City of monstrous djinns and knaves - Planning and design disasters dot what was once a beautiful city

[and/or www.mantra.com/jai]

CITY OF MONSTROUS DJINNS AND KNAVES

By Padma Rao Sundarji
Editorial
The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Friday, May 17, 2013

Planning and design disasters dot what was once a
beautiful city. Sheila Dikshit is a lady of refined
taste. And yet, the blame must rest with her Government
for not caring to inspect the mushrooming monstrosities�

Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna�s advice to Delhi
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit against holding an Asian
athletics event slated in July 2013 in the capital of the
emerging superpower because the monsoon, an annual
natural occurrence, may show up infrastructure in a bad
light, is ludicrous but sadly accurate.

Mr Khanna has his eye, not on the betterment of civic
facilities for taxpayers but on the forthcoming Delhi
Assembly election, of course.�

But in a country obsessed with Soviet-style pomp and
circumstance ranging from military parades to �big
ticket� sporting events like the Commonwealth Games
(rendered even more absurd by the irrelevance of the
near-defunct Commonwealth itself), Mr Khanna�s fear is
timely. The last thing this battered capital � afflicted
with a shortage of power and an excess of corruption �
needs, is yet another sports jamboree.

Since the CWG were held in 2010 amidst bridges
collapsing, bits of roof falling onto surprised athletes
and workers spitting paan in every available corner of
luxury apartments built for the athletes, the entire
sprawl of CWG grotesqueness across the city angers and
upsets every Delhiwallah a thousand times a day in
passing. So why should it need rainfall to expose the
tackiness of what Delhi�s civic and sports authorities
built at a fraction of the official cost of Rs 16,560
crore, while allegedly pocketing the rest of taxpayers�
money for their hard work?

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium�s giant, tent-like structure
dominates central Delhi�s skyline. From afar and
especially when lit up by a gazillion watts, (while the
rest of Delhi sweats it out during yet another massive
outage), it does have, what the French would call, un
certain je ne sais quoi (a certain �I-don�t-know-what�).

Continues at:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/city-of-monstrous-djinns-and-knaves.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj