Neha Pushkarna | TNN

New Delhi: Hostellers in Delhi University colleges on north campus will be making a big sacrifice for the Commonwealth Games. For almost three months, they will attend classes as day scholars in the next session. They don’t have a choice. Six colleges have asked students to vacate the hostels by the end of this month so that renovation can take place to make these buildings fit for players to stay during the Games.

The only consolation for the ousted students is that on returning to their rooms in the second half of October, they will find the accommodation far more comfortable than at present.

Before that, however, nearly 2,000 affected students will be forced to look for lodgings elsewhere when the new session begins in July. ‘‘We have been asked to vacate the rooms by the last week of May. So I will be looking for lodgings in either Vijay Nagar or Hudson Lane. With so many others also hunting for accommodation, finding a place is going to be tough,’’ said Siddhartha Jain, a second-year student of BCom (honours) in Shri Ram College of Commerce. The college has asked hostellers to vacate rooms within three days of their last exam.

This is the first time the government is providing any grant for renovation of hostels. Obviously, colleges found the offer hard to resist. All colleges on the campus, which are going to be venues for rugby tournaments, have got grants from the government through UGC ranging between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 1 crore for upgrading the hostels. This is over and above the funds released for furnishing.

STUDENTS SUFFERING

SRCC, Hindu, Ramjas, KMC have ordered students out of hostels till the Games end

Hans Raj and Daulat Ram are still trying to find a way out

At St Stephen’s and Miranda House, however, students may stay put There are a total of around 1700 seats in college hostels at North Campus But the number of students in the hostel exceed the number of seats since many rooms had to be shared after OBC quota was implemented RENOVATION AHEAD OF CWG Colleges promise swankier hostels

New Delhi: Several Delhi university colleges have asked their students to vacate hostels as they plan to renovate them in time for the Commonwealth Games.

Nishant Pandey, a firstyear BA student in Hindu College, said students had been asked to return only after October 20. ‘‘We have started booking rooms since rents are expected to shoot up in view of the increased demand in the next session,’’ he said.

Chandrachur Singh, warden, Hindu College Hostel, said colleges couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity. ‘‘It’s a painful decision for us. But the maintenance of hostels was also long due. We have managed the hostels only with the fees charged from the students which is just about adequate to meet the electricity and water bills.’’

‘‘A lot of work needs to be done and it may easily take three months,” Singh said.

The colleges will be mostly working on

the flooring, providing new beds and upgrading bathrooms to international standards. SRCC principal P C Jain called it a blessing in disguise. ‘‘I agree students may have problems staying elsewhere from July to October but they will return to swanky accommodation,’’ he said, adding that the college has got Rs 40 lakh and more funds were on the way.

Tanvir Aeijaz, warden at Ramjas College, suggested students could stay with local guardians. ‘‘The new session will begin only in the last week of July. They will have to manage only through August and September since they may have vacations in October again,’’ he

said.

Every year, students have to re-apply for a room in the hostel which is based on merit. Aeijaz said Ramjas may allot rooms at the time of admission this year but the students will be accommodated only after the players have gone. On the other hand, Hans Raj College may only give hostel rooms to seniors and not the new students. ‘‘We still have to decide. It is likely that we may not allot rooms to the first year students and accommodate around 80-90 senior students alone,’’ said principal V K Kawatra.

Residential students at Miranda House and St Stephen’s will, however, stay put. ‘‘We are not renovating the six residential blocks as we do not have a bursar who is the financial officer. We will give our hostels to players in the same condition as they are now,” said St Stephen’s principal Valson Thampu. Miranda House principal Pratibha Jolly said the students will return to the hostel in July even as renovation work continues.

By Preeti Pooja

The snapshots of filth and fantasy in the biggest slum of Asia – Dharavi is by now a much romanticized subject on celluloid to capture the wide canvas of a shantytown and the struggle, hope and hopelessness of its over one million residents.

Dharavi is home to vital unorganized industry workers, mostly children, who sift and collect 8.5 metric tons of filth, garbage, plastic, metal and scrap everyday.

Most of these rag pickers, come as migrants from every part of India. They often live in conditions worse than that in refugee camps. Many are malnourished. They are constantly exposed to hazardous toxins and diseases.

Their subhuman living conditions provides little access to basic education, sanitation, water, electricity and healthcare. Dharavi has severe problems with public health, due to inadequate toilet facilities, compounded by the infamous Mumbai flooding during the monsoons.

This is also a place where Mumbai’s underbelly of drug peddlers thrives. Low house rents and access to livelihood like rag picking has attracted minorities and the poorest of poor from different states to Dharavi. The economy here is based on recycling besides some pottery, textile factories and leather units. Dharavi is home to more than 15,000 single room factories.

