KT Ravindran, who probably has no clue how SPA
students, faculty and alumni engaged on pushta 2004
and 2006, opining (rather, rooting for DfID sponsored
national slum policy) at celeb-do about pushta
demolitions -- as SPA dean (while SPA director was
summoned by HRD for the latest SPA *scandal*)!
Hope he made the screen-test and goes away to becomes
famous Bollywood star. Amen.
24.08.06: HT: p.4
RDB director takes up cause of Yamuna slum dwellers
New Delhi
RAKEYSH OM Prakash Mehra, the director of Bollywood
blockbuster Rang De Basanti, has taken up the rights
of slum dwellers in Yamuna who are being forcibly
evicted without proper rehabilitation.
Speaking at the release of Yamuna Gently Weeps, a book
that documents the demolition of 40,000 Yamuna Pushta
jhuggis within a matter of few weeks, Mehra said that
we seem to have got freedom from British rule only to
become slaves of our own government. He was critical
of the government machinery that on one hand fails to
provide ba sic shelter needs but on the other hand
renders migrant refugees homeless.
The book has been written by journalist Ruzbeh N
Bharucha who had gone to the slums to document the
community development schemes in the Pushta but ended
up witnessing the demolition of the jhuggis.
The demolition also marked the end of aspirations of
over two lakh jhuggi dwellers who had grouped together
into a thriving migrant community over period of forty
years, Bharucha said.
Courts, instead of compelling the authorities to
enforce the housing rights of the poor, have been
taking sides with the govern ment. He said that this
was a matter of grave concern because one in every
three persons in the country will be a migrant slum
dweller in the next thirty years because there is no
rural development that could have checked the
migration of artisans and farmers to the cities.
IPS officer Kiran Bedi, who was one of the key
speakers, said that the demolitions also affected the
various community development schemes in the Pushta.
Dean of School of Planning and Architecture K T
Ravindran said that the Pushta demolitions were in
complete violation of the National Slum Policy.
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