Development

The Karnataka Chief Minister has been insistent that the state capital has grown too big in numbers, and, is therefore unmanageable. It is this reason that Siddaramaiah has been propping up as the official explanation to split up the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). Bengaluru has definitely grown, and is a big mess in itself. The BBMP is currently the largest municipal corporation in the country with an area of 712.54 sq km under it. With a population of 8,443,675 according to the 2011...

It's now open season in Bengaluru after the Karnataka High Court ruling that the state government and the State Election Commission (SEC) will get a maximum of six months to hold elections for the reconstitution of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) which was dissolved last week. A Division Bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice DH Waghela and Justice Ram Mohan Reddy, on Friday delivered the verdict while setting aside an earlier single-judge order asking the government and...

In a milieu where bedlam and mutual suspicion hold discourse to ransom, it is difficult not only to find voices of sanity, it is as challenging to remain circumspect oneself. One invariably ends up believing not the truth, but what suits one’s own predilections and narratives. It is this unsettling milieu that reigns supreme in the country today, and in such a frenzied backdrop comes a shoddily-drafted document that unabashedly spins a conspiracy yarn so fantastic that one would gleefully accept...

It’s almost always a given that when development for the greater good of the greater number is unleashed on a nation, the first casualty is environment. Against the backdrop of this inconvenient truth, when a political party storms to power having canvassed on the plank of development, it is a cause for anxiety. This, in turn, needs to be seen in the light of the hapless condition that the Congress-led government left the country in. The economy is in a shambles, and the ecology has been...

BJP leader Narendra Modi had been pulling out many cards from up his sleeve in the frenetic run for the prime minister’s post. The last of the aces were pulled up in the holy city of Varanasi, where he played the Ganga card. The rhetoric was construed as a clarion call, and now all hearts are bleeding red for the river that has been polluted and damned by one and all. But like his contentious ‘Gujarat model of development’, this one needs closer scrutiny. Whether the man can indeed cleanse the...

Now that the unbridled frenzy over Earth Hour – the most-hyped annual event the world perfunctorily celebrates – has petered out, it is time to look at the tokenist event through a prism of sanity. When one talks of the world with a future in mind, it is important not to miss the big picture. Unfortunately, in spite of the unquestionably noble intention behind Earth Hour, it has degenerated into a mindless and ritualistic bash. It is a “lights out” carnival that keeps people in the dark about...

The United Nations climate panel seems condemned to the same inescapable fate as Cassandra of Greek mythology was. It has the power of prophecy, and the curse of never being believed. For close to 25 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been documenting climate change and predicting the consequences of insatiable human over-consumption and reckless depredation of the environment. Except for scientists and activists in the know and understanding of things, the...

The organisation of political power within and between nations and citizens if failing miserably to protect the public's health. Not that you didn't suspect it. But this time there is corroboration, and it comes in the form of findings of a new Commission from The Lancet and the University of Oslo. These power asymmetries, together with the piecemeal way that global decisionmaking has developed since World War II, are having a disastrous effect on human health, say the report's authors. The fact...

Well-known economist Mukul Asher specialises in public sector economics and social security issues in Asia. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization, Asian Development Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other institutions. He has interacted with policymakers as a resource person in several Asian countries such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, People’s Republic of China, and Sri Lanka. He teaches applied public...

Most urban agglomerates in India today are veritable disasters, typically for the same set of reasons, primary among them being the lack of foresight as well as capriciousness in planning. Planners by and large have not an iota of knowledge about urban ecology, and the matter of sustainable cities is mumbo-jumbo for them. Of course, if self-sufficiency is to be a criterion, there cannot be any such thing as a sustainable city. For, cities have always relied on their rural hinterlands for food...