But Dharavi is not just a haunt of film and documentary makers on a bounty hunt of poverty and filth as creative ingredients. Some NGOs have chosen to work here to better the living conditions of many of its uncared for residents.

Acorn Foundation (India) is one of them. The Acorn Foundation (India), which is affiliated to ACORN International, is supporting, Dharavi Project India. They are working to improve the lives of the rag picker community in Mumbai besides Delhi and Bangalore. Acorn is also doing extensive study on urban solid waste management in Mumbai and trying to implement actions to alleviate this issue.

Vinod Shetty, an advocate by profession, is actively involved with Acorn Foundation (India). Mr. Shetty narrates some of the heart-rending realities of life in Dharavi.

“Any big city survives on the services of rickshaw pullers, sweepers and rag pickers. It’s them who are at the bottom of the pyramid and ensure that the city keeps running. The society must acknowledge to the services of these people who live without any social security,” says Mr. Shetty.

Acorn firmly believes that this community of unorganized labourers is an invaluable human resource to the city.

“Mumbai would have been reduced to a dumping yard creating havoc with serious sanitary issues had there been no rag pickers who recover, recycle and ensure reuse of the waste,” he says.

ACORN, under the Dharavi Project, tries to organize this vulnerable section and train them in scientific methods of waste handling, segregation and recycling.

The US Ambassador to India, Timothy J. Roemer, and his wife Sally, visited our ACORN India ‘Dharavi Project’ on May 11, 2010. The US consul general in Mumbai, Paul Flomsbee, who has previously visited the project, was also present. Roemer was interested in seeing how the Dharavi rag-picker community contributes to the ecological well-being of the city, and how the Dharavi Project enhances their livelihood.

Roemer was given an overview of the Dharavi Project’s mission and activities, and then provided a tour of the non-profit’s newly-commissioned office and waste segregation center, a paper recycling facility, and the massive waste collection area nearby. During the visit, Roemer personally interacted with rag-picker members and recyclers, as seen in the first picture below, and even played a quick round of cricket with rag-pickers kids while balancing on one of the massive pipelines leading out of the city. Two members of the rag-picker community, Rafique and Lakshmi, shown in the third picture below, described their work to Roemer. Finally, Roemer tried his hand at one of the paper recycling machines.

Roemer learned about how the Dharavi Project program in Mumbai organizes 400 or so rag-picker members, gives them identification, and runs relevant waste management and cultural programs with 30+ schools, artists and even some corporates. The Dharavi Project also works closely with the American School of Bombay on a ‘waste matters’ campaign that helps the school kids manage their waste and donate a portion of it to the rag-pickers. Roemer expressed his support for a similar program with the new US consulate facility in Bandra Kulra Complex.

By: The Times of India 

They comprise the 1,20,000-strong army that saves Mumbai from further environmental degradation. Yes, their livelihood is dependent on the 8,000 tonnes of waste that the megapolis spews out daily. But if it weren’t for their recovering, recycling and ensuring reuse of the waste (the three Rs of their difficult lives), this city would have been one big dumpyard. 

Ragpickers’ working hours are spent in combing the city’s alleys, beaches, rubbish dumps and even diving into the foetid waters of mangrove swamps. Eventually they congregate at Dharavi, the world’s largest recycling unit where almost 80 per cent of dry waste is reused. 

Now there’s an initiative afoot to bestow a fourth R on the ragpicker brigade—respect. The Acorn Foundation India Trust is set to organise these workers and train them in scientific methods of waste handling, segregation and recycling. “We want to highlight their work in protection of the environment,” says Vinod Shetty of the Acorn Foundation. “We want the government to set up a board whereby polluters pay a cess of about one per cent which can go towards giving these ragpickers a proper income with safe equipment like gloves and other amenities. We want them to be trained in how to handle toxic waste and expertise in recycling goods in a non-hazardous way.” 

For a start, all members of the Dharavi Project are being given identity cards. They have formed their own committee which is involved in waste awareness programmes. In one programme, young ragpickers are partnering with schools in waste management. Currently there are some 350 members of the Dharavi Project. 

The foundation has also undertaken another initiative— to organise health clinics, programmes and workshops from which young children engaged in ragpicking can get some kind of informal education in music, photography and other arts. A number of artistes have participated in such programmes, among them singers Shankar Mahadevan, Sunita Rao and Apache Indian and Katrina Kaif. “Nearly 40 per cent of those in the waste business are children and women,” says Shetty. “We do not want to support child labour but realise that this sector needs alternatives. We hope such cultural events will help them think differently.”

The launch was organized in Korogocho community center where the event was held on 25thFeb 2010.

The event was scheduled to mark the official rolling out of the Acorn training model which is currently being implimented in two of the Korogocho villages namely Highridge and Kisumu Dogo. This was also aimed at popularising the Association which is set to carry out major issue based campaings within the area that majorly affects the Korogocho residents at large.

