Lake Encroachment - Burgulkunta - Gachibowli - Hyderabad

We Indians are good at forming committes to look into a variety of aspects and so there is one commitee called LPC ( Lake protection committe) formed by Hyderabad Metro authority to protect and take action on Lake encroachments. They have web presence at http://www.hmda.gov.in/lakephotos4.html. They talk about some 10 lakes while there are 100s in and around the city.

As usual they keep kidding citizens about the actions they are taking on Lake encroachments. I have posted a video about Burgulkunta Lake in the heart of Gachibowli economic zone. It is a straight case of criminal negligence by the authorities while the Lake is dying. Fishermen used to fish in the lake and sell their wares in the weekend market. All fish died beacuse of sewage being dumped into the lake by a hotel and apartment complexes.

The video of the sad state of the lake is posted at this address - http://youtu.be/irUNnbRm8LY.

Land sharks eating up lakes in Hyderabad - A video about Bachukunta lake, Chandanagar, Hyderabad

Natural resources are plundered with impunity across the country on a daily basis. Lakes in cities are an object of fascination for the real estate and construction companies, they build so called“Lake view villas and apartments”.

Hyderabad city is dotted with many lakes which used to be the source of drinking water and acted as reservoirs. With rapid urbanization most have these lakes have been encroached upon. Most of them have vanished and whatever are left are being destroyed with housing complexes coming around them.

It is the filthy collaboration between municipal authorities, builders and politicians that is destroying whatever natural remains in our cities.

The enclosed video is about the sad story about the death of “ Bachukunta lake” in Chandanagar, Hyderabad.


http://youtu.be/QgckmW5qoHg

Statues sans message

Symbolism is an important aspect in India's culture, it is evident in our great classics and in drama. While symbolism conveys its subtle message in lietrature and drama it is misused in politics and public life.

One of the symbolic aspects in our public life is statues of all and sundry at road junctions. There are so many of them they are an irritation and obstruction to traffic. This type of symbolism that should be used to convey a message has been abused. A statue of a great personality should convey a subtle message of what he/she stood for, for Ex Gandhi for non-violence, Ambedkar - uplifting the poor/downtrodden etc. Statue should stir your emotions, they should not make you disregard that personality, there are so many Gandhi statues no one cares for their maintenance, forget about his message.

Today we have statues of murderers, caste laeders, leaders who practice identity politics etc. They are all over the country landscape, those who have achieved little and had no universal message.

There should be a law to restict this menace. Ironically there are roads in the country named after tyrants, one of them is in Hyderabad in Banajara Hills - Ayotollah Khomenie road (former Iranian leader), does he stand for freedom of expression ? Is it not silly to have a road named after an Iranian leader who stood for what ?

Educating India

Governments across the country have abdicated their responsibility in the field of education. In fact they seem to have given up on improving education in public schools. Enrolment continues to drop in public schools with no improvement in Infrastructure and in teacher quality. The poorest in the society choose to send their kids to a private run school ( though they too provide questionable quality).

It is just one more of failures of governance in the country. Sarvashiksha Abhiyan program was supposed to be the initiative to provide ““Right of Children to free and Compulsory Education” while improving Infrastructure etc. Just last year this program was allocated INR 21,000 cr which is big by any measure. The bane of such progressive policies has been ineffective implementation, monitoring and measurement. I have seen as part of the Sarvashiksha Abhiyan many schools in the rural areas have been given Television sets and PC’s, both are not so useful in the rural areas since power in intermittent and teachers are not trained enough and of course there is not enough content to deliver. Example of lopsided execution of policies, wouldn’t blackboards, chocks, books and toilets help kids better. It is easier to dispatch a TV and PC and so a tick mark for the bureaucrat.

A recent study by Pratham throws depressing statistics-
“Government of India statistics show that 89 out of 100 children enter schools in India but 40% of those who join school dropout before completing primary education (grade IV or V). Another 30% of the remaining, dropout before completing grade VII or VIII. Thus nearly 80% of children in India do not complete elementary education in a country that has recorded 64% literacy. This is an indicator of the status of literacy in India in the third millennium.”
 Estimates suggest that the percentage of children who can read nothing and those who can read only alphabets is about 52%
 Across the country, 11% do not enter school and 40% children drop out before completing primary school. “

A huge problem at hand for the country, there needs to be no less than a mass movement to make India literate. Pratham has launched an initiative called Project Read India – it is about getting every child read in a short-predictable time frame” (www. Pratham.org).

I am doing my bit to make India read, please associate with any initiative that helps achieve the objective of 100% literacy. The deity of education “Saraswati” has left our shores, we need to bring her back.

