Traffic management and decongestion
anita cheria and edwin
Like heart attacks, traffic congestions are a lifestyle problem. When arteries get clogged we get heart attacks. When roads get clogged we get gridlocks. Drastic surgery—such as one-ways and flyovers [analogous to bypass surgeries]—help in the short term.

We need to ask the fundamental question: has the commercial and residential space within the city increased so much for the traffic to increase? If yes, then who gave the permission without considering the impact on the infrastructure? They must be held accountable. Planning decongestion is a onetime affair. Creating one ways, modifying zonal restrictions and tinkering are like heart surgery—useful only once. What the city needs is a change in lifestyle, a new approach to planning and design. Tinkering will not help.

Human Rights and Capital Punishment: Time to join civilisation
Anita Cheria
While human rights defenders have long campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty in India, it is President Abdul Kalam who has brought it to the centre stage with his request to the government to review all pending cases due to the capital punishment being so obviously applied with a bias against the economically and socially weaker sections: meaning the poor and the ‘lower’ castes.

India is one of 78 countries including the US, China, Iran and Vietnam which have not banned the death penalty. 86 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, and a total of 121 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990.

India: A Revolution from below
Anita Cheria and Edwin
This elections will have a crucial difference: the third generation of Indians will vote. Assuming that Indians have children at the age of 18—and many do before that—we needed 54 years [18 x 3] after independence for this to happen. With this ‘grandchildren of the revolution’ voting, it marks an important milestone and coming of age of the silent revolution that is overtaking India. This is a revolution of the consciousness and changes the way India looks at itself and the rest of the world.

Creating sustainable communities
anita cheria and edwin

Sustainability is not a permanent condition. Creating sustainable communities out of the presently marginalised and excluded is not an easy task. But it is possible. Sustainability of a community is its survival with security and self–respect. It is the power to access and control the resource base. The fundamental requirement for a sustainable community is that the locus of power lies within it. It means that social, political and economic power, in the long run, has to be a part of the in–built capacity of the people. This capacity has to have the resilience to adapt to change and stay on top of the evolving situation in a world in permanent transition. The initial provocation, leadership or support may be external, but this should not be for long. In the long term there is a contradiction between sustainability and dependence.

There are over 260 million people in the world who are voiceless victims of caste discrimination who continue to suffer from extreme forms of segregation, violence, and exploitation because of their ‘low caste’ or outcaste status or other forms of discrimination based on work and descent. About 66% of them are from India.

Communities adversely affected by caste or caste–based systems include the Dalits of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Buraku of Japan, Osu of Nigeria, and Rodiya of Sri Lanka. Others with caste or caste–like systems include Senegal, Mauritania, Madagascar, Mali, Guinea and regions with significant Indian Diaspora such as Eastern and Southern Africa, North America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and the United States.