“1st February 2010 - An interesting day at The Hindu” by Mir Mohammed Ali

“You're brother and sister. No we're not. You're BROTHER and SISTER. No, we're not. YES YOU ARE AND THAT'S THE BOTTOMLINE CAUSE STONE COLD SAID SO!”

A panchayat in Chandigarh decided that a 3-year marriage which now had a 10-month-old baby needs to annulled because the absent-minded couple (Satish and Kavita) in question were actually ‘brother and sister’ (though not from the same 'gotra' - lineage or clan. More on that in a while). That their parents had consented to the wedding carried no weight against conclusions of the Panchayat.

 

Not long ago, the friendly panchayats had issued punishments when couples from the same ‘gotra’ got married. But the problem with these ‘same gotra’ couples was that they were a hard catch as they would quickly elope and the poor panchayat's lack of enforcement capability made it rather difficult to bring the freshly-eloped pair to injustice. To the panchayat's credit, they still managed to get their job done by using the tried and tested techniques of blackmail and ostracism, among other things.

 

Not to be tied down by the specifics of intra-gotra marriage, the panchayat now decided to punish people even from different ‘gotras’. In the above case, village-specific dimensions came into play when an official profoundly said, “In our village, a couple from these two ‘gotras’ cannot marry as they are considered brother and sister”.

 

The ‘firm’ (air)head of the panchayat, Hawa Singh was, well, firm. he gave the couple a 28-day deadline to comply, pending which firm action would be taken. I do not know if the number 28 was given keeping in mind the approaching month of February. If it was, then I'm sure poor Satish would've wished for March to have begun.

 

In all fairness, I must add that the Panchayat did not take a knee-jerk decision. It took "a six hour discussion" to decide.

 

Read the original article here

Roger that, Chief. Chief. Chief... Chief?

Meanwhile, in the legion of doom... Actually in Meghalaya, the Meghalayans (I know they are Indians first, but here I’m talking in the ‘second person’) had the rare privilege of having 4 ‘Chief Ministers’. They already had three and now, four. In the latest instance, the Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Lyngdoh became the proud 4th CM. There is some serious enjoyment happening at the top, thought I. And to second me thrice was the Chief Minister himself (CM No 1, 2 or 3? I found out later).

 

His un-minced words bear quotation in extensio: “This is not the first instance of Meghalaya having more than one person enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. We had done [it] in the past. I myself was enjoying the rank of Chief Minister when Mr. Rymbai became Chief Minister. Similarly Mr. Rymbai and Mr. Donkupar Roy are enjoying the rank of Chief Minister. There is absolutely nothing wrong in our upgrading the rank of Mr. Lyngdoh to Chief Minister.”

 

Read the original article here

The Divider becomes the Compass...I mean... the Divided

India's favourite uniting-dividers, who unite as they divide (or vice-versa depending which side you're on) found themselves divided. When RSS ideologue Ram Madhav tried to test the waters by calling on the “[Parivar's] volunteers in Maharashtra” and indirectly told our Marathi-supremacist brothers (and sisters. Happy?) to “try and prevent the spread of anti-north Indian and anti-Hindi feelings”, he probably didn’t realize that the word ‘prevent’ was superfluous. Because if they tried, the ‘spread of anti-many things’ would surely be prevented. Mr. Manohar Joshi, former Lok Sabha Speaker (who never spoke as he was without a Mic) took more than a hint and “...Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...” he roared.

 

When Mr. Madhav and Mr. Joshi met at the sidelines of the - where else? - midlines, here is how the conversation continued (according to a ‘highly placed source’ of course) -
Ram Madhav (RSS) - 'Why did you get offended? I was only addressing the "volunteers of the Parivar"' to stop the spread of you-know-what. If you consider yourself a volunteer of the Parivar, you ought not to have been offended as you are part of the Parivar and ought to know to take orders. If you don’t consider yourself a volunteer, then the message wasn’t addressed to you in the first place. Now tell me, "Is it the former or the latter?”
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - [now feebly] 'Mumbai belongs to the Marathi people...’
Ram Madhav (RSS) - ‘Did you comprehend my question?’
Manohar Joshi (The ‘SS’) - ‘Well. What can I say... I got serious Language issues!’

 

Read the original article here

 

Reach the author at seekingoblivion(at)gmail.com.

Dharavi

Dharavi, the teeming slum of one million souls, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre. By nightfall, deep inside the maze of narrow lanes the slum is as still as a verdant glade. Once you get accustomed to sharing 300 sq. ft. of floor with 15 humans and an uncounted number of mice, a strange sense of relaxation sets in—ah, at last a moment to think straight. It is Asia's largest slum and lies on prime property right in the middle of India's financial capital, Mumbai.

Many here are second and third-generation residents, whose parents moved in years ago. Today's Dharavi bears no resemblance to the fishing village it once was. A city within a city, it is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts. The residents - the Kumbhars came from Gujarat to establish a potters' colony. Tamils arrived from the south and opened tanneries. Thousands traveled from Uttar Pradesh to work in the booming textile industry. The result is the most diverse of slums, arguably the most diverse neighborhood in India's most diverse city. In a city where house rents are among the highest in the world, Dharavi provides a cheap and affordable option to those who move to Mumbai to earn their living. Rents here can be as low as Rs. 185 per month.

Dharavi also has a large number of thriving small-scale potteries and textile industries. In addition to these, there is an increasingly large recycling industry, processing waste from other parts of Mumbai. It has an estimated 15, 000 single-room factories, with an approximate annual turnover of more than Rs. 3000 crores a year.

But Dharavi lacks basic infrastructure facilities like sanitation and health. As of November 2006, there was only one toilet per 1,440 residents. Mahim Creek, a local river, is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, leading to the spread of contagious disease. The area also suffers from problems with inadequate water supply.

An urban redevelopment plan is proposed for the Dharavi area. The plan involves the construction of 30,000,000 sq. ft. of housing, schools, parks and roads to serve the existing 57,000 families residing in the area, along with 40,000,000 sq. ft. of residential and commercial space for sale. There has been significant local opposition to the plans, largely because existing residents are due to receive only 225 sq. ft. of land each. Furthermore, only those families who lived in the area before the year 2000 are slated for resettlement. Concerns have also been raised by residents who fear that some of their small businesses in the "informal" sector may not be relocated under the redevelopment plan. The government has said that it will only legalize and relocate industries that are not "polluting."

It is now up to time to decide what will be the future of Dharavi and its millions of dependents.

(Article excerpted from articles by NGC, BBC & Wikipedia)