MCGM URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE ACT ... of 15th May 2010.

Just over one year ago, I had proposed this QoL Act for Mumbai, during some email exchanges with local Activists. I am now elaborating this idea below, hoping I will get some pro-active response.

Citizens using any public space have a right to go about without being forced to:

1. hear loud music, traffic sounds, azaans, religious incantations, spiritual speeches, fire-crackers, celebratory drums-taashaa, etc.

2. view adverts., mis-leading publicity, ‘fair and lovely’ type adverts, raunchy posters and hoardings, adverts diverting children, divisive adverts, hoardings promoting: politicians, religions, paranormal and blind faith remedies, etc.

3. absorb bad smells, open cooking smells, butchers working in open, rotting garbage, etc.

4. walk thru muck, rubbish, dust, rubble, open garbage, scavenging insects and birds, stray animals (dogs, cats, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, horses, camels, rats), insect clouds, etc.

5. taste foul polluted air and water and have to wait for incessant noisy processions of all kinds, at all hours of the day and night, anytime during the calendar year.

6. see and touch badly maintained streets, footpaths, water fountains, building facades, parks, trees, public toilets, street signage / furniture, etc.

7. get caught up in extended traffic jams and wait for multiple green signals (upto 6 minutes per cycle), with incessant junction hawkers, beggars and eunuchs as company.

8. hardly ever get to use the footpaths, city bus or trains without anxiety and trauma.

9. do without easy access to information or guidance from the Regulatory, Statutory and Security Institutions, even after having powerful citizen friendly Acts like: RTI and Disclosure Law in the legal statutes.

10. do without adequate: libraries, health care, courts, education opportunities, job training, safety, recreation, sports facilities, housing, gardens, open grounds and spaces, city infrastructure, street furniture.

Surely ... more such points can be added. All our five senses are overwhelmed and minds distressed. Need for facilities for the handicapped and the distressed / deserted is only a dream. Children between two and fourteen are wandering the streets begging and ensuring they will be unemployable when grown up due to lack of work skills.

There is yet no holistic act / policy dealing with mis-use of public spaces or spaces in private areas which impinge on citizens at large. In a democratic society, citizens have a right to some minimum quality of life. All the points above prevent basic quality of life. I think, Mumbai needs a MCGM act to cover this basic right.

It is my hope to work on a 'green paper' for this cause ... MCGM Urban Quality of Life Act. I believe the existing MCGM Act is some one hundred twenty-two year old, and now has a patch work of amendments to cover each and every demand of the politicos, many citizen unfriendly.

We now need to get beyond such petty activity and go for something fresh and citizen-centric and friendly. Illegal banners, unwanted foot bridges, rusty city water pipes, encroached footpaths and inadequate agro-markets, bad roads, mis-managed Municipal Schools and Civic Hospitals, in-equitable home taxes, zero tolerance for pedestrians, vandalism, these are only the tip of the change that all citizens would wish to see.

QoL is described in Wikipedia at the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life and a QoL-Index is shown at link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-Life_Index where India is at lowly #73 for year 2005 and also at link: http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/index.php where India has a low score of 58 for year 2010. The Mercer QoL ranking for year 2009 shows Mumbai at a low #148 rank, see the link: http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr Various factors and categories are used, some may not be relevant for Mumbai today. The International Living Magazine places India at rank #88 out of 194 nations for the year 2010 at the link: http://forum.globaltimes.cn/forum/showthread.php?t=11938

I desire to have a limited debate; Activists could present papers on various angles to this basic premise of mine. Such a debate can be an essay ‘mail in’ from which ‘collation paper’ can be made for points to be covered. A five point grading (1 to 5) for various factors and categories with time lines and do-ables to improve on the grading should be included. I am not sure how one can go about this and request experts to guide this at the formative stage. A decent format-spreadsheet would be useful. Once a Citizens’ Document is ready, it can be taken up with the MCGM and the State Govt. for analysis and implementation.

I request all concerned well wishers to write on this topic: MCGM Urban Quality of Life Act (as a subject line in the emails) and email: jnm.movement@gmail.com Please include your Name + PIN code + Mobile Code so the same can be included in the 'contributors list'. If a standard document is referenced, please include its details for the 'bibliography'. Such a thread will enable me to follow up and hopefully make a summary collation :) for deeper study. Requesting your indulgence and comments.

Chanakya's Quotes - Worth reading a million times… (Indian politician, strategist and writer, 350 BCE -275 BCE)

"A person should not be too honest.

Straight trees are cut first

and Honest people are victimized first."

"Even if a snake is not poisonous,

it should pretend to be venomous."

"The biggest guru-mantra is:

Never share your secrets with anybody. !

It will destroy you."

"There is some self-interest behind every friendship.

There is no Friendship without self-interests.

This is a bitter truth."

"Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions -

Why am I doing it,

What the results might be and

Will I be successful.

Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."

"As soon as the fear approaches near,

attack and destroy it."

"Once you start a working on something,

don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it.

People who work sincerely are the happiest."

"The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind.

But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.."

"A man is great by deeds, not by birth."

"Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them.

By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."

"Books are as useful to a stupid person

as a mirror is useful to a blind person."

"Education is the best friend.

An educated person is respected everywhere.

