This refers to the editorial, “India's drowning glory” (September 1). Glittering shopping malls, high-end multiplexes, sky kissing towers or bullet trains are not the passport to modernity and development. Unless basic infrastructure is awarded topmost priority, all rhetoric of progress are bound to fall flat and get inundated under water. Thus, all modern cities in India will continue to get paralysed annually and these callous failures will be swept under the carpet naming it as the‘resilience’ of the people.
The sponsors of ‘smart cities’ should be ashamed on witnessing pathetic infrastructure of the ‘glamorous’ metropolis of India which turns into an ocean during monsoons every year. less can be said about the rural areas where even finding a dispensary within a 10 km radius is often a stretch. It is nothing but scandalous that instead of eradicating the woes of rural folks or improving the infrastructure of the cities, all focus, energy, resource and time are being allotted to the ‘smart cities’ which would be the home of only the creamy layer of the society. For instance, bullet trains are being zealously sponsored, completely ignoring the plight of billions of common Indians suffering daily ordeal of frequent train cancellations and accidents.