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Mumbai, wake up and control your vehicular traffic

Experts deliberate on ways and means to cut down the vehicles on Mumbai choc-a-block roads, improve air quality, waste management.
by TERI News Features

Mumbai is rapidly choking on its own smoke-filled outdoor air. And unless ways are devised to improve the quality of urban infrastructure and incentivise public transport, the rising numbers of private vehicles are going to make a living hell out of the city.

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) recently organised a regional dialogue titled, ‘Sustainable Urban Transport and Solid Waste Management in Mumbai’. The dialogue was organised in the run up to TERI’s annual flagship event, the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), which will be held in New Delhi from February 5 to 7, 2015. A series of Regional Dialogues were organized in the run-up to the Summit, which come in the wake of the new Government’s two major announcements — 100 Smart Cities for India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

At the third and the last dialogue in Mumbai, top experts deliberated on ways to tackle the ever-increasing traffic-related problems here and also how waste management can be streamlined. Mumbai and the metropolitan region around it has been growing seamlessly, with its total population expected to touch 44 million in 2052 even as the resources to service the burgeoning masses remain more or less stagnant. The city is experiencing major traffic problems even though public transit represents more than 60 per cent of the motorised transport model share. With one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, Mumbai has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of personal vehicles.

Speaking at the event, Shri Prakash, Distinguished Fellow, TERI, said: “Although the rail-based transport system consisting of suburban rail and newly introduced metro and monorail would cater to the major transport needs of the city, provisions of adequate facilities for growth of non-motorised transport are also very essential for accessible and sustainable transport system.” Added UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, “We are looking at smart ticketing, smart cards that can be used for all modes of public transport system. A 100 to 200-km network in the next eight to 10 years should have a positive impact on Mumbai city’s infrastructure.”

“It is not only about setting up transport systems but also about improving road connectivity and accessibility, which are extremely critical,” said Abhay Mishra, CEO, Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd.

Waste management in MumbaiWhile discussing waste management, experts said the city generates about 10,000 MT of municipal solid waste and more than 2700 MLD of sewage per day. Managing and processing this huge amount of waste is a huge challenge faced by urban local bodies. Even in small peripheral cities of Mumbai, MSW collection and treatment is a huge task. Dr Suneel Pandey, Associate Director, Green Growth and Resource Efficiency, TERI, said: “It’s time to look at an integrated waste management framework to not only treat and dispose the waste, but also, in the process of doing so, recover resources like energy, nutrients and water not only to close the loop of material use, reduce use of harmful chemicals but also improve financial viability of waste processing options.”

“Decentralisation, biomechanisation, and waste management at the household level are the need of the hour. Today, waste processing, co-processing are some of the technologies which can treat waste efficiently. There is a need to introduce curriculum in universities that will teach people to run and operate the technology systems. This is currently lacking,” he added.

“Each individual generates waste and today there is no understanding of waste management. The need of the hour is to first study how, where and what waste is being generated. This will let us decide how we can best manage waste in the country. Then develop the right technology for the specific waste. Bad and inadequate waste management is responsible for the spread of dengue,” said Dr Amiya Kumar Sahu, President and Founder, National Solid Waste Association of India.

What do you think are some of the challenges in Mumbai city today? Tell us in the comments section below.
(Pictures courtesy searchpp.com, coastalcare.org)
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When a blanket steps in to fight dengue

Two Mumbai based sisters and entrepreneurs are taking the gentle route to fighting dengue and malaria with a mosquito-repelling blanket.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Mumbai is currently grappling with an unprecedented crisis brought on by the spread of dengue and malaria. The city has already reported almost 700 cases of dengue with almost 20 lives lost due to the dreaded illness. The malaria count is almost ten times more, say municipal authorities.

Adding to the fight against the disease, after mosquito-repelling sprays and fogging by BMC authorities, are two Mumbai sisters Shreya and Kasturi Poddar, who have created a mosquito-repelling blanket that is said to be an effective tool to fight mosquitoes. The blankets were recently distributed to underprivileged children from Ashok High School in Gurgaon last week.

