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Strategies Beyond Borders: Tales of Time Banks This webinar series, called "Learning for Alternative Futures"  https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/newsletters:08:collaboration

Metro work causing havoc in Surat in India — by Vidyadhar Date — 28/02/2023
Metro work causing havoc in Surat, in Mr Modi’s home state. In Mumbai bus transport is neglected.

At the same time the governments are heavily discriminating against the low cost bus systems, denying them funds and creating problems for them actually. Rampant privatisation has added to the havoc. In Mumbai the acclaimed BEST Undertaking bus network is being neglected. Last week it took off as many as 400 CNG operated buses from its fleet causing serious hardship to lakhs of commuters. Frequent fires in buses have been cited as the reason.

In Surat’s Varachha area the havoc was caused apparently by a tunnel boring machine. So some residents are getting slush and mud in their water pipes but no drinking water. And this is happening in what is being touted as a smart city.

The Supreme court recently declared that the bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai was of national importance while rejecting a plea by Godrej in a case of land acquisition. but then the Supreme court should also declare bus transport as of much more importance because the bus is the most crucial form of urban transport. nn the bus system is extremely low cost and requires very little infrastructure. Mumbai’s bus transport can easily take care of all the transport needs of the city without one km of Metro.

What Shashi Tharoor said at the Congress plenary that no other party leader did
Story by Kaushik Deka  https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/what-shashi-tharoor-said-at-the-congress-plenary-that-no-other-party-leader-did-2340234-2023-02-27   https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/what-shashi-tharoor-said-at-the-congress-plenary-that-no-other-party-leader-did/ar-AA17YUUz

The former Union minister minced no words when he said: "We must have the courage of our convictions. We could have been more vocal on the Bilkis Bano outrage, the attacks on Christian churches, murder in the name of cow vigilantism, bulldozer demolition of Muslim homes and similar issues." Tharoor said that the Congress should outline the elements of a progressive economic agenda that addresses head on the challenge of unacceptable economic inequality. Like his colleagues, Tharoor also raised the need to launch a direct assault on "rampant crony capitalism", which he said is "concentrating wealth in the hands of a few friends of the ruling regime and is damaging the economy, leading to massive problems of rising unemployment and diminished futures for young Indians".