What a Summer !

I was visiting Chennai last week.

From an average of 34 deg C in Mumbai, the increase was to the extent of some 8 deg C in Chennai ! While I am not a newcomer to Chennai, it was made clear to me (by my relatives and friends) that I had landed in what was the “Agni” week of the Chennai Summer. “Agni” means fire !

The simmering heat during the peak sun was barely bearable, but the worst thing was that the electricity board cut off the power supply to residential premises for some two hours every day – different parts of the city have the power cut at different times of the day. In my house, it was from 2 PM to 4 PM. In some areas, it was from 8 to 10 AM and in most other areas, it was from 10 AM to 12 Noon. You can imagine the torture when you are at home or office and the air conditioner stops working !

I noticed that most residential premises have invested in a unique contraption – the “inverter”, which provides electricity during the power cut for a duration of 2 to 4 hours (depending on battery capacity and the number of rooms/lights/fans to be covered). The approximate cost of such a device is some INR 12,000 (USD 220) for addressing the needs of the living room and one bedroom (an approximate estimation only). So, in Chennai, a family has to invest in such devices, import water (as water supply is equally erratic) at high cost, pay for inflation in fruits and vegetables, pay one of the highest prices for petrol in the country, suffer the heat, and still sustain one of the highest real estate prices in the country !

This is not to complain – Chennai is far better organized than most metropolitan cities in India, has better quality roads, is in the process of completing the metro rail network, has a booming IT (Information Technology) economy now supplemented by a fast-emerging automotive industry, has a conscientious workforce, and is challenged with much less crime than other States of India. In devising its model for development of the State, the Tamil Nadu State comes only next to Gujarat. So, overall, the situation is good and should improve vastly if the State Government manages to fix the power situation and continues to provide incentives to the manufacturing and IT industries.

But, can we buy the weather ? Of course, not. The prudent thing is to ensure continuous power supply to both residential and industrial customers across the State.

Now, I am back in the 32 – 34 deg C Summer in Mumbai and surely, I did not feel the heat wave during the day though it was slightly uncomfortable if one is over-dressed !

Welcome to the Summer ! Enjoy it with cold buttermilk and fresh juices !!

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

28th May 2012

Mumbai

BIXI Bikes

I used BIXI bikes (cycles) to go around Montreal recently. See “BIXI @ Montreal”

What a great user-friendly, environment-friendly and simple transportation system that they have out here ? The BIXI stations are all over the place, in many corners of the city, in many streets, very easy to get a bike almost anywhere around the city.

There are biking trails clearly laid out in most streets, you just follow the trails and ride on them………even if there are no biking trails, you can still ride on the bikes and follow the traffic rules. Car drivers are very considerate when they encounter bike riders, they let them pass before making a turn for example. I was a bit worried in the beginning when I rented the nice-looking cycle from an automated BIXI station (they charge C$ 5 for a 24-hour period, with the condition that no ride can last more than 30 minutes at a time). For just about INR 225, you can ride the bike for 24 hours ! The catch is that every trip can last a maximum of 30 minutes, otherwise there is an extra usage charge. But this is not a real problem as I discovered. You just figure out where to go, take a bike, and then ride for some 30 minutes. Return the bike at any available BIXI station, and then take another bike, not much waiting time as bikes are always available. Or, take a walk for sometime, have a cup of coffee, and then take from the next station !

Great system, works all the time, no glitches…….you get the code from the station, key it in at the desired bike point into a keypad, and pull out the bike. You return the bike at any available point by pushing it in, and the green light flashes. Bingo !

I don’t think that such a system will ever be successful in Indian cities. I don’t have to explain.

I believe that such a system promotes an active lifestyle, apart from conserving the environment. It is really a hassle-free transportation system, implemented with much zeal and precision.

Try it when you find some time !

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
29 May 2011
Mumbai

Lavasa – a first impression

Lavasa is a hill city in the Western Ghats of India, approximately an hour and thirty minutes drive from Pune, and approximately four hours drive from Mumbai. Lavasa has been heavily advertised over the past couple of years, and I had been surprised opening a copy of the Time magazine and seeing a beautiful ad on Lavasa.

