office or car shows a very different world outside. And I am not even talking about the in your face poverty. Poverty we have learnt to blank ourselves to. Poverty which bothers us only when an Irishman refers to it while winning making an Oscar winning film.

 This holds good for all our cities…Mumbai Coffee House

While we find bloggers advising people to insist on leaders being accountable, another view is published here.

In the old days, government was responsible for controlling inflation. Now if you feel the pinch of inflation, you have to fend for yourself, and especially because everyone is so busy looking after you,

writes Pratap B Mehta. In  Albert Pinto’s missing anger.

As with the global financial crisis, governments, particularly national governments, are sleepwalking their way towards a Peak Oil crisis.  Publicly, perhaps only Sweden has a Peak Oil strategy.  Undoubtedly, many more national governments and their security councils have privately prepared Peak Oil reports for the highest levels of political leadership.  The failure to engage the public in Peak Oil discourse is a mistake that will only result in a more polarizing debate if left until the crisis is upon us.  And a Peak Oil crisis could have far greater repercussions than the global financial crisis.

One gets a feeling that there has been inadequacy in strategic planning, gathering & monitoring of intelligence inputs and operational quick footed rapid action preparedness in totally alien jungles. One does not have to be right or wrong in retrospect but some elementary questions need to be answered. We have shown restraint in using air force and other military wings as the war is with our own citizens and dissatisfied groups. While politically that is right, no doubt, nothing stopped us from picking the strategic brains of military planners who are well trained in warfare techniques.

When Dr. Prakash Amte first came to live in the forest in 1973, he had trouble even approaching the tribal people. The tribals would run away in fear as soon as they saw him in his modern clothes. Any person wearing modern clothes was only there to exploit them as far as they were concerned. To gain their trust, Dr. Amte decided to shed his modern clothes and dress like them.

Without being able to communicate with them, there was no way to further gain their trust. With the help of the most educated tribal man he had befriended (one who had passed the 3rd grade), he learned to speak in Madia, the tribals’ language, which has no script.

Me: OK, I think …..I have a solution.

DINAKARAN: WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT !!! SIRJI! PLEASE DON’T FORGET ABOUT ME.

I’m the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court and was due for promotion to become a Supreme Court Judge.

But the media screwed me and ran a ‘Negative Campaign’ against me. I therefore request the great ROCKY J to stand up for Justice!!

I WANTED JUSTICE FOR DINAKARAN.

BUT SINCE I AM CHIEF JUSTICE DINAKARAN, I HAVE TO USE MY OFFICIAL TITLE.

SO PLEASE, I WANT JUSTICE FOR JUSTICE.

As the dawn of economic revival started in India in 1991, so did the start of the end of Indian secularism. As people started to get more educated, more of them started to believe in religion. they also came to realize that intellectuals like Einstein, Da Vinci and Gandhi had a faith to back their glorious work. The color of the religion matters less compared to the fact of possessing faith in something.

In the movie Swades Shah Rukh Khan says when asked about whether India is the best country in this world compared to others ,” I dont think that India is the best country in this world, but we have the ability, we have the resources” and for that to happen each and every person has to be responsible rather than blaming each other for a failure, take responsibilities even if it is small, fulfil it and be proud of our country.

The silent blogger reflects on India’s many paradoxes as we enter 2010….

If we look at the stock exchange, the sensex is healthy largely to the FII. It is a tribute to our industry that they have been giving very great Quarterly results making investments attractive. I was pleasantly surprised to listen to one of the prominent American bankers eulogizing the Indian market. He said that with the current recession in the Americas and Europe , India is the most attractive destination.

The food policy has so far been characterized by various kinds of input subsidies. The problem is that, unlike support for extension of irrigation or adoption of new technology, most of these subsidies (e.g., on electricity, water or fertilizer) are not of an once-for-all nature and hence do not cause an enduring increase in productivity. In general, for attaining a targeted increase in output, input subsidies are much less efficient than production subsidies, remembering that the latter leave it to farmers to choose inputs on the basis of their relative costs and productivity.