Shreya and Kasturi PoddarShreya and Kasturi (in pic on left) are the directors of Nidra Home, makers of Mos-Quit-O blankes. After the distribution event, Shreya said, “Nobody is safe from dengue and malaria. Research suggests that even two inches of water, in a puddle or in a potted plant, is enough for a dengue mosquito to lay eggs. This means preventing dengue is impossible without a foolproof method of repelling mosquitoes inside every home.”

Mos-Quit-O has been developed and marketed by the entrepreneur sister duo who set up Nidra Home. After degrees in textiles and design (from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London), a short stint with the Fashion Institute of New York and a general restlessness with the monotony of their family export business, Kasturi longed to do something never done before in retail. “During my research, I stumbled upon the concept of mosquito repellents embedded in fabric. That’s how Mos-Quit-O was conceived.” After year-long trials, chemical tests and technical specs were finalised, psychology post-graduate Shreya brought in her marketing acumen in the supply chain and distribution of the product. Nidra Home has recently launched a baby version of this blanket.

Mos-Quit-O claims to be free of odour and side effects. According to the World Health Organisation standards, Mos-Quit-O blankets have been deemed 100 per cent effective as a repellent even after 50 washes, and perfectly safe for infants and toddlers. “If you wash it once a month, Mos-Quit-O proves effective for more than four years,” Kasturi explains. The blanket is priced at Rs 1,999 and the baby blanket costs Rs 999.

“The blanket works out to be cheaper than plug-ins which require constant refills, expensive creams, ineffective wristbands or patches,” Kasturi explains. “It is especially convenient to repel mosquitoes around infants and toddlers on whom creams and plug-ins prove harmful.”

Said Shaina NC, BJP politician and spokesperson, who distributed blankets at the school, “There has been a steep rise in the numbers of dengue and malaria. I have observed that young children, often without access to clean amenities and hygienic surroundings, are most vulnerable. A large committed effort is needed to combat health issues in our city. At this point, creating awareness about mosquito prevention is most crucial.”

Mumbai in the grip of dengue and malaria:

– More than 690 cases of dengue detected in Mumbai.

– The city is the second to rural Chandrapur in being the worst-affected in Maharashtra.

– Surprisingly, 85 per cent of all cases have come from affluent and middle class localities in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

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Watch out for this ‘cancer van’ in Mumbai

Recently inaugurated by CM Devendra Fadnavis, the mobile van will offer free diagnostic services and will tour the State, too.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Cancer is a huge threat to India today. It is killing increasing numbers of Indians every year, and many more are found to have the disease. Several succumb to it owing to lack of proper diagnosis in the early stages of the disease.

It is this latter element that is a big worry for health professionals – the lack of proper diagnosis, which enables the disease to spread unabated and become difficult to control at an advanced stage. Keeping this in mind, the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis recently inaugurated the State’s first mobile cancer van that will tour all over Maharashtra and travel to other parts of the country as well.

Conceptualised and operationalised by the Mumbai-based Shri Subhaschandra Runwal Education Foundation and the All India Marwari Yuva Manch, the van is said to be fitted out with the latest equipment and know-how required in cancer diagnostics. Patients will be screened and tested for free, and additional inputs on their condition will also be sought with a research laboratory based in Canada. Said an official connected with the initiative, “The van will travel all over Maharashtra, and also Assam, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. We are hoping that our initiative will help in the fight against achieving a cancer-free India.”

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Take note of Indian folk artistes, Bollywood: Santosh Sawant

Noted folk music artist and now film director, Santosh Sawant wants Bollywood to feature more folk music to popularise it.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Maharashtra has a rich tradition of folk music but many popular forms of folk music entertainment such as Bharuds, Gondhals, Lavanis, Povadas, Bhaleris, Palanes and Artya have slowly gone off the radar, and are now on their way to extinction. It is a sad state of affairs indeed, that people have forgotten the folk forms peculiar to their home States, as Hindi film music pervades our collective music consciousness.