Controversy has plagued Lavasa of late, with the Ministry of Environment of Government of India stopping all construction work at Lavasa due to the potential damage to the fragile and rich environmental ecosystem in the Western Ghats.

There is no construction going on currently. But I did not see any major evidence of damage to the environment. The Dasve town is neat and the roads are pretty, for a change (as compared to other hill stations in India). The lake front has been done up quite well, and there are many eating places in an alfresco fashion laid out nicely along the water front.

I liked the place, though the weather was a bit warm. The infrastructure has come up quite well, and if the vision of the developer is allowed to be fully implemented, I have no doubt that a world-class hill city would come alive in its full splendour in the next couple of years.

Please take a look – “LAVASA” , and “VISITING LAVASA”

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
30th April 2011
Mumbai

India’s Nuclear Future

It is now clearly emerging as a big question mark, not just in the minds of the government and nuclear regulators, but also in the minds of educated citizens, in the aftermath of what happened at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

There are a number of commentaries in the press about the problems that the current nuclear plants could face in the event of an earthquake or a tsunami. While the Kalpakkam Nuclear Plant did face a Tsunami in 2004 and survived, the Indian Government is not leaving anything to chance and has instituted a comprehensive study of the current safety procedures in all of the Indian Nuclear Plants. That is good and hopefully there would be further improvements made in the safety manuals soon, taking the inputs from the Japan incident and the IAEA.

However, what could not be easily addressed is the perception in the minds of both villagers and urbanites regarding the uncertainties of the nuclear future, if the Fukushima Plant situation deteriorates further with radiation clouds attacking Tokyo. There will be immediate parallels drawn in many countries, but with India embarking on a major nuclear power expansion over the coming decade, the spectre of a Mumbai or a Kolkata coming under a nuclear clowd is looming large. Even China, with its aggressive nuclear investments, has just suspended approvals for all new nuclear plant projects.

The Indian Government would now face huge challenges in the Parliament in view of the fact that the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra selected for the first major nuclear power plant is mildly earthquake prone and is on the coast of the Arabian Sea. Given the fact that the nuclear plants of the design being proposed would require huge amounts of cooling water, it is inevitable that the plants are to be located on sea coasts. This cannot be avoided, thereby exposing the plants to tsunami-type attacks.

Apart from the various technical challenges in setting up a massive nuclear plant, one has to contend with displacement of people from villages affected by the plant and the environmental situation on the ground. So, the nuclear future of India has suddenly come under a “clowd”. There is of course, no choice for the government but to invest in nuclear energy, which is clean and does not depend on fossil fuels. However, safety is emerging as the key decision criterion – safety to the workers in the plant, safety to the villagers who would live near the plant, and safety of the huge population centres of urban India such as Mumbai.

One has to wait and watch the situation unfolding in Japan and what learnings can be had from the very serious incident. In the meanwhile, things will move very, very slowly on the ground at various nuclear projects not only in India but all over the world.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
19th March 2011
Mumbai

Japan’s Disasters – Natural & Man-made

Japan has been struck by three disasters in the last couple of weeks.

Japan has always been prone to earthquakes, so it was not surprising that it got hit by a massive earthquake. Similarly, the Tsunami was also not a major surprise. What was surprising is that Japan did not prepare itself adequately, though it is the best prepared nation to handle natural disasters in the entire world.

How does one explain the contradiction in the previous statement ?

Japan has known all along that it is lying on the fault lines of earth plates which could rub each other and cause a major earthquake and a tsunami anytime. Japan is always prepared and has been educating its population for a long time on how to handle natural disasters. So the point here is that as a nation, Japan was totally prepared.

But a couple of things went wrong – rather very wrong. One was the scale of the earthquake, measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale. The other was the huge Tsunami as an outcome of the earthquake, which resulted in huge waves of 9 metres high washing away and destructing anything on the way. But the most important thing that went wrong was the early warning system: Japan was still dependent on the ancient cable-based sensor system, and it is only natural that cables get ruptured under the sea when the earthquake moves the earth plates. Japan should have adopted or borrowed from the satellite-based buoy system implemented by the U.S. after the 2004 Tsunami which hit Indonesia and other countries. The advanced warning system would have given some few but crucial hours of warning to the government and to the people likely to be affected, and lives would have been saved.

