BackAmbedkar and the city, Odd-even scheme in Delhi, and Azadi as a music video
While Mint revisits B.R. Ambedkar's imagination of what cities could have done for inclusion, the Odd-even scheme in New Delhi begins tomorrow
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The Mint Cities Wrap is a curation of the most compelling stories emerging from our cities today. While the focus is on urban centres, the Mint Cities Wrap engages with wider geographies in the effort to connect stories with each other across places and borders.
The Daily Dispatch
There’s something about the city
And B.R. Ambedkar knew it. The city, to him, was a space that held the possibility of shaking off the heavy yoke of caste. It promised a life of dignity, an existence where one was not reduced to one’s immediate identity. Such a vision is especially poignant in the light of Rohith Vemula’s suicide, which sparked a larger conversation about the persistence of caste in our institutions. From the Mint archives, we revisit Ambedkar’s imagination of what cities could have done for inclusion and how we are such a long way off from realizing that vision. An analysis of ward-level census data of the 10 most populous Indian cities reveals caste-based residential segregation and unequal access to public goods .
Odd-even scheme in New Delhi begins tomorrow
The second iteration of the road rationing scheme begins tomorrow and will continue till the end of the month. Addressing an orientation programme for the scheme, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal conceded that the first round of the odd-even scheme did not reduce pollution levels as expected. What it did reduce was congestion, he said. He added that the scheme could be instated on a monthly basis. Perhaps we could take lessons from Mexico City in this aspect. Meanwhile, the rest of Delhi prepares for the odd-even scheme through car-pooling, cab-sharing and tweaking work hours. And if you haven’t already done so, download the Delhi government’s PoochhO app and carpool your way through a fortnight.
Latur’s water train
Latur’s water crisis is the stuff of sci-fi dystopia. The train, carrying 540,000 litres of water over 300 km pulled into the station at 4.30 am on Wednesday. The train’s arrival sent up religious chants, political sloganeering and throngs of the thirsty and the desperate. This anguish around a resource as essential as water tells you why wells and water bodies were once sacred.
Another Deonar in the making
Numerous small fires in the Bhalswa landfill in North Delhi have enveloped the region in toxic smoke. During the summer, landfills are prone to catching fire due to the build-up of the highly combustible methane gas. When questioned, the long-term solution offered by the government included a waste-to-energy plant and a methane-capturing facility. The short-term solution? “There is nothing we can do right now."
Earthquake in Myanmar, tremors in Guwahati and Kolkata
An earthquake which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale struck Myanmar on Wednesday, and tremors were felt across Assam and West Bengal. This earthquake comes close on the heels of the earthquake in Afghanistan on April 10, which led to tremors in the capital. Omair Ahmed writes in Scroll.in about the severity of the threat such tremors pose for Delhi, drawing our attention to the “areas that are most at risk—those next to the Yamuna, where many of the newest, most expensive houses are coming up, all on land that, when the big earthquake hits Delhi, will turn to jelly."
Doing the Rounds
Interrogating the socio-religious locations of the Hindu identity
An excerpt from B.R. Ambedkar’s Riddles in Hinduism—“What is interesting to know is why is a Parsi a Parsi and why is a Christian a Christian, why is a Muslim a Muslim and why is a Hindu a Hindu?"
What Gurugram is all about
Manu Pillai writes for The Hindu about the trend of hyper-Indianizing Indian names. “It is perhaps tedious to have to point out yet again the political insecurity that propels this desire to rename places. Bombay was a marshland till the Portuguese, for want of better options, developed it. When Catherine of Braganza transferred it to the British crown, it began to grow into a great metropolis. Its transformation into Mumbai was a post-Independence demonstration of local pride and cultural assertion. Nativism hasn’t cured the city of its monumental woes, but guardians of its name can revel in restored ‘pride’."
The city under siege in reel life and real life
What is it about big cities that they have to be blown up, invaded by aliens, decimated by zombies, and razed to the ground by giant lizards? But after the terror attacks in Brussels and Paris, can we enjoy depictions of carnage and destruction on screen? Stuart Jeffries reviews three films in Guardian and attempts to understand if there are limits to what we deem a spectacle.
Parting Shots
What a bold, irreverent call to freedom looks like
You would have heard the Azadi song by the Chandigarh-based artist Dub Sharma. It has been re-released with a tongue-in-cheek music video which features appearances of Anupam Kher and the minister for human resource development Smriti Irani.
What Australia’s new $5 banknote looks like
Social media users in Australia expressed their horror at the new banknote, calling it, among other things ‘visual vomit’.
What whaling looks like through lens of a community tradition
The Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic has a longstanding tradition of whale hunting. Here are photos of a cheerful community standing around disembowelled whales.
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