Actor, filmmaker and music composer Santosh Sawant, aka ‘Pawa’ (meaning ‘flute’ in Marathi), wants the new BJP Government in Maharashtra to save folk singers in the State who are struggling for survival. ‘Pawa’ is a gifted folk singer himself, who tried, unsuccessfully, to gain acceptance in Bollywood – owing to his non-mainstream voice. He is known as a foremost exponent of ‘jhamela’, a form of folk song that throws light on the complexities and tragedies of life. “But I persevered and cut an album with the help of T-series in 2010,” he says. “It was called Voice of The Heart. I am now ready to launch my debut Hindi feature film project titled Jhamela which will showcase the life of a folk singer.” The film is inspired by Sawant’s own life and details jhamela as an art form, among other things. “I hope to make folk music more popular through this film. I shall first show it at 45 renowned international film festivals before showcasing it in India,” says Santosh.

Why the spotlight on folk music?

‘Pawa’ is an engineer by qualification who was born in Ratnagiri but who came to Mumbai for higher studies and stayed on. He had a successful career in the machinery exports business, but his love for music often made him restless. “I was born in the idyllic Kolisare in Ratnagiri, which has lush green hills on one side and pristine virgin beaches on the other side. People here were totally disconnected from the modern world, and I grew up in a culture of folk music, folk dances and folk plays which were displayed during the Jalsa, a local fair prevalant in Konkan,” he remembers, adding that his performances at these fairs earned him the ‘Pawa’ nickname.

'Pawa' performs on stage (1)He claims he has an acting degree from London, and speaks with bitterness of how Bollywood shunned him because “they didn’t want to take a chance with an actor who dabbled in folk music.” Today, he says he works to further the cause of folk music in India and abroad.

Incidentally, during the recent State Elections, the BJP was said to employ around 200 folk singers to campaign for it. Says ‘Pawa’, “I want the BJP to continue its association with folk singers through scholarships, donations and other forms of support.

“Maharashtra’s zestful folk music has the power to hold the audience spellbound. Folk songs have often formed an important part of Indian movies and some of them are memorable to the day. They are melodious, tug at your heart and often end up having repeat value. While folks songs from different regions have gained mass popularity, it is the original folk singer who somewhere down the line faded into oblivion. Rarely has Bollywood rallied around any folk artiste to give them mass coverage and publicity. I think Bollywood should stop neglecting folk singers.”

At present, folk music is being practiced in the approximately 50 Kala Kendras across Maharashtra, most of them in the Marathwada region. There are around 130 travelling Tamasha troupes that perform seasonally and approximately 15 full-time troupes that perform all through the year. Nearly all of them are fighting for survival.

“The modern film viewer has a warped and skewed notion of folk music as most of it is fed by what various regional and national movie industries are churning out. For example, for the viewer, a Lavani is just another item number adding masala to a movie. To add insult to injury, these dances are performed by mainstream actresses, as no one wants to cast the women who have lived and breathed this dance for centuries,” ‘Pawa’ fumes.

Any takers?

Ask him if anybody’s really interested in folk music these days, and he says, “Of course people are interested, they just need to be exposed to folk music. I have my own band, and we have taken Jhamela all across India and even abroad. We use traditional instruments like harmonium and dholki while staging our folk songs and plays. People love the simplicity associated with our songs which we use to denote the great complexities that human life deals with regularly.”

‘Pawa’ says he hopes his film will find resonance even among the urban viewers. “We need to make our folk music, and our folk artistes, more mainstream,” he says. “It is unfortunate that so many are living in oblivion and poverty.”

