VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Vizag’s word of the year is “Smart”! Ever since the US offered to develop Vizag as a smart city along with Ajmer and Allahabad the word “Smart” has permeated every Vizagite’s conscience. All you have to do to charge up a dull party is ask loudly “what exactly is this Smart city everyone is talking about?” Once that question is injected into the conversation a riot follows. The mild and polite conversation suddenly becomes animated and opinionated.  Interpretation of what a “Smart City” means flies around like a bug in a can creating quite a buzz. In the end the wise man in the corner, nursing his drink, says that it simply means that the citizens of the city should be “happy”. Then, suddenly, exhausted by the arguments, everyone calms down and becomes happy. Smartness is the answer If we go by the Webster dictionary meaning the word “smart” is defined as (a) “very good at learning or thinking about things “, (b) showing intelligence or good judgment”, (c) “behaving or ta...

Last month our Chief Minister announced that Andhra Pradesh would achieve 100% literacy by the year 2020. This is an important objective, because our state has not been doing well on the literacy front. Here are some sobering figures. The national average literacy rate is 74%. The southern states, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have literacy rate of 93.91%, 75.6% and 80.33 respectively. In comparison the literacy rate in Andhra Pradesh is a mere 67.41% and in Telengana it is 66.5%.    Educational infrastructure is improving The primary schools in our Agency Areas such as Araku, Paderu and Chintapalli are run by the Integrated Tribal Development Authority (ITDA) based in Paderu. Over the past many years the government has been injecting substantial financial resources into the area to build up infrastructure such as school buildings, roads, health, electricity and water supply.  Even though we have the physical infrastructure in place we are unable to deliver q...

The United Nations World Tourism Organization  (UNWTO) has declared 27 th September as World Tourism Day. The day serves to remind us that in this modern world, tourism is one of the most important human activities by way of numbers of persons employed and revenue generated. Every year countries throughout the world celebrate this day with great fanfare and rededicate themselves to improving their tourism industry. The theme for this year is “1 Billion Tourists, 1 Billion Opportunities” . 1,000,000,000 international tourists Now, keep your calculator, pencil and paper handy … we are entering number land. In 2012 for the first time a billion people packed their bags and went travelling internationally.  Take a moment to understand this number. One billion is equal to a 1,000 million, or 100 Crores. This is 20 times the population of divided Andhra Pradesh and around 80% of our nation’s population. With a world population now a shade over 7 billion people this mean...

To read the article as it appeared in the Times of India, please click on this link Cultural genocide in our hills or read the original word document below Our children speak the language and imbibe the culture that we (and our living room flat TV) pass on to them, the same language and culture that we imbibed from our parents and grandparents. Along with language, each generation passes on knowledge of music, songs, folklore, traditions, religious practices and cuisine generation to generation and are kept alive for posterity. Cultural genocide at our doorstep We take this historical passing on of the cultural baton as a matter of routine. No one really gives it much thought. But imagine if our children were taken away from us at a young age of 8 or 9 and injected into a completely different environment where they get insulated from their parents, elders and their original way of life. If they were removed from the tapestry of their original culture and weaved into an al...

Click on this link or read the document below VUDA Version 3, is bigger better? VUDA version 3 Sohan Hatangadi Appeared on 23 Aug 2015 You may have heard that the Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority (VUDA) is soon to become Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Development Authority (VMDA). Somehow the word “Vuda” had a nice ring to it. It sounded much like that wonderful snack, with a hole in the middle and a loyal partner of the humble idly. How easily “Vuda” rolled off the tongue. Now we have to deal with this completely unpronounceable word VMDA! Try pronouncing that word … “vamda, vumda, vmda” … gosh, there is no easy way to say it; we must get accustomed to say it alphabet wise “Vee, Em, Dee, Ay”. Genesis VUDA started out as the “Town Planning Trust” way back in 1962. Vizagites perceived it as a benevolent organization with the objective of planned development and housing and infrastructure in Vizag. Old timers remember that the TPT had a fair reputation for deve...

Either click on the Times of India link or read the document pasted below. Do share your views and comments. Festival Fiasco - the down side of festivals in Vizag Festival fiasco Sohan Hatangadi Appeared 6 September 2015 Vizagites have been traditionally celebrating festivals such as Sankaranthi, Shiva Ratri, Vinayaka Chatruthi for several years with great enthusiasm. Festivals are a time for rejoicing and connecting with our roots. We have a cosmopolitan population and it is natural that certain festivals like Holi, Deepavali and Durga Puja normally ethnic to communities from different parts of India have been adapted by locals and gained in popularity in recent years. With cultural diversity festival traditions pass on from one community to another and in the process the way the festival is celebrated goes through change giving it a local flavor and relevance. Private limited to public unlimited In Vizag’s earlier years a few well organized functions would ca...

The Pushkarams Phenomena http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/The-Pushkarams-phenomenon/articleshow/48129734.cms The death of several devotees at a stampede at the Pushkar Ghat on the banks of the Godavari on the first day of the Pushkara earlier this week has left everyone shocked. There are two aspects to the disaster; (a) the failure of the administration to manage the crowds and (b) the way the crowd itself behaved leading up to the stampede. There is enough being said on how the administration did not anticipate the numbers of devotees, how standard crowd control systems were ignored and the role of VVIPs in this fiasco. It is never politically correct to speak ill of the victims but it is quite clear that the mindless surge of humanity intent on being at the precise place at the most auspicious time contributed to the tragedy. Is timing everything? Relevant to this issue is our belief in the notion of “most auspicious” moment. It is difficult to ...

Please click on this link to read about how we met Pinnai Dora. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/How-we-met-Pinnai-Dora/articleshow/47660558.cms Or read it here: It was the winter of 1972. Late that afternoon, on an impulse, four of us decided to jump on our two bikes and head up to Lambasinghi. The road was bad and we arrived at the Lambasinghi ghat foothills only by nightfall. It was too dark and bike lights were lousy those days so we decided to stop for the night. We parked our bikes in a field and fortified with swigs of dark stuff and ensconced in leather jackets and thick jeans, we snuggled into a haystack to spend the night. We slept deeply and early next morning we looked around to discover that we were near a hamlet with a few huts and a tiffin shack. There are certain duties that are to be performed in the morning, therefore we asked for a chambu of water and trundled off into yonder fields to fertilize the soil. Greatly refreshed after ou...