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Showing posts from 2015

Odds and Ends. Delhi's air needs more than gimmicks.

That the air quality in Delhi is bad is no secret. A large number of people including my friend Nikhil Pahwa ( who has even taken the wise step of leaving the city )   have made noises about the issue and appealed to the government to step in and take corrective action. Even the Delhi high court chided the powers to be and equated Delhi with a “Gas chamber”. Now politicians have a deservedly bad reputation in India. The public at large views them as self centered monsters who work only for their own benefit and give scant regard to public good. Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Admi party has often projected himself as the anti-thesis of that definition. Therefore it is but obvious that he and his party men held a meeting and came up with a genius plan to clean Delhi’s air once and for all. Lo and behold, the odd and even situation. From the 1 st of January 2016 only odd or even numbered private cars will be able to ply on Delhi streets on alternative days. There we fixed it. The

Undoing the putrefaction of Delhi

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The Delhi government has announced its decision to provide Wi-Fi in the ubiquitous busses that roam, and occasionally break down, around the city. This is on top of its decision to install 1.5 million CCTV cameras, and provide free Wi-Fi to the citizens that voted the AAP to power. It is a different matter that both measures which have been often announced and touted but have seen little to nothing in actual implementation. These initiatives are all well and good, and probably appeal to that small, but enormously vocal, minority that does care about such things but I have not seen anything being done to actually improve the quality of life of the many millions that live in this dense and dusty city. Why not start with improvement in sanitation and public amenities? Let’s put it bluntly, we do not need to go too far away from our polished office complexes, our airbrushed apartment complexes and bungalows to realize that the rest of Delhi is drowning in its own refuse.  There

On Net Neutrality

The constitution of India accords and guarantees several rights to citizens through its august charter, One of such liberties enshrined its code is the freedom to speech and expression. The right and the ability of individuals to express their opinion is a vital component of any functioning democracy, the right enables and entitles the sharing, gathering and inseminating of opinions without fetters or restrictions.  The Internet is a great enabler in this context. Access to the internet allows citizens to monitor governments, share information and opinions, access news and daily events, it allows them to organise and galvanise a disparate populace into a unified mass. The internet has allowed dreamers to become visionaries and provided a voice to the hitherto voiceless who are now able to air their opinions, grievances and are able to mobilise public opinion on social media and other methods over critical issues that need the attention of the powers to be in the country. The

For the Record

The purpose of this blog is to record my opinions on a variety of topics that do not find expression in my writings as published in other spheres and which may not have relevance to my work at Arkay & Arkay Look forward to your ( the readers) feedback at all times. Regards, Pallav