It is sad that a city boasting of hosting the Commonwealth Games is unable to regulate traffic on one of its main artery roads -- Fergusson College (FC) road. It is even more sad that women and children prefer avoiding the road during peak traffic hours all because they fear the choc-o-block traffic across the road.
Nidhi, a mother of two says moving through traffic is an experience she would be happy to do without. “I will venture out with my children on FC road only during a life threatening situation. Otherwise I am better off indoors,” she says.
Police seem helpless and say they are unable to do much if the number of cars keep increasing at a never-ending pace. DCP (traffic control) Mahesh Ghurye says traffic policemen are not to blame for the chaotic traffic on FC road. “We are clogging our roads with cars like cholesterol in our arteries. If we have bumper-to-bumper traffic, 200 cars can be accommodated across a kilometer. During Diwali and Dussehra the number of vehicles increase manifold. We have no control over the number of cars clogging our roads,” he says.
Jeevan Bansod, Deputy RTO (Sangam Bridge) says, “On an average 11,000 new vehicles get added every month. During Diwali-Dussehra this year, a staggering 17,270 new vehicles hit the roads. Of the new vehicles, around 80% are two-wheelers. The number of autos on the road have actually remained unchanged since 1997, when the ban on issuance of new permits came into effect. New autos rickshaws get registered only when older ones need to be replaced.
According to Ghurye, it is public indiscipline that is causing the chaos. “We are booking 1,000 cases every day and 3 lakh offenders every year. We are collecting fines to the tune of Rs 3 crore yearly," he says. He feels unless there is a collective awareness on the need to obey traffic rules things will not improve.
Pune Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer says there is currently no plan to convert high volume areas into one-way streets, or to build flyovers. According to him, the National Urban Transport Policy is against flyovers. He further said a citizen survey in the city also indicates that citizens feel flyovers would not solve their problem.
Inspector Prabhakar Damale says changes can be made to the flow of traffic as and when people come up with complaints. Damale, on complaints from citizens, recommended that direction of traffic in one of the lanes in the three-lane Bund Garden bridge be reversed in order to reduce traffic jams. Ghurye promptly approved of the recommendation, easing traffic flow to a great extent.
Kareer says better public transport in the form of the Rapid Transit System is on the cards. He says, "the media is not helping us by sensationalising issues. If the papers say that PMT is Pune Murder Transport, which commuter will hop on.”
S G Rane, manager, traffic and administration, Pune Municipal Transport, says the PMC is planning to add up to 350 buses by the end of February 2007 to their existing fleet. He says a public awareness drive has also been planned once all the buses are inducted.
Rane says the PMC fleet is currently traversing a combined 2 lakh kilometers a day and their safety record has been quite good. One issue facing drivers, according to him, is stressful work conditions. Rane says the PMC is holding meditation classes to help drivers deal with stress.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Pune's school for the blind
Nestled in the heart of Koregaon Park is a residential school with a difference; the classrooms are the same as in regular schools, the syllabus is the same too, except the students use textbooks written in Braille; this is because the students are blind.
Established in 1934 by Dr. Shankar Rao Machva, the Poona School and Home for Blind Boys is run by a charitable trust. The school draws its students from all over Maharashtra. The Trust pays for everything – the boarding, lodging, school and even medicines. The school is mostly residential with 150 boys, but they do have 20 day scholars.
The gentle, soft-spoken principal of this school Chadrakant Vaman Bhosale is himself visually impaired. He is also an alumnus of this school. He says that the mission of their school is to provide their students with the skill sets to enable them to live their lives in the sighted world.
From Class 1 to 4, the children are taught Braille on campus. From Class 5 until Class 10, the students go to regular schools. Regular schools have resource teachers to help these kids; for the ones that don't, the Trust tries to help out by providing writers for the children.
The school accepts students between the ages 4 and 10, and the students may stay until they are 18, or they finish their 10th, which ever is sooner. The children are taught to be comfortable with their disability. In addition to their lessons, the school also teaches the children music, both vocal and instrumental, caning of chairs and even computers.
Near the computer room Ramesh and Gyaneshwar, a couple of 10th std. students explain they are currently learning to save files with JAWS. (JAWS is a blind user-friendly screen reading software which converts a normal PC into a talking computer so that the blind can learn to operate the computer).
Sports plays a big part in the school; the students are taught running, long jump, high jump and sack race to name a few. The school is involved in state level sports for the visually impaired too. In fact, at the district level, the school came first the previous year.
For pleasure, the students might play chess, kabbadi or cricket. They play regular cricket, except the ball is specially designed to emit sounds in order to help the players.