Despite the big challanges in organizing the event that we faced – like lack of finances, another major event was being hosted by the Italian Ambassador taking place just in the neighbouring village and opposition from some of the influencial gate keepers of the area , the event was a big succsess in that more than 300 people attended the ceremony. Among the key persons who atteded  included the Acorn Chief organizer Mr. Wade, local Adinistration ie ( Area Chief and her two Assistants) and fourteen other representatives from different  organizations working within and outside Korogocho.

These Included

 The organization                                                                                        

1. Acorn International (Wade Rathke)

2. Umande Trust (Fancis Kinyeti)

3.  Alternative to violence Project -K (Hannington Muchere)

4.  Blue Cross (Jeniffer Otindo)

5.  Kenya Network of Women living with Aids KENWA (Gladyce Gyambura)

6.  MAKWAK (Agry miheso)

7.  Child Peace Africa (Charlse Maina)

8.  Amani Pamoja Korogocho (Paster Shango)

9.  Koch F.M (Shem Shanzu)

10. Kasarani Youth Representative (Khadija)

11. CASCBI (Christine Nthegah)

12.Miss Koch (Asha abdi)

13. Right and Hope for the Disabled (Ann Njeri)

14. The City Council of Nairobi- Korogocho Ward (Mr.Maneno)

The event was graced by the Chief organizer of Acorn International who had come for a Five days visit to Kenya.

The program kicked off at around 11.00 am with a word of prayer from Pastor Bosire which was follwed by introductions and latter speeches from representatives of various organizations.

To the majority of those who addressed ACORN members, it was a great praise to the work of organizing being carried out in Korocho. They also expressed their deepest desire to work together with Acorn as an Association  in supprot to win the campaigns that will be organized.

 To mention just a few, the representative from AVP-CAPI programme promised their solideraity by promissing to support the Korogocho community people with Peace and Reconciliation training programmes in conjuction with Acorn -Kenya.

 The Youth representative promised to mobilize the youths in the whole Divission to rally behind the campaigns that will be organized.

 Koch FM gave the Acorn community members a  three hour publicity in the community radio once every week to sensitize the community about the organization and the activities that they are undertaking in Korogocho.

 The area Chief was very impressed by the whole programme and urged the community to embrace the model in great numbers so that they can be able to change the face of Korogocho.

 Speeking about the Kenyan programme the Chief Organizer Mr. Wade informed all those present that Change is always with the people. He challeged the community people of Korogocho to choose between positive Change or negative change for their life. He informed them that a positive altitude of   people brings about positive change and positive perseption of the issues, something that will make them come out in great numbers to challage those in power and  control of bringing about the change through massive campaigns.

He also emphasized that change has to start with an individual to be able to convince the others to join up the hands in demand of what is rightifully theirs. Its only through this way that the effect of Acorn will be felt in the neighbourhoods, entire community and even to the other  neighbouring informal settlements within Nairobi.

 The event was crowned with a tree planting ceremony within the Chief’s camp compound, something that made the whole event very colourful and significant of the day. Seven trees were planted that day by different representatives from different organizitions who were present in the occassion.

The whole event ended very peacefully at around 3.00pm

ACORN International focuses on organizing slumdwellers in India.  The following essay by Ashi Nandi is an interesting discussion of the overall issues much on people’s minds in India as slum removal is a bitter, though often cosmetic, issue in advance of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

By Ashis Nandy

The attempt to free cities of slums will only make them invisible.

There is another way of looking at slums, which is not only more creative but also more compassionate and humanitarian. Slums are parts of the city that constantly reminds us of our moral and social obligations. They are reminders that another India exists. People loathe slums not just because of the poverty they display, not just because the slums embarrass them in front of foreign visitors, but also because the slums look to them like indicators of their backwardness and do not allow them to forget or deny the poverty and the exploitation on which their prosperity is built. They blow up Rs 40,000 for a dinner for four persons at a five-star hotel while people scavenge for food outside the hotel. The slums are reminders of the open wounds of a city. That reminder is painful. Many do not want such reminders to be there.

Many see slums as failed parts of cities. They are regarded as parts of a city that do not conform to ruling ideas of an ideal city held by people in other parts of the city.

There have been some changes in the way people have looked at slums ever since colonial cities emerged. At one time, slums were seen as a kind of an invisible city: a place where servants and the poor blue collar workers stayed and one did not have to care for them. The architect-activist Jai Sen had a term for this attitude: in an essay in the journalSeminar he called a slum an Unintended City. There was little or no genuine attempt to accept the poor and disadvantaged as part of the city’s future—to accept them as equal and integral citizens or to re-plan the city according to their needs—Sen wrote

I think things have changed in the three decades since Sen said this.