Education beats the beauty and the youth."

PANCHATANTRA - Gems of Verses

As a young boy I was facinated by a paperback copy of THE PANCHATANTRA in English, given to me by my late father. On 31st May 1963 I had given my 'qualifiers' for the IIT-Mumbai and was hoping to be selected. On this day, I had jotted down a few short verses from the book, which appealed to me then ... they do so even today. I am sorry to say, I cannot trace the original book today.

Here are some of the limericks, hope they point out to you the reader, a better understanding and way of life.

Gems of Verses selected from the Jaico edition of 1949, edited by Ryder A.W. 

ü Whoever learns this work by heart

Or through the story-tellers art

Becomes acquainted,

His life by sad defeat – although

The King of Heaven be his foe –

Is never tainted.

… Introduction to the Panchatantra

ü Release the money you have earned;

So keep it safely still:

The surplus water of the tank

Must find a way to spill.

ü Death pursues the meddling flunkey;

Note the wedge-extracting monkey.

ü Bravest bosoms do not falter,

Fearing heavens threat:

Summer dries the pools; the Indus

Rises, greater yet.

ü Do not act as does the grass blade,

Lacking honest pride,

Drooping low in feeble meanness,

Lightly brushed aside.

ü Whoever leaves the righteous path

For some unrighteous course,

Will meet calamity in time

And suffer much remorse.

ü He strikes or stings with hasty fear

When warning has been heard;

‘Tis wise to warn an enemy

By action, not by word.

ü The serpent sandal-tree defiles;

In lotus-ponds lurk crocodiles;

The slanderer makes virtue vain:

No blessing lacks attendant pain.

ü A friend in need is a friend indeed;

Although of different caste;

The whole world is your eager friend

So long as riches last.

ü A fire will burn, though kindled

In fragrant sandal-wood;

A rascal is a rascal,

Although his birth be good.

ü Wrong is wrong, the wise man never

Wrong as right will treat;

None would drink, however thirsty,

Water in the street.

ü Do the right, the right, the right,

Till the breath of death;

Shun the wrong, although the right

Lead to death of breath.

ü When once the mind is gripped by fate,

The judgment even of the great,

In moral meshes fettered, wends

To unintended, crooked ends.

ü Whoever trusts a faithless friend

And twice in him believes,

Lays hold of death as certainly

As when a mule conceives.

ü Like a pots of clay, the wicket friend

Is quick to smash and hard to mend,

Like pots of gold, the righteous flash,

As quick to mend, as hard to smash.

ü Six things are done by friends:

To take and give again;

To listen and to talk;

To dine, to entertain.

ü No friendship ever comes

Without some kindly deed:

The very Gods respond

To gifts they have decreed.

ü As soon as presents cease

So soon does friendship die,

The calf deserts the cow

Whose udder has gone dry.

ü What’s duly his a man receives;

This law not even God can break;

My heart is not surprised, nor grieves;

For what is mine, no strangers take.

ü Bestow, or use your wealth for pleasure,

If not, you hoard another’s treasure:

As in your home, your lovely girl

Awaits a stranger, his dear pearl.

ü The miser for another hoards

His bags of needless money:

The bees laboriously pack,

But others taste the honey.

ü A calf can find its mother cow

Among a thousand kine:

So good or evil done, returns

And whispers: “I am thine”.

ü Better with the learned dwell,

Even though it be in hell

Than with vulgar spirits roam

Palaces that Gods call home.

ü Better to the servant of the wise

Than the master of a fool.

ü The parrots and the grackle birds

Are caged because they utter words:

The stupid herons go scott free –

For silence is the master key.

ü From cows expect subsistence;

From Brahmans, self-denial;

From women, fickle conduct;

From relatives, a trial.

ü Money gets you anything

Get it in a flash:

Therefore let the prudent get

Cash Cash Cash.

ü Scholarship is less than sense;

Therefore seek intelligence:

Senseless scholars in their pride

Made a lion, then they died.

ü He who lacking wit, does not

Harken to a friend,

Just like weaver Slow, inclines

To a fatal end.

ü If senseless quarrels rend

A house from day to day,

The folk who wish to keep alive

Had better move away.

ü A rolling stone gathers no moss.

(I am not a stone and anyway,

Do not wish to gather moss –

Only rich experience).

ü However skillful the disguise,

However frightful to the eyes,

Although in tiger skin arrayed,

The ass was killed – because he brayed.

ü Plant your works where profit lies:

Whiter cloth takes faster dyes.

ü Naughty meddlers suffer,

Destruction swift and sure.

ü No man reaps a harvest

Plowing barren soil.

ü Whoever will not take from friends

Most excellent advice,

Will gladden foes, and falling soon,

Will pay his folly’s price.

ü A man convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still.

ü There is no toy, called happy joy.

ü A man must thrive – to keep alive.

ü To extinguish a fire and leave a spark,

To kill the snake and preserve its offspring

Is not the wisdom of the wise.

ü Wisely move one foot, the other

Should its vantage hold;

Till assured of some new dwelling,

Do not leave the old.

ü No fish was caught,

Who didn’t open its mouth.

ü Knowledge makes a wise man wiser,

and a fool more foolish.

ü Great humans like diamonds,

Are products of pressure.