Initially I thought that there would only be a few lives lost (unlike in India) since Japan was a developed country with advanced warning and protection systems well entrenched in place to save its citizens. When I first heard that only 3 people were dead, then I reassured myself that my call on the potential of destruction was rather correct. But it was not to be, as we all know now. More than 6,500 people are dead and more than 10,000 people are missing as of yesterday.

Apart from these natural disasters, Japan was also hit with a massive nuclear disaster as a result of power cut-off to the nuclear plant’s back-up power generators, which resulted in inadequate cooling for the fuel rods. Apparently, the entire country is in danger, and it is difficult to believe the Japanese Government when it said that people were safe beyond a radius of some 20 miles from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Authorities always tend to understate the extent of the damages caused, due to the fact that any actual reporting would cause panic among the people. There were several contradictions between the assessments made by the government officials in Washington and Tokyo. The nuclear regulatory authority, the IAEA, could not actually report much, except to state that the situation is serious.

I am surprised to note that Japan has not deployed robots to handle fuel and control rods and other nuclear plant activities (given the dangerous nature of the work involved) when otherwise the entire country is teeming with robots in manufacturing plants and old-age homes. Now it is forced to use human beings who are getting severely irradiated while struggling to save the plant and avoid its melt down.

This shows that priorities were wrong and decisions were not taken to implement the latest safety systems on time, may be in the hope that the plant itself was going to be retired from service soon. But whatever it is, clearly there has been dereliction of oversight responsibility and I am not surprised to see that Japan is not firing any of its ministers or regulators. That has always been the case in Japan all this while.

Well, we can now only hope that authorities would try to seal off the plant permanently and they will be successful in stopping any further radiation into the atmosphere.

No Cheers !

Vijay Srinivasan
19th March 2011
Mumbai

What a Contrast…….

The roads in Dubai and the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) system are world class. While I was aware of the road quality in Dubai (though not completely impressed with the road sound which is higher than it should be at high speeds) due to my past several trips, I was amazed at the manner and the speed at which the MRT system has been completed in record time (looks like they did it in 2 years !).

And, compare that with the roads in Mumbai and the struggle to implement the MRT system. It is accepted that we are talking here about two cities with widely differing characteristics and infrastructure. Mumbai probably has four times the population of Dubai at the minimum. And has far too many complications to be controlled as effectively as a Dubai or a Singapore, no doubt !

However, the vast depths of the non-stop undulations on the most unremarkable roads in any major city occur in Mumbai and the difference is immediately palpable once your car pulls out of the Mumbai Airport on to its roads. Constant ups and downs. Craters. Never-ending construction work with no safety precautions or meagre safety to say the least. Confusing traffic signs. Police at every corner to catch motorists. Uneducated and foolish drivers, who risk their lives to cross a traffic signal (sometimes they do look well educated, wearing ties, etc.). Pedestrians who constantly keep crossing the roads, not heeding the traffic signals either. Pedestrians who even cross high-speed highways. Accidents involving heavy lorries. I can go on and on……..

None of this you can see in Dubai, which is truly an aspiring world-class city with almost impeccable infrastructure. My only complaint is that their carbon footprint appears to be on the higher side, given the number of malls (including the current biggest mall in the world). They can’t help it as their economy depends mostly on tourists.

Well, the contrast between the two cities cannot be more striking. Of course, the airports are vastly different as well. Dubai’s Airport is known as one of the most shopper-friendly and efficient airports in the world. It was painful earlier to get through Mumbai Airport, but these days it is easier to get out (though not to “get in”) of Mumbai Airport, breezing through the Immigration and Customs. However, the quality of the two airports is starkly different, for there to see by everyone – Mumbai has a long, long way to reach the level of sophistication, friendliness, infrastructure that the Dubai airport can easily boast of itself.

Hope we will catch up one day, may be within the next five years !

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
2nd February 2011
Mumbai

Ambient Noise

India is, in general, a noisy place.

There is just too much noise in most places around a city. Even at an airport…….where normally things should be sober. However, what one finds is the constant interruption by announcers of multiple airlines, announcing the departures of their respective flights, or calling out the names of the passengers who have gone missing.

