An introspection

The article below written by me a week or so ago makes a lot of sense after I saw a article in this morning's paper about one corporator in the standing committee made a complete sham of the meeting for passing the BRIMSTOWAD project which is essential to solving the flooding situation of Mumbai

His methodology of doing this was exactly what I said, he kept shouting childishly "the project is as black as you ?"- will someone explain what that means please ???

Please check http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=15&contentid=2007072602495015419823e3 for details of this incident.

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I was talking a friend of mine and he made an observation which I think made a lot of sense.

What he said was no wonder our city planning is such a mess. The problem according to him lies in the fact that 90% of our municipal councilors etc elected to the BMC are illiterate. They are the ones who constitute the standing committee who approve or disapprove the proposals for things such as the storm water drains. They wouldn't know a street plan if it was pasted in front of their eyes with fevicol. All they would see are funny squiggles on paper.

Do you seriously think they have the capacity to understand the physics of the drainage system or the needs of a city like Mumbai? All these uneducated elected representatives vote for is what they think will get them elected next time. What will get them elected is acting like a savior AFTER Mumbai has drowned not for thinking of Mumbai’s problems BEFOREHAND.

At least if they had some education they would be able to read the symbols or understand the physics of a sewage system. Right now all they are interested in are 42" plasma TVs in their chambers and new flooring. Can't really blame them, can we, after all being illiterate the only way they would know our city is drowning is from the TV reports on the Plasmas.

It’s all very well for the masses to be represented but I seriously think we should have a minimum education level for at least the people on committees like the standing committee etc. if not for the whole lot of elected representatives.

Latest example of the Laxmi Chaya crash in Borivili is a typical example. The building crashed and guess what everyone gets onto the bandwagon. Every politician of any note got his ugly mug on television taking his sound byte.

The Cops went into knee jerk mode which causes all their cases to collapse in court and filed an FIR against a jeweler who PEOPLE SAY changed some pillars around.

The lack of education shows clearly in the non use of forensic science we see on shows like CID. The forensics is so simple that even a ten year old can do it leave alone the whole police department in this wonderful city of ours. One half of the building has sheared from the rest therefore there was a stress point created at the fulcrum point. Lets take three examples:

Example (1):
The shop towards left of the building was at fault:

The shop towards the standing wing of the building was at fault:

The shop towards standing wing of the building was at fault:

What’s more everyone’s talking about he wing that collapsed which had illegal shops. I thought about it, why do you enclose your balcony, perhaps because some other residents in your building have done it. Why do they enclose their balconies perhaps its because you have done it.

In most buildings all irregularaties are mirrored between units in one form or another.

I haven't seen one report of whether there are any illegal changes made in the wing which is still standing and which can give the evidence required to the kind of changes which were possibly done in the other wing to make it collapse.

Guess they are thinking now that this building is going to be demolished what’s the use of dragging the name of the shops and factories inspectors into the mess who took the little envelope and looked the other way