Lower the din - Aircraft noise a Pain for Residents around Airport
Aircraft noise a pain for residents around airport
Sahil yaduvanshi, 4, loves airplanes. He does not have to go far to look at one. He just has to peer out of his play school window and look up every few minutes to see one. “This is Cattie…,” he shouts out to his friend Pushpesh as he looks out. Sahil enjoys the sight of the planes, and wants to become a pilot when he grows up. His only complaint is to do with the roar of the planes. “I cannot hear my teacher and my friends because of the noise,” Sahil said. He studies in Aadyant pre-school in Vasant Kunj in Delhi. Most of his friends find it difficult to concentrate after a third runway—Runway 29—became operational at the Indira Gandhi airport in September 2008. “The children get disoriented as there is an airplane flying by every few minutes. We have to repeat lessons and even raise our voices to be heard,” said Bhavina Bembi, a school counsellor. Continue reading »
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With U, For U, Always-Delhi Police
Ok, this is different from what I usually talk about. this is about how u gottu be very very careful while living in a city like delhi. careful to the extent that u should avoid getting out of house even if u can do it! Because if something happens, there will just be nobody…all your police and law enforcement agencies are too tied up to notice u and your small problems. Wattodo… they themselves are helpless…all the time.
About 30 hours ago, two men on a bike sped by me, snatching my paper shopping bag on their way. besides the sunday shopping, the bag also had my wallet which contained my driving license, atm cards, 5k in hard cash besides other “hardly important” things as said the ‘fine’ police officer filing my complaint. Now the later word in quotes was me quoting myself. Soon, i gave a call to the PCR who instead of going after the bikers, came to me and stood consoling me because they soon got to know that this women is a “presswallah”, and then came another police bullet and then the Station House Officer’s car. Imagine the solidarity with a press reporter! They all took details of the incident from me seperately and the SHO even tried to tell me his media contacts and how they keep coming to his office without realising Goddamn u, I am not bothered about anything else right now but my wallet. However, in all this, they forgot only one thing, that they should be sending somebody on the road where the bikers fled. When I insisted, I was told two bikes are already after them. Yeah, I believe u sir!! Obviously the bikers knew that the area police has grown their ponches with much effort and would not give up on it easily. “Posh areas mein yeh sab hota hi rehta hai, ab police har samay toh nahi reh sakti na,” the fine SHO tells me. The point to be taken is that the police check post is just 2-3 minutes away from the spot where already 4-5 snatching incidents have already happened.
After a two hours’ drama on the spot when I insisted that I want to file a formal first information report instead of just a complaint on a plain sheet of paper (even that was tattered and they procured a blank one with great difficulty) they tried their best to persuade me not to do it. “Madam, kuch ho toh sakta nahi isme, fir kyon aap apna time kharab kar rahe ho?” So that is the punch line Boss!! Nothing can happen, the police admits it. To hell with u and your safety! Nothing can happen! Now its your wish whether u want to fight your way or just rest your mind at peace and do not just go out of your house, as I said earlier.
Act I, Scene 2: Vikaspuri Police Station.
we reach there 30 minutes after the last encounter with our fine cops, blocking my atm cards in the time between. The officer was still writing something on the plain sheet on which I gave them my rough FIR draft. we were told that we will have to wait for about 1.5 hours, so why don’t we come the next day. We too refused to budge,s aid theres office tomorrow, lets finish everything today. After about half an hour, I went inside the police station to check and found the poor cop struggling with the keyboard. obviously, they are supposed to catch theives, not operate keyboards!! He had managed only one paragraph out of the four written by me. I really felt pity for him and offered to help. And i ended up TYPING MY OWN FIR. Still, I could not get it the same night. Guess the reason: the paper on which print out was to be taken was locked up by another constable in a cupboard and he had gone for a raid to Ghaziabad!
Act II, Scene I: Vikaspuri Police Station
Monday Morning. Before rushing for the office meeting, it is the police station today. I am met with two ‘fine’ female constables in the duty room. They ask me when the case happened. Even as they are about to note down the details for the fourth time, I tell them that I have already lodged my FIR. They tell me since the case happened just yesterday, it will take time to register an FIR. And that is where I cannot take it anymore. I tell them that I filed it myself last night and just a minute ago, I saw a copy of it in the hands of the SHO outside. Thankfully, the point is well understood and here begins another struggle with the rickety old computer Dabba. This time, I go inside the duty room to take out a printout of my FIR. And then begins the hunt for the duty officer who filed the report last night but did not obviously sign it. So, the fine female constable fakes up his signature. However, in my morning rush, I am supposed to forgive her for this.
The grand finale: we are met by the same fine officer whom we met last night walking around with a sten gun. I tell him how I was forced to come in the morning for lack of paper last night. “Ab police hai na madam, kya karen,” this was his parting remark to me. Now, I will begin another new act with the Regional Transport Office tomorrow, the Delhi Police’s siblings, where I will have to go to get my driving license made anew.
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Who’s encroaching? Noida eyes the Yamuna floodplain
Noida eyes the Yamuna floodplain
About 1,000 migrants lost their livelihood when their huts and crops on the Yamuna floodplain near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border were razed in December. The Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department carried out the operation on a 25-hectare (ha) patch of the floodplain at Nayabaans village in Noida so that it can transfer the land to Noida for development.
The settlers were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They grew vegetables, flowers, wheat and rice on the land rented from people who once held land lease given by the irrigation department. Pappu of Kaimur district in Bihar had rented about 6 ha at Nayabaans close to the Okhla Bird Park and DND flyway for Rs 6,000 per hectare for a year. While he farmed, his younger siblings studied in a makeshift school. He lost his month-old vegetable crop and has nowhere to go.
“They just came in the evening and trampled all over the vegetables and flooded the fields. Had they at least given us a notice we would not have sown crops. I had invested Rs 15,000-20,000 on wheat.”
said Sauraj Singh Kashyap of Hapur in Uttar Pradesh. H C Malhotra, a member of literacy organization Gyan Jyoti Vidyalaya, which set up the makeshift school in the area, said “These people have not made permanent structures on the riverbed. They were merely making a living out of agriculture.” Continue reading »
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Too Hot to Handle - Storage of Toxic Industrial Waste
India has tightened guidelines for storage of toxic industrial waste. But is it enough?
A fire at Ankleshwar forced India to rethink how it handles hazardous waste. Drums carrying dangerous industrial sludge flew amid leaping flames and burst in the air at a waste storage at the industrial complex in Bharuch district of Gujarat on April 3 last year. Ash fell all around. People in nearby villages were told to evacuate; many suffered coughing, headache, nausea and burning sensation in the nose and throat.
It could have turned into a disaster worse than the Bhopal gas tragedy but for the change in the wind direction away from other factories (see ‘Bhopal to Bharuch’, Down To Earth, April 30, 2008). Continue reading »
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