So how does the school prepare the children for life outside of its premises? Bhosale says that some students go on to become telephone operators, others may run STD booths, or even become teachers. A few in fact formed an orchestra. The orchestra plays in the Bund Garden Park on Sunday evenings between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Being blind is no longer a life sentence; the school prepares the blind to live their lives with dignity.
School with a difference
Geography lessons from textbooks? That is so passé! Articles from in-flight magazines, a piece from a travel book – those are what might go into a "subject file" for the students of Sanskriti School.
Principal of Sanskriti, Devyani Mungale used to be part of the conventional school system; in fact she taught at the Delhi Public School, NOIDA for 10 years. But something was missing. Mrs. Mungale says, "I got an opportunity to attend many wonderful workshops. You came back recharged, but once you came back to your classroom, it was so difficult to implement them with large numbers; you were always racing against time because you needed to finish things just because the other section had done that." Disillusioned, Mrs. Mungale decided to start her own school, and Sanskriti School was born.
Mrs. Mungale realized that in conventional schools, only the brightest or the most mischievous students got noticed in class. Often times, the kids that really needed help the most fell through the cracks. This is what she has set out to remedy in her school. The soft-spoken principal insists, "There is nothing wrong with the children as such." Nothing that some loving, individualized attention won't remedy. Towards that end, she has 8 teachers for the 32 students in her school, a ratio of teacher to student which would be unimaginable in a conventional school.
Sanskriti differentiates between kids by assigning them to different "learning groups". For example, a child could be in class 5, but if her Maths skills are not up to par, she would work on lower-level Maths until she was able to catch up.
In Sanskriti if a child is distracted, he might be sent off to tend to the 2-3 plants he is assigned; he could work on a puzzle, or play a board game. To learn a poem, the child might choose to sit on a bench in the front yard. And vocabulary building isn't by memorization, he'd play Scrabble instead.
Presently located in a bungalow in Baner, the school hopes to move to a 7 acre plot near Chandi Chowk by June. Mrs. Mungale says, "I intend to have farming patches for them where they can actually see the rabi and kharif crops rather than reading in the books about them."
For examinations, they follow the National Open School system which is based on CBSE. Mrs. Mungale in NOS, says except for English, all other subjects are on par with CBSE. But, says Mrs. Mungale, this should not matter, because the English her kids are exposed to exceeds even CBSE's specifications.
As to what the kids can expect to get out of this school, Mrs. Mungale just hopes to inculcate a love of learning in a stress-free environment.
Brick Kilns and the appalling pollution they cause
That Pune is one of the most polluted cities in India is beyond dispute. But what is especially worrisome is that one of the more significant causes of pollution, a brick kiln, which emits harmful gases, is located right next to a prominent school where hundreds of children are being exposed to its toxicity on a daily basis.
The school, Delhi Public School in Mohammadwadi, has been actively trying to have the brick kiln moved to an alternate location. According to the school headmistress Mrs. Chakrabarty, "This school is for children, so we want this out". Says Col. Sinha, the school's Chief Operating Officer, "The school has a written notice from Mr. Prabhakar Deshmukh, the Pune District Collector, that the kiln will be moved out by July".
Pune's Municipal Commissioner Dr. Nitin Kareer, has this to say, "The PMC has asked the government for alternate land for brick kilns, and it is also trying to incentivise the conversion of land from use of brick kilns to residential". He adds that the relocations of all kilns close to populated areas will on hinge on how soon the government can allocate land, though he isn't able to comment on a specific kiln.
Meanwhile, according to Dr. Ajay Ojha, Program Manager of Pune's Air Quality Management Cell, work is being done to move all kilns out of the city. He adds, "I hope that this will be done in the next 6 months. The plan is complicated because we need to make sure that standards are complied with."
Brick kilns are known to be a significant source of pollution. Some of the toxic emissions from the kilns are Carbon Monoxide and Sulphur Dioxide and also PM10, a major air pollutant consisting of tiny particles that can settle in the lungs. All these pollutants together are known to cause asthma attacks, chronic bronchitis, chronic coughs, impaired vision, reduced brain function, and even death.
With all the conflicting statements on the relocation of the kiln, it is unclear what the real timeline is. Meanwhile the children of DPS continue to breathe in the toxic air.
The Times of India, Pune Edition
July 9, 2006
Consumer rights in India
Though consumerism has arrived in India in a big way, consumer awareness is still in its infancy. So who is a consumer? One who pays to avail of services or products, says Consumer Activist Aroona Nafday.
Convener of the Consumer Empowerment Centre (phone number 2543-8559), Nafday says their mission is to educate consumers about their rights. Herself a lawyer, Nafde sees the court only as a last resort because of the time and money involved.