Slums are not just the unintended city. They are now regarded parts of the city that should not be visible. City authorities in Delhi and Mumbai are planning to cover up slums for the Commonwealth Games. They are an embarrassment, which foreign visitors to the city must not see.  A slum is a part of the city that has no business to be there.

Then there is the political-economic perspective on slums: people with low earnings prefer to stay in slums because they are close to their places of work. So the rich and middle classes get their cheap labour—drivers, vegetable vendors, domestic helps—from the slums. This approach has a built-in contradiction. The upper and middle classes do not want to pay their domestic helps at First World rates, but they want slums eliminated as in some First World cities, or in Asian cities pretending to be First-World cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. They will not do what citizens of Singapore and Hong Kong have done to eliminate slums. In Singapore and Hong Kong, too, you have to pay through your nose to get a domestic help or a chauffeur.

Slums are not regarded as political issues in many countries. But that is not so in India. Here, elections still reflect some of our real issues. You are always afraid when you see slums: it reminds the middle class they are sitting on a volcano. The fact that our political system has not forgotten the slums makes the wealthy and the middle class nervous.

Such anxieties have cultural consequences. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that in the West, the more interesting cities have slums. New York has slums; Houston does not, not at least visibly. Los Angeles does not have conspicuous slums, Washington has and it’s a more interesting city because of that. The contradictions of the city are in full display. A society’s creativity depends on the oscillation and dialogue between slums and the rest of the city.

New York is an intellectually rich city because it has many things that are going out of fashion in mainstream America, such as street life and street food, street graffiti, street-side artists and musicians. It also has crime, sleaze and drugs. The latter have an effect somewhat similar to that of the activities of the Naxalites or the Maoists: they remind the middle classes and rich sections of a large number of disposable people living at the margins of desperation. In New York, the capital of global capitalism, more than 40,000 homeless adults live in streets, subways, and under bridges and train tunnels of the city; and 25 per cent of all children live in families with incomes below the official poverty line. New York is New York because it has, to some extent, learnt to live with slums. Many other cities in the West have dismantled slums but not homelessness.

Slums highlight such contradictions. If you have disowned parts of yourself and built up an elaborate system of psychological defenses, the contradictions do not vanish. They remain and you feel you are always being held accountable, being accused—by yourself. Such contradictions sharpen creativity. They impinge on the writers, artists and thinkers. The finest Dalit poetry in India, for example, has come not from writers in rural India where the situation may be more oppressive for the Dalits or from Dalits who have made it, but from writers living at the margins of society. They have lived either in a slum or close to it

This is not an attempt to romanticize slums but to emphasize that the slums are often the only connection the urban middle class has with some of the grim realities of society. The well-known Bangladeshi economist Mohammad Yunus once said that the only time the country’s rich and the wealthy faced what the poor in the country’s villages had lived with for centuries was when floods came to Dhaka. Likewise, the slums create a certain awareness, which we can afford to ignore at great risk. If we remove slums, the only people in touch with that reality may well be the Naxals, the Gandhians and some of the much-maligned, politically-aware NGOs.

Town planners in many countries think slums can be replaced with low-cost housing. Low-cost housing has relevance but it is neither foolproof nor offers a long-term solution. Once you give people such houses some of them might sell them to developers for gentrification and, ultimately, the other city encroaches on such projects. People who had some protection in slums, at least had a roof on their heads, lose that protection. Low-cost housing might lead to American-style gentrification in our political economy, too.

Even by conservative estimates, one-fourth of India is poor. They cannot be ignored. In our political system, electoral pressures and vote banks matter. And empowerment can be a solution. It is working in the case of the Dalits. It can bring small reliefs such as better sanitation, cleaner water, minimal healthcare and more toilets. Even now, without such facilities, lots of people prefer to stay in slums; they try to make something beautiful out of whatever little they have. Human beings are a resilient species and many prefer to live in a place where such resilience is in full display. The well-known Hindi film director Manmohan Desai used to stay in a locality that could be classified as a glorified slum. So did Vinod Kambli, the famous cricketer. Harlem has even become fashionable; former President Clinton has an office there now. Slums are not infra-human.

Planning cannot eliminate slums. As long as there is large-scale deprivation, as long as our rulers, our media and our urban middle class believe that proletarianization is better than being a farmer, artisan or a tribal, there will be sizeable number of people who will be made available for blue-collar work in our cities. Such people will like to stay close to their places of work. If you upgrade or destroy one slum, others will come up in its place a few hundred feet away.

The recent attempts to free Indian cities of slums will merely make the slums less visible. This is not a new project. Sanjay Gandhi tried it. Jagmohan tried it. I don’t blame them any more in retrospect. The urge to make slums invisible is there in almost every unthinking Indian—not just in the powerful, the foolish and the heartless.

The desire to secure services from slums and yet not see them is one of the diseases of our times that is taking an epidemic form.

A sociologist and a clinical psychologist, Ashis Nandy is with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi