Prime Time With Ravish Kumar - November 25, 2021: इंफ्रास्ट्रक्चर प्रोजेक्ट (infrastructure project) विकास का पुराना चेहरा है लेकिन इसे भव्य बनाकर नया किया जा रहा है. भव्यता को सजाने में रोज़गार के दावों का बड़ा रोल रहता है. प्रोजेक्ट की मंज़ूरी से लेकर शिलान्यास तक रोज़गार को लेकर जिस तरह की ख़बरें छपती हैं और दावे किए जाते हैं उसकी विकास यात्रा पर गौर करना दिलचस्प होगा.
Grand Projects
A flashy theme park’: outcry over Modi’s plans for the Gandhi ashram https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/a-flashy-theme-park-outcry-over-modis-plans-for-the-gandhi-ashram Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Ahmedabad 25 Feb 2022
The site Mahatma Gandhi lived at during 1917-30 is getting a very costly makeover many think is meant to distort his legacy
a grandiose plan by the government to redevelop the site into a “world class tourist destination” at a staggering cost of 12bn rupees (£117m). Descendants of Gandhi, historians, scholars, Gandhian institutions and lifelong ashram residents have accused the government, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, of attempting to co-opt and politicise Gandhi’s legacy to suit their own Hindu nationalist agenda and turning the Sabarmati ashram into a flashy Gandhi “theme park”.
over the decades the ashram has fallen victim to the pressures of urbanisation. Its once sprawling 48-hectare (120 acre) grounds have been eroded to around two hectares and busy four-lane road was built through it. The surrounding area became filled with ramshackle housing, concrete hotels, roadside restaurants and garish shops selling cheap tourist wares. Squatters moved into the residential areas and businesses incompatible with Gandhi’s teaching – a cow artificial insemination centre being one – were set up in the ashram grounds.
Under their new development plan – which unusually is being run directly from the prime minister’s office – the ashram site will be expanded to 20 hectares, given a sleek makeover with new Gandhi museums and monuments erected and other structures knocked down.
Yet the government has faced considerable criticism over a lack of transparency for the redevelopment, including the unilateral appointment of Modi’s favoured architect for all his flagship projects, and lack of consultation with Gandhi scholars and institutions.
The redevelopment has also faced criticism over the decision to evict the 400 or so families living in the ashram grounds, some whom are descendants of the Dalit families brought there by Gandhi himself. Gandhi left explicit instructions that these families should be allowed to stay in perpetuity and that the ashram should for ever work for the uplift of Dalits, the lowest in India’s caste system who were referred to as “untouchables” in Gandhi’s time.
For almost two years, the residents protested against their eviction but now over half have accepted what the government described as a “generous” package: either 6 million rupees compensation, or a new four-bedroom high-rise apartment.
K-Rail | 'Citizens have a Right to Know before a Right to Go': Professionals write to CM https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/k-rail-citizens-have-a-right-to-know-before-a-right-to-go-professionals-write-to-cm-1.6362230 Jan 15, 2022, ......
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government has attracted flak for its first major infrastructure project after resuming power in Kerala. the project would require acquiring 1,383 hectares of land, including wetlands, forest areas, backwater regions, residential areas with a high density of population, rice fields and existing building spaces.
According to environmentalist RVG Menon:“The line will not benefit those who live in the state’s eastern hilly areas, but would impact the Western Ghats heavily because the project requires huge amounts of granite and loose soil. As the lines have to cross wetlands, rivers, rice fields, and lakes, there must be large-scale land reclamations and bridges using granite and soil.”
Prime Time With Ravish Kumar: Jewar Airport - Project के सरकारी दावों की खुलती पोल Nov 23, 2021
Prime Time With Ravish Kumar - November 23, 2021: प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) 25 नवंबर को नोएडा इंटरनेशनल एयरपोर्ट (Noida International Airport) की आधारशिला रखने वाले हैं. इस प्रोजेक्ट को लेकर एक तरफ बड़े-बड़े सपने दिखाए जा रहे हैं तो दूसरी तरफ इसके लिए जिनके घर उजड़े हैं वो फिलहाल ऐसे हर सपने से खुद को दूर पा रहे हैं.
Farmers who have been displaced speak..
Prime Time With Ravish Kumar: किस Factory में तैयार होते हैं लाखों रोजगार के सैकड़ों सुनहरे आंकड़े?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0h6SHCjxw Nov 25, 2021
The moves to outright wipe out or hugely tamper with or severely downgrade - in the name of reconstruction/redevelopment/beautification/..., of
earlier constructed iconic (heritage) structures is an integral part of the larger project of rewriting Indian past - including even the more recent
and reconstruct social memory.
In turn, a part of the mother project, already underway, to put in place a "New India" - with the founding Emperor as its mascot, displacing the "Old
India" that had come up at the largely successful - despite being somewhat marred by the dark patch epitomised by the blood-soaked gory Partition,
culmination of more than half a century long epic freedom struggle - informed with the spirit of pluralism, democracy and egalitarianism that
had come to get planted and then take root via the growing interface with the enlightened West, to put an end to the exploitative and oppressive
British colonial rule. - Sukla Sen
Forgetting freedom https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/the-three-ashrams-of-free-thought-that-are-at-risk-in-new-india/cid/1826069 G.N. Devy
The three ashrams of free thought that are at risk in New India
Excerpted by Sukla Sen In 2021, the Sabarmati Ashram is facing a serious threat of being turned into a ‘world-class tourist attraction’. An amount of Rs 1,200 crore has been pledged by the government to accomplish this. The architect entrusted with the controversial Central Vista has been commissioned to modernize the ashram campus. Gandhi was and will remain ‘world class’ because of his utter simplicity. The same simplicity marked the ashram when he created it.
The proposed VIP guest house and auditorium can, at best, make us forget Gandhi and his simplicity. *In all appearance, the Sabarmati Ashram makeover plans are aimed at inducing amnesia, not remembrance of Gandhi’s ideas and courage* [emphasis added]. Nothing else can be expected of a regime that is overly busy telling us through its information factories to forget all about our freedom struggle, the freedom of mind that Tagore celebrated and the freedom of spirit of Sri Aurobindo's vision.