Nafday says, "The Centre is like a helpline. We also take up larger policy issues, where you need to regulate." In addition, they offer mediation. Nafday says though, for mediation to work, both parties have to be willing. As a matter of principle, her organization will not accept any funding from the government or from any corporate bodies; they prefer not to run into any "conflict of interest" situations.
Nafday is very emphatic that consumers first need to be aware of their duties before they can demand their rights. She says, "We ask, don't actively take decisions that are bad for consumers. They may be good for me at that moment in time, but in the long run, they are likely to be bad for other consumers. If I am going to purchase something on the black market, then how good a consumer am I? How many of us even ask for a bill for the purchases we make?"
But what really gets Nafday going is the consumer apathy she's witnessed over the years. "The Indian consumers are a completely apathetic lot. They do not want to fight for their rights. They only want to get free aid, and free help, and free counseling." She is rues the fact that even after cases are satisfactorily resolved, people will seldom pay the fees to become members of the Centre.
As an example of the apathy, she talks about a case of overloading of auto-rickshaws with school-going children. After a couple of accidents, they decided to get the school management and the PMT involved. They chalked out bus routes so children could travel in safety. And yet, not many parents
bothered to sign up for the buses.
Nafday says unless consumers come together to do things collectively, it is difficult to bring about change of any kind. To illustrate the power of collective action to get results, she gives the example of a shoe store that has sold a defective pair of sandals that they refuse to repair or replace. She says, "You can just get together a group of people in front of the shop standing quietly and telling other shoppers about the issue." Once other shoppers become aware of the problem, the management is going to want to resolve the issue pretty quickly.
Nafday says collective action is especially necessary because initially businesses were a little afraid because of the Consumer Protection Act. Now that they've realized that cases may take as long as 2-3 years to get resolved, they've reverted back to being unresponsive. She says, "Even though my organization lobbied for this Act, and we welcomed it, we must also do something. Sending every case to court is not going to help. There are too many cases and not enough judges to try these cases."
Nafday talks about the time the Centre took the Consumer Awareness campaign to go to schools. She says, "There were very few schools who would respond. It was more the vernacular schools that were interested. It is an issue where you'd think a particular class would be more responsive. But that class is the couch potato class. Though they are huge consumers of products and services, they don't have the will to do anything."
Nafday says, "People need to realize, if you can have Nobel Laureates in America leading a march on a civic issue, why can't people in Pune do the same?" She adds on a note of finality, "I've studied this psychology for a long time, and I've come to the conclusion that we are very selfish and individualistic people.
Published in The Times of India, Pune Edition
Marathi Theatre
"The 4-wheeler class is killing theatre," exclaims Mohan
Kulkarni in despair! Kulkarni, of the theatre promotion company Manoranjan, is convinced that this class is "abandoning theatre to go to multiplexes."
Kulkarni says, "Only the hardcore audience comes. New audience is not getting created. The youth is not interested at all in serious drama. This is because they don't have too much knowledge about Marathi literature."
Manoranjan does its bit for experimental theatre by offering concessions, but Kulkarni isn't too sure about the future of serious Marathi theatre. He says comedies, or what he calls the "tapori" shows, are what bring in the crowds - the raunchier, the better. This is especially true of the younger, college-bound, mostly male audience.
Prasad Vanarase emphatically disagrees with Kulkarni. Marathi theatre, he says, is a thriving, vibrant entity. And young people today are more interested than ever. With his involvement in FLAME (Foundation for Liberal and Management Education) and as director of ACE (Academy for Creative Education), which he started, Vanarase has been involved in the promotion of experimental and amateur theatre in the city and interior
Vanarase, a National School of Drama graduate, credits the
Another entity, the Maharashtra Cultural Center (MCC) has been involved with theatre, both children's and mainstream, for the last 15 years. They have their own theatre, the Sudarshan Rangamancha, where they subsidize plays.
MCC President Dr. Mohan Agashe has imported from
About the "sleaze" factor in theatre, Vanarase says that it is like a wave, demand goes up and down. But he is convinced that serious theatre is not going anywhere. "How do you define success?" he asks rhetorically. "If you base it on the response of the theatre goers, we are very successful."
Like Vanarase, Damle doesn't believe either that cinema is affecting theatre, "Because theatre lovers love theatre and come to the theatre despite films."
Published in The Times of India, Pune Edition
Progress is good, right?
It is good that international quality roads are being built in Hyderabad. Especially the Ring roads. But has anybody paid attention to what is going to happen (or what has already happened in some parts) to all the gorgeous banyan and other trees?
Pune has a park where they salvage trees from construction sites and replant them. Can't we do something on those lines?
Pune has a park where they salvage trees from construction sites and replant them. Can't we do something on those lines?
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