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‘Swachh Bharat’ is not just a campaign

It has become a trendy new phrase, but maybe we need to take the ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign beyond mere tokenism. Maybe we should try seriously adopting it.
Pooja Birwatkarby Dr Pooja Birwatkar

‘Swachh Bharat’ is the new ‘in’ thing for the country. When the campaign was launched in October this year, I, like so many others, instantly dismissed it as another campaign which would quickly gather dust as fast as it initially gained momentum. But though it is still in its infancy, the campaign has thus far proved us wrong about its estimated short-lived sustenance.

What is most remarkable about this programme is that it has captured the hearts of the nation’s young the most – in itself, a major achievement. What a way to go, if the future of this country is most enamored by this campaign! The other day, my little son and his six-year-old cousin reprimanded an adult who was about to throw an empty chips packet on the street with the words, “Don’t litter, Modiji ne mana kiya hai.”

So why did this particular campaign strike a chord? Is it merely the charisma of Narendra Modi who launched the campaign? Is it something else? One cannot deny that Modi has been the single most powerful force that has made the campaign what it is. But if you think about it, he merely stated what he have now adopted as a way of life in India. His sentiment that gandagi has crept so deep into our system that we have learnt to live with it to the extent that we condition ourselves to overlook it. Yet, subconsciously, gandagi has always bothered us. Which could explain why the first thing anybody on a first-time trip abroad will say on his or her return is, “People don’t throw garbage on the streets there. Everything was so clean! Yahan aisa nahin hai.”

Let’s talk about our own city – Mumbai, the heart of India, a city famous across the world for both its famous and infamous attributes. But just look at the city and what we have turned it into. Filth in IndiaVehicular traffic, a population bulging at the seams, dearth of greenery, plenty of noise and dirt, garbage strewn all over, filthy beaches, polluted air, numerous diseases, poverty, slums…this is the overall picture of this metropolis.

As we marvel over the huge towers and amenity-laden buildings in Mumbai, just peep at the fringes. The magnificent houses with French windows open to a whole world of garbage, but we are able to miraculously able to look beyond it and focus only on the clouds above. We are all collectively living in a big garbage bin, and then we have the gall to call this indifferent attitude ‘the spirit of Mumbai’. And why are we so proud of this ‘spirit’ anyway, if it makes us immune to these evils of our own doing? We even go a step further and expect the BMC and the Government to clean up after us – after all, we pay taxes, do we not? So cleanliness and hygiene is not our problem.

A campaign like ‘Swachh Bharat’ has shaken us. Even more so, because the country’s PM was the first one to pick up a broom. Suddenly, dusting doesn’t look like such a lowly job.

But simply realising the problem is not enough. We have to fuel this campaign at all times. It doesn’t matter if everybody doesn’t participate in it – let’s pledge to first clean our city and not focus simply on our own homes. Mumbai is home to all of us, and it is everybody’s responsibility to ensure its good health.

Dr Pooja Birwatkar is currently pursuing post doctoral research and working in the area of science education. She has been associated with the field of education in the past as a teacher educator, and her area of interest is research in education. 

(Pictures courtesy deccanchronicle.com, www.ndtv.com)

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Training parents of children with autism

Most therapies centre around treating autistic children. This centre, the only one in Mumbai, trains parents to deal with autism.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s a cosy space located very close to Khar railway station, and at first glance, the hustle and bustle doesn’t reveal much of what goes on behind its doors. Frankly, SAI Connections initially seems like any other place that would counsel and house autistic children for a few hours every day, much like other therapy centres located all over Mumbai.

Then you get the chance to meet the centre’s director, Kamini Lakhani, and once she starts talking about what the Centre does and how it imparts training to parents of children suffering from autism, you begin to realise how simple and powerful the idea behind the Centre really is. Kamini says, “If you train a parent [of an autistic child to deal with autism], you’re training them for life. That training stays with the family forever.”

She should know. She and her husband, Anil, started SAI (which stands for ‘Support for Autistic Individuals) in 2004 for deeply personal reasons. “My older child, Mohit (in pic on left, with Kamini), was diagnosed with autism when he was three years old,” Kamini remembers. “I was completely devastated. I looked for information online and everywhere else. Then I gathered all the material I had collected and I remember flinging it in the doctor’s face, asking him how it was possible that such a bright, beautiful three-year-old boy could have autism…” she says.

