smart cities Archives

Appuppen

Conserve/Resist

How Andhra Pradesh built India’s first police state using Aadhaar and a Census

30th July 2018

Gopal Sathe writes: The AP government now has access the intimate personal details of 43 million of the state’s 50 million residents: GPS coordinates of their homes, medicines they use, the food rations they eat, real-time feeds of thousands of security cameras, their castes and sub-castes, their religion, and of course — their Aadhaar numbers….

ALTERNATIVES

Dr. Amory Lovins on India’s ‘sustainable energy future’

11th January 2018

Amory Lovins, Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is one of the world’s leading energy experts and a key figure behind China’s ongoing transition to renewable energy. His appointment as a strategic advisor to NITI Aayog suggests that India’s top development policy agency maybe finally be rethinking the country’s present fossil fuel-based energy path….

Development/Growth

What exactly is a smart city? The Indian government does not want you to know

18th September 2017

From Scroll.in: How does the government define a smart city under its much-publicised Smart City Mission? This may never be known. An exercise to set clear benchmarks to assess when exactly a city is delivering a high enough quality of life to be declared a smart city was shut down by the urban development ministry….

Artists impression of Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT)

Development/Growth

Smart cities: Too smart for their own good?

12th September 2016

G. Sampath writes: The smart city paradigm signals a momentous shift that takes the agenda of privatisation beyond the takeover of public utilities, and inaugurates the formal privatisation of governance itself. An exclusive focus on technology in discussions of the smart city paradigm can blind one to its real driver—the global crisis of capital accumulation….

Development/Growth

Video & Report: Is India’s 100 smart cities project a recipe for social apartheid?

9th March 2016

Shruti Ravindran reports: In a monograph for a conference on smart cities, the economist and consultant Laveesh Bhandari described smart cities as “special enclaves” that would use prohibitive prices and harsh policing to exclude “millions of poor Indians… For if we do not keep them out, they will override our ability to maintain such infrastructure.”…

Development/Growth

Sagar Dhara: A.P. needs smart governance more than a smart capital

9th October 2014

Sagar Dhara (Note: An edited version of this article appeared in The Hindu, dated October 9, 2014, under the title ‘Including people in governance‘) The soul of India lives in its villages, Gandhiji said 100 years ago. London governed India’s soul then, which it perceived as unjust and so revolted. Delhi and the state capitals now govern…

Development/Growth

Is the NDA government’s “Good days ahead” promise old wine in a new bottle?

15th August 2014

Sagar Dhara (Note: An edited version of this article appeared in The Hindu, dated August 8, 2014, under the title ‘Building smart cities without energy’. Also read: Devinder Sharma’s article: How About Smart Villages, Mr Modi?) Recent pronouncements by the NDA ministers, when read together, provide insights into the NDA government’s ‘Acche din ayenge’ (good days ahead)…