perseverance key to success
In response to Tulika Agnihotri Ojha’s ‘Smashing Sania!’ published on August 16:
This Hyderabad-born golden girl Sania Mirza’s elation over becoming the first female tennis player to get the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna on the National Sports Day on August 29, 2015, stands justified. This accolade is another feather in the ace tennis player’s cap among others like the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri to name a few as she surged past many other sport stalwarts including Sardara Singh and Dipika Pallikal (for hockey and squash respectively).
Interesting, Sania is the better half of Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. But her success trajectory spans 21 years of perseverance, dedication and labour while she had to face some drawbacks as well. But all’s well that ends well. We wish her the pinnacle of her career!
— Azhar Ali
loved reading article on aspects of dharma
In response to Ajit Kumar Bishnoi’s ‘Always follow dharma’ published on August 30:
I liked reading the post. I read that the administrators of dharma emphasise its four aspects, namely truth, compassion, detachment and purity of administrators. Not only that their conclusions must be transparent and acceptable to involved parties.
— TN
smart cities mission needs capacity building
In response to Dr Behnam Ta’i’s ‘Turning Smart Cities Mission into reality’ published on August 23:
The article is interesting and highlights the capacity building at the local level as the main factor for success for implementation of Smart Cities Mission. I read in the paper a couple of days ago that 98 out of 100 smart cities have been selected. How much we are doing about capacity building of local authorities I don’t know. I hope the responsible authorities and decision makers will do it.
— Subhash Mishra
The people of India, specially urban people, are excited about the smart city programme. If capacity building at the local level is the solution, why doesn’t the Government do itIJ Is it too difficultIJ If we don’t do it, what will be the cost to the publicIJ I think Indian media should lead this discussion more and more.
— Ektaa Vashisht
Such a well articulated article and timely too. It is undoubtedly clear that the realisation of this vision of Smart City Mission requires massive efforts towards building capacity of urban local bodies in a systematic fashion in order to first arrive at a unity of thought and devise plans and strategies for translating that vision into reality. Needless to say that such efforts at capacity building will require the integral component of principles of commitment to the common good, trustworthiness and the inculcation of the attitude of collective trusteeship.
— Farida Vahedi
Very timely article. The success of Smart City Mission will mainly depend on the capacity building efforts. We have urban administrators, urban planners, technocrats but we lack urban managers. We need massive capacity building efforts to convert existing urban administrators, planners, technocrats into urban managers. Capacity building will have to be done not only of local politicians and local bureaucrats but also of all stakeholders — Central and State Governments’ Urban Development Department officers, officers of parastatals managing urban services, private entrepreneurs who are doing business with urban local bodies and will be doing PPPs in future. Capacity building of the urban consulting firms, colleges which are producing urban planners and other urban professionals, the civil society groups, and finally citizens. I again congratulate the author for writing a very time article about the most neglected aspect of Indian urban sector.
— Ravikant Joshi
The problem with smart cities is that no one really knows what they look like. If you read the literature, they seem to cover everything and thus offer no guidance. In a narrower but manageable sense, smart cities are those that optimise the use of IT for urban management. It goes without saying that those charged with advising politicians on policies for effective urban management must have the knowledge to do so. Regrettably too few of those who identify themselves as town planners have the knowledge in economics, engineering and environmental science.
— Peter Murphy
We are blessed to be citizens of a country that has such great ideas. Unfortunately what we lack at times is proper planning and monitoring of implementation of plans. As this article suggests, a strong planning unit in every local body must be established. This is most necessary. Hopefully, the Government of this great country will look into this.
— Mohit Fernandes