After the initial phase of denial came slow acceptance. The couple was living in South Korea at the time, and made several trips to the US to get better services for Mohit. During this time, they truly began to receive an education about autism. “In the course of 15 years, I studied and trained to be the best teacher I could be for my own son,” Kamini says. She went on to become a board-certified Associate Behaviour Analyst, certified by the BACB (Behavior Analyst Certification Board), USA in June 2005. Four years later, she completed her RDI (Relationship Development Intervention) and is the only BCABA and RDI Program certified consultant in India.

She started SAI Connections in 2004 after moving to India in 2002. “I realised there was an urgent need for a Centre that would help not just autistic children, but also impart training to parents on dealing with the disorder,” she says. “Unfortunately, I still find that most intervention for autism in India happens at the level of special education and speech therapy – treatment for mental retardation. “Most people, even educators, have not heard of RDI for autism. We need to spread awareness about it to help the millions of children and their parents in the country,” she says.

What is RDI?

Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) is the process that ‘corrects’ the ‘feedback’ between an autistic child and the parent. “In a developing relationship, there is a ‘feedback system’ between the child and his parents. But with an autistic child, there is a breakdown somewhere. The child does not give feedback, so the relationship is skewed. As RDI consultants, we are trained to assess where this breakdown is, see how the parent is behaving,” explains Kamini. “This goes to the core of the issue and helps in normalising the relationship. We change what the parent is doing. This changes what the child is doing. Hence, we actually bring about a co-regulation in behaviour.”

“The disorder is hardest on those who are closest to the child – the parents,” Kamini explains. “Unfortunately in India, there is not much awareness about the symptoms of autism. Even teachers in schools are unable to spot the symptoms. A child suffering from autism is normally branded as a hyperactive, troublesome child by both parents and teachers.” She adds that their inability to socialise appropriately, their non-understanding or inability to interpret social cues and the fact that most of them can’t fit in with peers, sets them up for bullying in social settings. “We need to train schools and parents everywhere. Fortunately, we are slowly seeing that schools in Mumbai are getting more open to the idea of training teachers and hosting sensitisation programmes to deal with autistic children,” she says. The training, she says, needs to focus on dealing with aggression, or a change in behaviour.

What SAI Connections does

The Centre is an activity space for autistic children with active participation from their parents, and stresses on RDI. “We train them in art, cooking, vocational skills. There is also physical activity, a time set aside for music,” Kamini explains. “We have 25 special educators, one cccupational therapist, one speech therapist, five teachers’ assistants and a group of dedicated volunteers.” Parents must mandatorily be a part of the activities – they are invited to attend, be a part of the sessions or simply sit and watch. The Centre ensures transparency in functioning by involving parents in every step of the process, and every room has CCTV cameras that keep watch on all parts of the Centre.

SAI Connections has also, since last year, started a training programme for potential educators in RDI; this is a certification programme lasting over a year. “We have already trained four individuals, and many more have enrolled,” she says, adding that the programme involves training, working with families and providing consultations under supervision from programme directors, at a cost of about 9,000 USD per year. Kamini also receives many queries for online sessions and has already imparted training to individuals in Bangalore and Delhi.

“Ultimately, only proper training will help in a deeper understanding of autism. The numbers of autistic children are staggering, and so many more are not diagnosed yet. The biggest mistake people make is to think that children in the autism spectrum lack something. They are hugely capable individuals and we must never give up on them,” she says.

Connect with Kamini Lakhani at SAI Connections & SAI Child Development Center, 201, 2nd Floor, Bhagya Ratan Niwas, above Prabhu Jewellers, 3rd road, Khar (W), Mumbai. Call 022 2605 0992/ 26050991/ +91 98203 14925. Email sai.connections@ymail.com/ saiconnections01@gmail.com.

(Pictures courtesy SAI Connections)

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