People like Bhanot have uses; we just know how to spot the opportunities and use them. Since he knows the difference between the world's best sanitation habits and those in India, we should use him, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Corruption is all-pervasive in Indian society and it's a surprise that the Union law minster does not see it that way, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
In this mindless game of the back-and-forth, the government and its several eloquent but stubborn actors seemed to have lost the plot. Too much of spewing to spin a fact deluded them into thinking that the game was already won; that Hazare would quietly leave Delhi, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
In this mindless game of the back-and-forth, the government and its several eloquent but stubborn actors seemed to have lost the plot. Too much of spewing to spin a fact deluded them into thinking that the game was already won; that Hazare would quietly leave Delhi, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
These days when things are slipping a lot more than ever in the country, most citizens are in despair, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
If public-spirited citizens not career politicians could be elected to civic bodies, then our nation's cities would be much better governed, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Children as a collective seem to be no one's concern anywhere. Nothing is made child-friendly including the toys which being cheap and poorly made, putting them at risk, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Unless the citizens demand and secure in each sector a citizens' charter setting out the minimum standards of provisioning and performance, things will not improve, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
If the city runs, it is thanks to the people who brave every odd. The city has to thank the people, not its governors for its survival, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The metropolitan regions of Mumbai generally depend on the core city for its identity and economy. It could be differently designed and developed so the metropolitan region has a better economic activity and help depopulate Mumbai, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
For everyone who is exercised enough to give vent by joining the demonstrations at Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Ground, there are a few thousands who remain quiet. This is where the strength of the corrupt is. This is what pre-empts a Jasmine Revolution and why India will not have a Tahrir Square, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
What Arvind Kejriwal or his other colleagues say finds resonance. It cannot be dampened. Now it has come to pass that people do not have to prove that politicians and politics are dirty; the latter have to prove that they are not, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Those talking about euthanasia using Aruna Shanbaug as leverage had better cry out for an actively functioning, effective and affordable healthcare regime. That would be a better service rendered to those who need it, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
No amount of stink, or raising one to correct it, would work quick enough to change the order of things. Toilets, you see, are our least priority, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The arguments against making voting compulsory do not hold water, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
It is time to think and do something drastically differently to boost tourism into India, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Once civic elections are done with, the system discards the voter from the realm of self-governance, the essence of the grassroots democracy. The voter's vote, it appears, has been subverted by a system, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The move to legitimise the occupants of pre-1995 slum homes till the year 2000 is welcome, but incomplete in managing the issue of Mumbai's slums. It is once again, a patchy effort, not fully thought through, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Can a corrupt revenue system be trusted to keep confidences when oodles of money are involved, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar
Sriramulu has proved that a politician is true to his own self, his own needs, his own mentors of the moment, and that the public does not matter after the vote is cast. The voter is to be remembered only at the next round of elections, whenever it is, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mahesh Vijapurkar was a student when the Telangana agitation began, with Osmania University as its epicentre. With the new state finally set to become a reality, he looks back on the lost years
I for one would not use a car on Novermber 27, which is car-free day for Sounth Mumbai. For from tokenism and symbolism good ideas can come to grow and make a difference, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mahesh Vijapurkar laments the decay and decline of India's premier city.
The common man thinks that the stringent Lokpal law promised would take care of all corruption and rid the country of the malaise. It will not, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The campaign should have started as a demand for total revolution to usher in good governance of which probity in public life as a quintessential element, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
It needed the high court to ensure proper roads in 2006 and the civic body has assumed that having met the court's demands was time-barred and confined to only that year. Accepted specifications had to be adhered to, work standards had to be followed and roads had to last monsoons, the court order implied. If these were successfully met for one year, why is it so difficult to do so in the subsequent years? asks Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Twenty-three years after the state's own legislation and thereafter, a legislation on the lines of the Centre's own formulation which came a few years thence is long enough to have got a proper and workable drill in place to prevent it, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The Maharashtra HSC results were declared Wednesday, and Latur (which has been on top of the rankings the last two years) came in last among all eight divisions. Mahesh Vijapurkar thinks it's about time the pattern was buried.
We can still clean up India's rivers only if have the resolve. That is, the resolve both of the people and the authorities, the former for good behaviour the latter to ensure that once cleaned up, they stay that way, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The domination of the Ganesh Naik family in recent civic polls in Navi Mumbai is not a good augury for democracy, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
India has seen any number of cases where people were detained as if the judicial custody prior to trial was in itself adequate -- motions are gone through, cases allowed to fail in courts and then keep saying 'law will take its course', says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mahesh Vijapurkar smells a scandal in the BOT model for road projects.
Not a single Bangladeshi has been found to have been involved in security breaches or terror. But that does not mean aliens have a place of comfort when they illegally enter and stay in Mumbai, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Amidst the acrimonious debate over migrants in Mumbai, the city's civic body in a report says that they contribute to the economic growth of the metropolis, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Since the time it was thought up, and the idea spread like an epidemic, there has been no significant changes in the way MPLADs and its imitations that have devolved to the states and local bodies. There is a vested interest not to change this wasteful scandal, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mumbai, without doubt, though belonging to Maharashtra, is a migrants' city. A fact we have to learn to live with, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar
Electoral merit -- in other words, the ability to win by hook or crook -- has to cease to be a yardstick for handpicking men and women to stand for elections, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
A law making it compulsory to vote, a none-of-the-above feature, as well as the right to recall and neutral democracy at the grassroots can go a long way in stimulating the democratic processes, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Instead of the instinctive outcry that sentiments are hurt, the political leadership ought to avoid emotions and opt for reason for what has been suggested is good for us. They ought to cease stoking the fire and accept the reality, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
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