Today is the day to mull and tomorrow the day to walk to your polling booth and decide what you want: a good city where there is a compliant corporator or a bad city with an arrogant politician ruling our civic destiny, 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.
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.
India needs to be concerned about the implication of restive people wanting to change regime after regime, says 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
We must keep our counsel and let the drafting committee do its best; keep faith in the civil society nominees till they prove otherwise, 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.
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.
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.
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.
The case of Mahesh Patil, who was arrested for negligence after his mother fell off his bike and died after it hit a pothole, should serve as an eye-opener for the authorities and the legal fraternity, says 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.
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.
Is Mumbai hostile enough to migrants that they prefer other destinations for living -- different, of course, from a livelihood -- and if so, what is perceived to be the real threat? Could it be the nativist rhetoric and some violence to substantiate it? Or is it mere housing as an issue? Mahesh Vijapurkar throws some light on Mumbai's changing demographic pattern
If what is said about them is only a perception, then lawmakers ought to bother about it and correct it by deeds, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar
Even if Anna Hazare's protest is not an enduring solution, it would most certainly be a brake on the incorrigibility of the political and bureaucratic class, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The huge political furore created after Amitabh Bachchan attended a function at the Mumbai sea-link shows that trivial issues score over issues of substance, 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.
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.
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.
Just because the 14 elders spoke for us is not enough; each of us needs to add his voice and convert it into a clamour to be heard across the length and breadth of the country, 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.
The postman used to be a joy to behold when he knocked on the door for he brought news. These days, the postman knocks on the door fewer times, and when he does, he brings the letter late, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
If there is one single fault among the common people, it is the willingness to send the same kind of people time and again to Parliament and tolerate the venal ways of the people appointed to serve the citizens, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The city needs simple solutions, which look at each problem not in isolation, but as part of a totality called a city, its people, and their needs, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
But one thing is clear -- the moment the outcomes are announced on October 22, all these speculations and wild guesses passed off as educated surmises and conclusions would be forgotten till the next round.
When citizens realise that things won't change, the lose faith in the system. That is the most dangerous thing to happen to a country, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The new chief minister, if backed by the Congress high command, can give Maharashtra a chance to recover from being looted by rent-seeking politicians, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
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