11-13-2006, 08:29 PM
<!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Where does India need to focus, Cities or Villages?
Lively discussion has started when Financial Times published Boston Consulting Groups Janmejaya K Sinhas views on importance of further expanding Indian cities, ignoring the growth of Indian villages. <<http://www.financialexpress.com/about/feedback.html>http://www.financialexpress.com/about/feedback.html> JANMEJAYA K SINHAPosted online: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 0000 hours IST To me, villages are about candles and torches, cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. They are about caste, gender inequality and a static social orderJanmejava K. Sinha, <mailto:Sinha.Janmejaya%40BCG.com>Sinha.Janmejaya@BCG.com Reader will be able to refer to many articles written by experts such as President Abdul Kalam on the subjects of Sustained Development, and Rural Growth. Here, parts of the texts from feedback is given. Your views may be sent to Dr. Mohan Jain <mailto:m.jain%40idc-america.org>m.jain@idc-america.org Feedback: 1. "Gandhi's Seven Steps to Global Change." by professor Guy de Mallack. I am also forwarding an article by Gandhiji and exchange of letters between Nehru and Gandhi 60 years ago on this question, for you to better understand why he so strongly recommended making life better in the villages for an ideal living to fulfill the purpose of life. I am also sending a dialogue between a farmer and educator who is visiting the village to teach the poor farmer. Please click: <http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_soni3.html>http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_soni3.html . I am also forwarding HH Dalai Lama's observation about the modern life, "Paradox of our Times" for your further enlightenment. I will end this with a quote from a Native American leader about the City life in America. "In our cities we have lost much of our grace and naturalness in the name of civilization. We have created noisy, dirty, crowded places to gather and live in and in this process we have retarded our spirituality. For me there is nothing so rejuvenating as being out in nature and experiencing this sacred hoop of life directly."Dr. Mohan Jain <mailto:m.jain%40idc-america.org>m.jain@idc-america.org 2. This village is classified, in terms of economic well-being, at the 'bottom of the heap' - because the percapita income here is well below the poverty line our economists have drawn. However, these indices are very misleading. It is true that the cash income of these villagers is very low, but the fact is that in this village practically everybody has at least an acre of land. It is dryland, so its economic resale value is low, but it yields them a fair amount of ragi every year, except in drought conditions. Ragi being their main staple food, there is therefore no starvationIn a major study by 1300 scientists sponsored by the UN, completed in 2005 have concluded that mankind's actions have already degraded the 65% natural resources of the planet earth. We need a new paradigm of development. Read Plan B 2.0 by Dr. Lester r. Brown of the Earth Institute, Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, and Rethinking Progress by Dr. Hari Lamba. The present model of development is in contradiction of our age old philosophy of life. The city life does not promote it in any way. Ananthu 4. Just take a look at a village called Manipal near Udupi which does not lack any of the "ultra urban" facilities the author is talking about. Any day Manipal is better than many of the cities suggested as ideals by the author. It is not necessary to have the educational advantages of Manipal. An Indian village with PURA facilities suggested by the President can indeed be million times better than the hell of Dharavi any day. Bhamy V Shenoy , <<mailto:bhamysuman%40hotmail.com>bhamysuman@hotmail.com> 5. The author's (Sinha) views may be acceptable to some people in highly industrialised world. Even there more and more people are slowly realising the futility of large city based socio/economic life. But for a country like India with huge rural population, limited natural resources and traditional life style the concept of large city based socio/economic life will be ruining.I am also worried that the policies of the various govts. in India either explicitly or implicitly seem to indicate that they also are inadvertantly moving towards city based economy. A recent economic report that of late the contribution to GDP by urban areas in India is more than 70% makes it much more worrisome. Shankar Sharma, <mailto