Job Creation - Hardly anyone cares in India

One of the things that strikes me when i meet American clients on business is their concern for the community they operate in their emphasis on job creation, upskilling of their people etc. They are deeply aware about the need for their organizations to be efficient, innovative to survive the competition,at the same time they are ready to take hard decisions, all this keeping in mind job creation and what is good for the community. That is why American corporations are on the cutting edge.

According to statistics unemployment in the US is about 8.9 and last reported in India it is 9.4%. I think 9.4% unemployment in India is a joke anyway, department of labor must be churning out these meaningless numbers. If one were to look at the entire specturm of American politics all of them talk about job creation as the most important issue (some of it is obviuosly rhetoric) but still one cannot discount the political noise and its intent.

I wanted to contrast this with our political leaders, we can hardly find any of them talking about employment, job creation, industry growth,skill building, community etc. Our political space is so self serving and corrupt they do not have time for the most important aspect that drives country's productivity and economic growth. We can add the bureacracy to this list of self serving egoistic group that cares a damn for the citizen.

We should give a new syllabi to our political masters to talk about,for long they are stuck in their old rhetoric, we should force them to talk about the new agenda for India - education, health care, job creation should be the new topics they should accuse each other of failing to do much. Some thing will come out of such a battle.

Insincere attempt

As I write this blog history is being created in Independent India with the passing of the Lokpal bill (though it has to be passed in Rajya Sabha). It took 60+ years to get here. Meanwhile country has suffered irreparable damage with corruption destroying public institutions and has set India back by a couple of decades in terms of development.

The bill in its present form does not provide for a truly independent Lokpal but is some step anyway. No wonder it took so long since the class that needs to fear the most from the bill crafted it very carefully and ensured that they have a hold on the institution. It was evident that none of them wanted an independent investigating body like CBI.

As usual high sounding statements like parliament is supreme were made. SP and BSP with dubious credentials in fighting corruption walked out saying the bill was not strong enough. Lalu Yadav was ferocious in opposing the bill, he has to for obvious reasons. At the end of it our parliamentarians do not want to be subjected to higher scrutiny on their integrity. Together they proved that in India politics is not about service but about self importance to the elected individual and of course looting the public exchequer at will.

If one were to make a list of ongoing scams in the country – telecom, mining, food procurement, road contracts, liquor bids it is powerful ministers and elected members who are behind them. They are running scared about Lokpal, RTI itself is causing them sleepless nights. There are noises RTI should be amended.

Anna’s movement has scarred them enough to pass a diluted Lokpal, I am sure Anna will continue to exert pressure on the parliament to amend the bill to make it more powerful. Political analysts and TV pundits have changed their tone and have started to question Anna’s methods, they too are talking about parliamentary supremacy etc…. it is shameful. The fight for ending corruption is directly related to the country’s development and aiding the socially and economically backward progress. We will be crushing their dreams if a stronger Lokpal is not brought out. For example the Food security bill is aimed at providing subsidized grains to 70% of the population, it is a fantastic ground for our leaders to make big money and I am sure they will make a killing.

There is nothing to show for the largest democracy in the world in terms of achievement in the areas of human development, Infrastructure, literacy, world class institutions etc, we are just happy to claim we are the largest democracy in the world. Corruption is the root cause for India’s underdevelopment and this opportunity should not be lost.

Children with HIV and its costs

There are 1.1 lakh HIV (estimates vary from 70,000 upwards) infected children in India, I had an opportunity to meet 56 of them today. They are being provided shelter and care by Desire Society, Hyderabad. The society is run by Mr. Ravi Babu and Ms Mohanty with support from philanthropists and government.

According to a recent finding by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) these children suffer from the ailment due to parent-to-child-transmission (PTCT). Talking to these children who are between 5-10 years of age and trying to imagine their future is at once depressing and scary. For no fault of theirs children are suffering from this horrendous, incurable and debilitating disease. Many of the children are disowned by parents once they come to know about the child’s infection, NGO’s like Desire are the only hope for them to lead a dignified life.

The whole thing comes back to the need for more focus on public health and government’s role in prevention of HIV/AIDS. Most of these children come from BPL category (almost all them belonging to the unorganized sector and daily wage earner families). I could gather from the visit that all 56 children are from BPL families.

The cost of health care for providing regular medicine and sustaining HIV infected children is very high and is a burden on a poor country like India. State Governments need to focus on Education on PTCT, improving communication approaches for prevention amongst BPL families and improve monitoring and reporting systems. Government action is not visible except for the customary noise on International Aids day.

Visit - http://desiresociety.org/