Who should care, and why care at all ?

Agreed that there may be some illiterate folks, but they should seek special help via separate help desks. They should be guided if required, or if the check-in officer finds that they are struggling to even check-in properly.

But what we do find most of the time is that the guys who go missing are not these uneducated folks. They are pretty well-dressed, and speak English. Most probably they were shopping or trying to finish a cup of coffee when the departure gates were closing.

Honestly, there is no need for the airlines to bother and disturb thousands of passengers waiting to board their flights. The issue is security. What happens if someone does not deliberately board having checked in their baggage ? Airlines are supposed to download such baggages. Well, hopefully the latest X-ray scanners and explosive detectors will do their jobs correctly, and flights can depart even if the missing passenger does not board.

Coming back to the point – the noise levels are way too high in airports. For frequent travellers, one option is to mentally shut off all the noise, or to focus on some music. For non-music lovers, the option is to focus on reading newspapers or the laptops. Nevertheless it is disturbing that things haven’t changed in Indian airports.

Let us see any other global airport like Singapore or Dubai – there is hardly any noise. People go about doing their stuff without undue disturbance. Why can’t we learn from them ? Do we bother about best practices ?

On the roads, one need not ask. I nowadays “see” the noise rather than hear it – some conditioning of the mind, I should say. And, by doing something else which absorbs one’s attention, I do not sometimes see also……….

Conditioning of the mind – that is what we need if we have to get away from the noise. Or else, travel to the countryside once in a while to get fresh air and hear only natural noises !

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
26th January 2011
Mumbai

Environmental Protection Vs Economic Development

Of late, the Environment Ministry of India has been rejecting several large projects of national importance.

There is a raging debate around the country on the new proactive approach taken by the government. Some people, especially the activist NGOs, laud the new direction and active pursuit of environmental offenders, such as those manufacturing houses which have flouted forest conservation norms prescribed in the rules. Many people, though, question the adhocism practiced in the decision-making processes of the government.

Is India ready for the first-world practices on environmental conservation ? First, there is no real basis – India is probably the only country in the world which has actually increased the forest cover in the country by implementation of regulations for the past four decades. Notwithstanding the fact that forest poachers have proliferated, killing tigers and hawking elephant tusks and what not. Secondly, the most pressing need of the hour is not the environment as such – it is finding jobs for the teeming millions of Indians who are entering the workforce every year – not less than 10M freshers per year for the next many years !

First world countries can easily talk about their environment and try to impose their ideals on us – for them it is beneficial for India to depend on them for economic development however. If one really probes, it is easy to identify cases wherein first-world countries seem to only talk but fall head over heels when it comes to grabbing business – witness the unabashed salesmanship of President Obama when he visited India earlier this month, pushing for all kinds of large deals which would create nearly 60,000 American jobs back home.

So, it is absolutely clear that for ALL, business and economics come first in the pecking order.

Economic development is critical for India. Not just for its infrastructural development, but for its people development. India needs to reach USD 5,000 per capita in the next 10 years, becoming a USD 6T economy from its current USD 1.4T size. This is not going to be possible, if India tries to do everything in a perfect manner. Bread and economics come first, environment should come second, not the other way around. It is not that the entire world is queuing up to invest in the Indian manufacturing sector – what we are seeing is only “hot” money in the stock market, not really the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) – we are still getting peanuts (less than USD 10B in the first half of the current fiscal) when compared to China or even Indonesia.

So, what are we talking here – we should try to encourage every industrialist who wishes to invest in India, not push him out of the country, because he is going to tell ten others how he has been treated in India. Problems will persist, but a time-bound resolution is a must. All government officials should be compensated on delivering results for India and Indian people. It is as simple as saying “go and find jobs for 10M Indians every year”, rather than worrying about whether a Walmart will swallow the mom-and-pop shops : such shops will never be able to provide large employment and generate demand.