hankar.sharma2005%40gmail.com>shankar.sharma2005@gmail.com 6. What we have today is some sort of creeping expansion. Rural population is moving in, creating new slums where cheap labor is forced to stay. Since there is no planned expansion, there is utter confusion. Politicians in cities do not wish to make any expansion plan known to the general public much ahead of its implementation. Each politician buys land where a new major facility will be set up. For example, the new airport. Much of the land is "agricultural", but politicians first buy them in a given area, and then announce a major project in that area. Then they "convert" the land -- just a piece of paper -- into residential or industrial. Prices shoot up exponentially, and the first-in makes all the profits from the land deals (the farmer already sold the land to the politician at a low price). This is the officially sanctioned form of corruption. Nothing less. It also gives everyone involved an opportunity to sanitize their black money. Abraham M George, <mailto:amgeorge%40optonline.net>amgeorge@optonline.net 7. Mr. Sinha is missing several things:a) Impact of technology (Internet, Cell phones, etc.) on where the workers can live. Need for masses of workers to support manufacturing is a thing of the past with automation and robots. b) Impact of increasing service sector on where workers need to work. Banking and Credit Card companies in the US have been pushing operations to "boon docks" for years since technology permits. Serivice jobs can go where people are unlike manufacturing where people have to flock to the plants. c) Impact of increasing urbanization. More traffic jams, more pollution, more water problems, so on and so on. d) Infrastructure impact. Suppose you want to move 200 million people into 100 cities as Mr. Sinha wants to do. How many billions of dollars does it take? In the US, number of homes built in the last 60 years is probably in the 50 mil range and may be another 50 million in apartments. How much money does it cost to build them in today dollars? It will be in trillions of dollars. Even in India, the infrastructure costs for moving 200 mil will be in trillions of dollars. e) Impact on physical resources. How much concrete, cement, steel, wood, coal, electricity, oil, water, etc. do we need? Mr. Lester Brown has already covered this topic in his book on Plan B. The world doesn't have resources to put billions of people in cities. f) >>>> Whether we realize it or not, the slums of Mumbai are a virtual Shangri-La compared to a village.>>>> This is the most atrocious comment I have ever heard. May be he hasn't seen the real slums in Mumbai. I come from a village. If you do a survey today, vast majority of the villagers will say that they want to stay where they are if they have a livelihood. Mr. Sinha should read articles by P. Sainath. He has written articles about the plight of the villagers who flocked to cities like Mumbai. Mr. Sinha should have a chat with Sainath. Ratnam Chitturi 8. Sinha wants to celebrate the migration of the rural populace to the city'. Does he ever travel to the slums of Mumbai? Does he fly over them in a helicopter. Mumbai's slums today account between 50-65% of Mumbai. Where will Sinha go, once this number reaches 90%. Ram Krishnan <mailto:rkrishnan46%40yahoo.com>rkrishnan46@yahoo.com
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Where does India need to focus, Cities or Villages? Lively discussion has started when Financial Times published Boston Consulting Groups Janmejaya K Sinhas views on importance of further expanding Indian cities, ignoring the growth of Indian villages. <<http://www.financialexpress.com/about/feedback.html>http://www.financialexpress.com/about/feedback.html> JANMEJAYA K SINHAPosted online: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 at 0000 hours IST To me, villages are about candles and torches, cow dung, flies and mosquitoes. They are about caste, gender inequality and a static social orderJanmejava K. Sinha, <mailto:Sinha.Janmejaya%40BCG.com>Sinha.Janmejaya@BCG.com Reader will be able to refer to many articles written by experts such as President Abdul Kalam on the subjects of Sustained Development, and Rural Growth. Here, parts of the texts from feedback is given. Your views may be sent to Dr. Mohan Jain <mailto:m.jain%40idc-america.org>m.jain@idc-america.org Feedback: 1. "Gandhi's Seven Steps to Global Change." by professor Guy de Mallack. I am also forwarding an article by Gandhiji and exchange of letters between Nehru and Gandhi 60 years ago on this question, for you to better understand why he so strongly recommended making life better in the villages for an ideal living to fulfill the purpose of life. I am also sending a dialogue between a farmer and educator who is visiting the village to teach the poor farmer. Please click: <http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_soni3.html>http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_soni3.html . I am also forwarding HH Dalai Lama's observation about the modern life, "Paradox of our Times" for your further enlightenment. I will end this with a quote from a Native American leader about the City life in America. "In our cities we have lost much of our grace and naturalness in the name of civilization. We have created noisy, dirty, crowded places to gather and live in and in this process we have retarded our spirituality. For me there is nothing so rejuvenating as being out in nature and experiencing this sacred hoop of life directly."Dr. Mohan Jain <mailto:m.jain%40idc-america.org>m.jain@idc-america.org 2. This village is classified, in terms of economic well-being, at the 'bottom of the heap' - because the percapita income here is well below the poverty line our economists have drawn. However, these indices are very misleading. It is true that the cash income of these villagers is very low, but the fact is that in this village practically everybody has at least