Most of us have more knowledge about what is happening in Delhi and Mumbai than our own cities. The electronic media beaming the national events, news and stories is totally hacked by the two cities known for its politicians and corporate whos who. Rest of the cities escape the media attention, a little water logging in Delhi and Mumbai is the story of the day with whole nation glued on it or made to increase the visibility of the TV channels. Even the state capitals of the nations do not receive the attention the people would like to know. Since the news and views along with the opinion makers are from Delhi or Mumbai we get to know water tarriff, flooding, crime, dharna or rally etc giving pity lip services on seeking the opinion polls.
Similarly, the national mood on the issues of civic concerns are limited to what is happening in these two cities, may be seggregation of cities by powerful global factors dominate the urban debates. What happens in rest of 2000 cities of the country is nobodys concern. Our national planners are busy in planning schemes for the rural India, from employment guarentee to minority related issues, but urban India gets partial treatment. This makes aparent is the miniscule amount of expenditure done under the JnNURM, UIDSSMT, IHSDP or other achemes is not sufficient enough to boost the quality of life in these cities. More needs to be done, but who would raise the voice for these cities, Delhi would have gained..huge investment after it started planning and investing for the Common Wealth Games 2010. But this has not gone down well with other cities at the cost of Delhi. Similarly, Mumbai takes the largest peice of cake, related to urban development funds.
Media, has least stories to tell about the cities since they have not been trained to report the cities as they may not be willing to travel outside the large metropolitan cities to the small and medium towns. What would happen if, media continously gives urban India a total miss during last decade? The local media is often limited itself to side stories not more than one or two pages restricted to cities, rest galores more about the issues concerning a huge range of subjects.
The information officers in the urban centres are either not available or not interested in giving news of their own cities. The cities are core to the economic growth which are poised to help the states to generate employment and income to acheive a high growth targets. The neglect of the cities in terms of planning or urban information or reporting new infrastructure would lead the people to have negative opinion about their own city. They keep on dreaming in order to get out of this place and look for greener pasture in larger cities or media hyped one.
Similarly, the national mood on the issues of civic concerns are limited to what is happening in these two cities, may be seggregation of cities by powerful global factors dominate the urban debates. What happens in rest of 2000 cities of the country is nobodys concern. Our national planners are busy in planning schemes for the rural India, from employment guarentee to minority related issues, but urban India gets partial treatment. This makes aparent is the miniscule amount of expenditure done under the JnNURM, UIDSSMT, IHSDP or other achemes is not sufficient enough to boost the quality of life in these cities. More needs to be done, but who would raise the voice for these cities, Delhi would have gained..huge investment after it started planning and investing for the Common Wealth Games 2010. But this has not gone down well with other cities at the cost of Delhi. Similarly, Mumbai takes the largest peice of cake, related to urban development funds.
Media, has least stories to tell about the cities since they have not been trained to report the cities as they may not be willing to travel outside the large metropolitan cities to the small and medium towns. What would happen if, media continously gives urban India a total miss during last decade? The local media is often limited itself to side stories not more than one or two pages restricted to cities, rest galores more about the issues concerning a huge range of subjects.
The information officers in the urban centres are either not available or not interested in giving news of their own cities. The cities are core to the economic growth which are poised to help the states to generate employment and income to acheive a high growth targets. The neglect of the cities in terms of planning or urban information or reporting new infrastructure would lead the people to have negative opinion about their own city. They keep on dreaming in order to get out of this place and look for greener pasture in larger cities or media hyped one.
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