I must congratulate the organisers for organising and bringing in just the
right speakers to guide us in these turbulent times. Very briefly, Rajdeep(
CNN-IBN) cautioned on excessive government control and manipulation of the
Media ,Nandan (Infosys) scrupously avoided mentioning politicians and
governance.( In fact when he was asked why the people of Goa have objections to
Industrialisation, Casino culture etc he pointedly stated ask
your government!).Dr Guha (Historian and Intellectual) boldly stated it like it
is, why India is the most interesting and exasperating country in the
world.This talk should have been compulsory for our politicians and
bureaucrats. He was forthright like our retiring Lok Sabha speaker
Chatterjee.The best speaker ( who had comparatively the least audience) was
Expert on Urban planning Jaime Lerner. Absolutely down to earth, hands on
grassroots man ,who found his town being destroyed by the policies of his
government.Nobody would listen to this Architects simple ideas,
so he even became a garbage collector worker, ran for Mayor so he
could implement his ideas , became governor, eventually world famous and
consultant to UNO for Urban planning.He said 1) A model city is possible with
limited budget 2) Different from today's planning,he advised not to be afraid
to keep it simple."GIVE ROOM TO PEOPLE TO CORRECT YOU.DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE ALL
THE ANSWERS".This he emphasised is the key.3)For participatory planning to
work, start with ideas that majority can understand and is desirable. It should
be creative with sustainability in mind. 4)You get creativity when you cut zero
from your budget, sustainability when you cut two zeros from your budget! Our
builders,Industrialists and politicians should be quoting this and not out of
context excerpts from the other speakers to justify "Business as Usual". Mr.
Lerner gave concrete examples of how he achieved a Happy Quotient for all
concerned in Curitaba (Brazil)
and got the Kala audience to sing to his"You Can Do IT".These
Kosambi lectures should serve as an eye opener to our government and warning
to our Town and Country Planners for a balanced Development Plan where greed
and corruption are sought to be minimised, and from the elaborate exercise of
formulating RP 2021 , hopefully will emerge a win win policy worthy of the
beautiful land and people of Goa.
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