an acre of land. It is dryland, so its economic resale value is low, but it yields them a fair amount of ragi every year, except in drought conditions. Ragi being their main staple food, there is therefore no starvationIn a major study by 1300 scientists sponsored by the UN, completed in 2005 have concluded that mankind's actions have already degraded the 65% natural resources of the planet earth. We need a new paradigm of development. Read Plan B 2.0 by Dr. Lester r. Brown of the Earth Institute, Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, and Rethinking Progress by Dr. Hari Lamba. The present model of development is in contradiction of our age old philosophy of life. The city life does not promote it in any way. Ananthu 4. Just take a look at a village called Manipal near Udupi which does not lack any of the "ultra urban" facilities the author is talking about. Any day Manipal is better than many of the cities suggested as ideals by the author. It is not necessary to have the educational advantages of Manipal. An Indian village with PURA facilities suggested by the President can indeed be million times better than the hell of Dharavi any day. Bhamy V Shenoy , <<mailto:bhamysuman%40hotmail.com>bhamysuman@hotmail.com> 5. The author's (Sinha) views may be acceptable to some people in highly industrialised world. Even there more and more people are slowly realising the futility of large city based socio/economic life. But for a country like India with huge rural population, limited natural resources and traditional life style the concept of large city based socio/economic life will be ruining.I am also worried that the policies of the various govts. in India either explicitly or implicitly seem to indicate that they also are inadvertantly moving towards city based economy. A recent economic report that of late the contribution to GDP by urban areas in India is more than 70% makes it much more worrisome. Shankar Sharma, <mailto
hankar.sharma2005%40gmail.com>shankar.sharma2005@gmail.com 6. What we have today is some sort of creeping expansion. Rural population is moving in, creating new slums where cheap labor is forced to stay. Since there is no planned expansion, there is utter confusion. Politicians in cities do not wish to make any expansion plan known to the general public much ahead of its implementation. Each politician buys land where a new major facility will be set up. For example, the new airport. Much of the land is "agricultural", but politicians first buy them in a given area, and then announce a major project in that area. Then they "convert" the land -- just a piece of paper -- into residential or industrial. Prices shoot up exponentially, and the first-in makes all the profits from the land deals (the farmer already sold the land to the politician at a low price). This is the officially sanctioned form of corruption. Nothing less. It also gives everyone involved an opportunity to sanitize their black money. Abraham M George, <mailto:amgeorge%40optonline.net>amgeorge@optonline.net 7. Mr. Sinha is missing several things:a) Impact of technology (Internet, Cell phones, etc.) on where the workers can live. Need for masses of workers to support manufacturing is a thing of the past with automation and robots. b) Impact of increasing service sector on where workers need to work. Banking and Credit Card companies in the US have been pushing operations to "boon docks" for years since technology permits. Serivice jobs can go where people are unlike manufacturing where people have to flock to the plants. c) Impact of increasing urbanization. More traffic jams, more pollution, more water problems, so on and so on. d) Infrastructure impact. Suppose you want to move 200 million people into 100 cities as Mr. Sinha wants to do. How many billions of dollars does it take? In the US, number of homes built in the last 60 years is probably in the 50 mil range and may be another 50 million in apartments. How much money does it cost to build them in today dollars? It will be in trillions of dollars. Even in India, the infrastructure costs for moving 200 mil will be in trillions of dollars. e) Impact on physical resources. How much concrete, cement, steel, wood, coal, electricity, oil, water, etc. do we need? Mr. Lester Brown has already covered this topic in his book on Plan B. The world doesn't have resources to put billions of people in cities. f) >>>> Whether we realize it or not, the slums of Mumbai are a virtual Shangri-La compared to a village.>>>> This is the most atrocious comment I have ever heard. May be he hasn't seen the real slums in Mumbai. I come from a village. If you do a survey today, vast majority of the villagers will say that they want to stay where they are if they have a livelihood. Mr. Sinha should read articles by P. Sainath. He has written articles about the plight of the villagers who flocked to cities like Mumbai. Mr. Sinha should have a chat with Sainath. Ratnam Chitturi 8. Sinha wants to celebrate the migration of the rural populace to the city'. Does he ever travel to the slums of Mumbai? Does he fly over them in a helicopter. Mumbai's slums today account between 50-65% of Mumbai. Where will Sinha go, once this number reaches 90%. Ram Krishnan <mailto:rkrishnan46%40yahoo.com>rkrishnan46@yahoo.com