Anagha Speaks

In 2012, citizens of Pune will elect a panel of corporators who will become their official elected representatives in the Standing Committee of Pune Municipal Corporation. Currently, quoting directly from a friend's email, there are 144 electoral wards in Pune. So there will be 144 elected representatives! Citizens will recall that earlier to 2007, the electoral wards and the adminstrative wards were somewhat alignged in number. Hence each electoral ward was larger and each elected corporator represented about 50000 to 60000 citizens. Since 2007, this larger electoral ward was split two or sometimed three ways to create smaller electoral wards called as 'prabhags'. In these 'prabhags', each elected corporator represented about 10000 to 15000 citizens, making the corporator more accessible. I have found that due to the limited size of the 'prabhag', the elected corporator often stays very close within the locality that he/she represents and hence is more liab...

The Planning Studio in Goa happened mid February and since then my brain is processing two important pieces of information. One, is the Communidade Code of Land management in Goa's villages and Second, the Tragedy of Commons. The Tragedy of Commons ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons, for more information ), is a dilemma arising from a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally, in their own self interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long term interest for this to happen. In the Tragedy of Commons however, there is an anomaly that 'common' property, is no one's property, while everyone uses it. But this is often mistaken for 'everyone's property (contradicting the theory of common property) and hence abused, competing with each other for a larger share of the resources. The Communidade Land Management system also has the concept of '...

In January 2011, the new year began with an amazing three day interaction with Philippe Vandenbroeck, from Belgium, who conducted a workshop on Building Scenarios . He introduced to us the wonderful tool in which we, as Planners, can start envisioning what our cities, our neighborhoods can be, say 20 years from now! Of course, the envisioning happens in a structured and logical manner, where we look at current existing issues, policies, political and governance frameworks to understand and evolve the possibilities of "where will we be in 2030". The Scenario Methodology, in the past 2-3 decades, has emerged to address the growing 'uncertainty' in knowing what the future can be. It is a way to address the realities of people and people behaviors in projecting a 'future', which cannot be accurately derived from data crunching. The process is participative, where citizens become a part of the envisioning process for their own cities. Unlike the 'non people ori...

Beginning in January 2011, the students of M.Arch Environmental Architecture, BNCA, Pune will embark on their Planning Studio in Goa. For this purpose, I visited Goa last week to understand the environmental pressures confronting Goa and meet with the various stakeholders who are directly and indirectly participating in the Goa Regional Plan. At this time of the year, Goa was lush and vibrantly green, the raindrops making a continuous patter on the river Mandovi. Panjim was sleepy, with very few tourists and the beaches were serene while the sea was stormy. Once again, after 13 years, I experienced a laid back Goa that I had encountered when I had interned with Ar Dean D'Cruz in 1997. But this time the urban pressures were evident and threatning. The urban forces and the rural borders seemed intermingled and I felt a pang of regret that the charming, sleepy villages of Goa may soon be gone, replaced by the urbane tourist infrastructure demanded by the Urban Global Tourist. The Goan...

On Sunday, I attended a lecture by renowed theatre and film personality Girish Karnad. He was speaking on the subject of 'Colonial Influences on Art forms of India' as a part of a programme organized in the memory of Master composer and musician Bhaskar Chandavarkar on Sunday 25 July 2010 in Pune.As an Architect-Planner, I was thrilled to hear Girish Karnad make references to the formation of cities in India by the British, which in turn was a major turning point for all visual and performing arts in India. He brought out the fact that before the three British cities namely, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, were established, the Indian cities like Pune, Lucknow, Kolhapur and many others were more contiguous with its hinterlands. So while these urban pockets were primarily 'urban' in character, the lifestyles of people and economic wealth was closely linked and similar to those in the rural fringes and the hinterlands. When the three British cities were established, these we...

Recently, I was in Stockholm, Sweden to attend an academic seminar at The Royal University of Fine Arts, Department of Architecture. And in a typical European way, Stockholm was a great city experience - pedestrian friendly streets, lots of cycling tracks, the efficient & connected Metro network and of course very few people to enjoy all this, which made it even more fun for us Indians who are often faced with unending lines and bulging crowds. But, more than these urban amenities which have been written about everywhere, what struck me was the fettish of the malls and particularly, the small shops to close at 5 pm on weekdays and at 4 pm (would you believe it!) on weekends. So just to clarify your unasked questions, yes, the shops and all shopping related services (malls, streetside stalls etc) operate typically only between the "conservative office work hours" of 10 am to 5 pm. "How is that possible?" was my first question to our hosts when much to our frustra...

Since the Climate Change negotiations at Copenhagen in December 2009 and the subsequent promises by India to reduce its carbon footprint, it looks like the Indian government seems to be keenly following it up through actions being initiated at the state level. In Maharashtra, the building and construction sector is slated to become one of the sectors which has been asked to pull up its "green" socks! In a state level meet in February 2010 at Mumbai, it was announced that the Government of Maharashtra may look at making Green Buildings mandatory in the state. It means that the local municipal bodies or the building development sanctioning authorities may have to look at modified Development Control Rules, which necessarily follow prescriptions of a Green Building Rating System. Today, in India there are a multitude of Green Building Rating Systems that are being voluntarily adopted by project developers. USGBC's LEED, LEED India, IGBC Green Homes, Eco Housing and TERI GRIH...