So, the conclusion here is straightforward : when forests have long been de-notified, follow the rules in place and try to work out a mechanism by which the rules are implemented with (a) compassion for the affected people who can potentially be employed ; and, (b) a methodology by which the destruction of the forest is suitably compensated not by money as taxes but by creation of equivalent forest cover elsewhere in the same state for which the funding will be provided directly to the forest department of the state concerned by the manufacturing entity, instead of creating a pool of centrally-administered fund which never gets properly deployed in the affected state. The economic development of the affected states and the number of direct jobs created in the state should be enough justification for going ahead, and a national approvals authority should provide one-stop approval for such large projects. The motto is to avoid confusion and flip-flops in the decision-making, have transparency and clear rules, and let all people benefit in the process.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
20th November 2010
Mumbai

Pollution in Mumbai

Of late, I am noticing worsening levels of air pollution in Mumbai.

Unless the government takes total responsibility and introduces legislation to levy fines on polluting industries and bodies as well as citizens, situation will only keep deteriorating. Heavy fines on the originators of air and water pollutions would make people finally think about the current and future consequences to their health, their childrens’ well-being and the future of the city.

Apart from enacting a tough-to-violate legislation, the government should also follow the lead of Delhi and eliminate gas-guzzling vehicles from the roads. Old vehicles of any kind should go off the road, irrespective of political impact that such unpopular decisions might have – the government of the day has to worry about the overall health of its citizens rather than pandering to political constituencies. It is rather critical now to take those key decisions and move forward.

Delhi was one of the most polluted cities in the world, and over the past few years it has become one of the least polluted atleast in India. This is not due to political or government leadership, but due to judicial activism from the portals of the Supreme Court of India, which saw that the dithering politicians are not going to decide on controlling “economic” advantages of pollution-filled environment and moved to pass court orders to reduce pollution levels by asking all buses to run on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). The result is there for all to see – hardly any bus/lorry-generated air pollution.

But do other large cities, such as Mumbai, have the guts to enact such rules ?

While our governments dither, the pollution keeps increasing. In one recent study, the permissible level of air particles in an area called Sion in Central Mumbai measured 324 units as against the permissible level of 100 units. Who are the main sufferers – people with weak lungs : small children and elderly citizens. Such high levels of pollution causes chronic bronchitis.

Is the government going to wake up and take serious actions ? That would be anybody’s guess today. In the name of industrialization, are we going to compromise the health of millions of citizens ? The choice is amply clear for any rational body or individual. Is the choice clear to the government and the courts of law in this part of the country ? Immediate and concerted actions, with no fear or favour, and limiting construction activity within the main city and its suburbs, would lead to much improved levels of pollution index.

To become a world-class city and allow the citizens to enjoy a good quality of life, it is imperative that we look at the environmental sustainability and control the bad influences on the environment. I hope the government, and if not the government, the courts of law, will raise the matter. The only alternative is public litigation and the voice of the concerned citizens.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
31st October 2010
Mumbai

Craters in Mumbai

I first thought that some meteorites from outer space have fallen on Mumbai roads when I saw big craters. One cannot blame me for such thoughts, it looked like almost reality.

But the fact is that continuous monsoon rains have again caused havoc to Mumbai roads, and exposed yet again the poor quality of re-surfacing which is carried out every year after the rains completely stop. How is it that when torrential rains hit developed countries’ cities, the road is perfectly fine – examples close to India being Singapore and Malaysia ?

And, it is a disgrace to see such bad quality of roads both near the International Airport as well as the Domestic Airport. The car speed drops to just about 10 to 20 KMPH, to facilitate navigation on such craters and to avoid serious damage to the suspension.

Even in some of the other cities of India, such as Chennai, or Ahmedabad, or Hyderabad, the roads seem to be of a better quality than in Mumbai, though not as good as the ones abroad. While we have come a long way in the “high tech” area with global recognition, we still do not seem to be able to enhance our infrastructure and environment. The quality of life in the best city of India is still a big question mark. Mumbai is clearly the leader amongst cities of India – in terms of its cosmopolitan nature, business concentration, entertainment business concentration, financial dominance, et al. However, the government is not in a position to direct its infrastructural investments in a quality manner, keeping in mind that the lowest bidder will never deliver quality in a tender which uses public money.

May be such work should be completely outsourced to an independent authority with the only deliverable as “ensuring quality of life for citizens when they are out on the roads and interface with public infrastructure and environment”, rather than just cost reduction and resultant poor quality.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
29th August 2010
Mumbai