Daily News Analysis

Chapter 1: Restructuring urban galaxies

stylish_lining
  • In Indian cities and towns nowadays, there is a lot of discussion regarding sustainable development. Sustainability guarantees sustainable growth without becoming overly centralised.

  • India is unique in that it features a hierarchical network of urban settlements of different sizes, including metropolises, cities, and towns.

  • They resemble "urban galaxies" because of their naturally created scales between entities, connectivity, and convenient locations.

  • Based on regional resources, climate, and available land characteristics, these networks have distinctive lifestyles and habitat patterns.

  • The links and dissemination of the advancements suggest a "biological" growth, complete with adaptation, mutation, and reproduction.

Sustainable cities in India

  • We are depriving the smaller towns in the region of their small-scale industries due to our development strategy, which mainly  centres around one place/city, where  all the institutions, and employment prospects. This also encourages migration and overburdens the megacities.

  • Greater distances and longer commutes require more time and effort spent on daily activities like living, working, or spiritual and mental development.

  • Sustainability guarantees sustainable growth without becoming overly centralised.

  • Megacities and metropolises can operate much more effectively by upgrading their infrastructure.

  • Habitats that are organically produced and interconnected will necessarily contain features like empty tracts between entities, shorter distances connected by locally developed transportation networks, and a limited number of entry points to major motorised traffic.

Obstacle to achieve sustainable city

Missing the Point

  • Although its infrastructure can be improved, the quality of life may not necessarily be raised.

False Model

  • Our development efforts are centred on a single region or city. By doing this, we are robbing the smaller towns in the area of their local small-scale industries and crafts.

  • By doing this, we are also promoting migration and overcrowding the megacities, which will eventually collapse under the weight of their own complexity, management, and affordability.

False Idea That Larger Is Better

  • Megacities that are now expanding can only afford to sell branded and mass-produced items to more people.

  • More production facilities, industrial complexes, a wider network of transportation infrastructure, etc., are required for this. As a result, enormous urban centres like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru were formed.

Key planning lessons for conventional planning:

  • Planning takes into account not just physical development but also spiritual and cultural development, both of which are reliant on the availability of resources.

  • Many studies show that each region had unique culturally oriented laws that defined its needs and controlled the use of resources for those purposes.

  • Around the nation, one may observe the distinctive and honourable talents of the native inhabitants. Decentralization and letting human energy to pursue its own paths of exploration within the regional context of resources and values are key to achieving this.

  • Instead of focusing on single, enormous banyan trees that can grow indefinitely, absorbing smaller entities along the way and weakening their advantages, planning must consider multi-nodal conglomerates.

  • Planning must prioritise protecting and expanding a natural network of significant water bodies, woods, and animal life that includes irrigation systems and a water supply.

  • Non-motorized transportation promotes quieter, cleaner, and greener environments.

  • Hence, "appropriacy" has served as a virtue that has influenced the sizes and life-enriching features of each habitat in India. This has been the key to their long-term existence, despite hunger and floods.

  • It will be possible for other villages and smaller habitations to learn, earn, and develop without having to spend time and energy on communication and travel if smaller towns with a population of around one lakh are developed as growth centres and developed as magnets. By choosing to stay close to our parents' region, we can enrich both family and individual life in the community.

Way Forward
  • To be freed from our innate egocentrism, we must cultivate our talents and abilities, work together with others, and serve others.

The rural and hinterland have been supported for generations by microfinance and the sharing of frugally multifunctional attitudes about life and lifestyles.

India’s Import Curbs on Jute Products from Bangladesh

India has imposed immediate restrictions on the import of jute and allied fibre products from Bangladesh. These apply at all Indian land and seaports except Nhava Sheva in Maharash
Share It

GPS Interference

  GPS interference refers to deliberate or unintentional disruption of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, which are crucial for navigation in aircraft, ships, and ground transport sy
Share It

India’s Civil Nuclear Law Reform:

  India is revising its civil nuclear laws—the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA), 2010—to: Attract private and forei
Share It

Secondary Pollutants

A recent study has shed light on an important aspect of India's air pollution crisis: secondary pollutants, which now contribute to nearly one-third of PM2.5 pollution in the country. These pollut
Share It

Myogenesis

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s Myogenesis experiments on the ISS represent a major leap forward in India’s space research efforts, focusing on the formation and regulation of muscle fib
Share It

Central Sector Scheme of Scholarship for College and University Students (CSSS)

A scholarship scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Protsahan (PM-USP) initiative by the Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education. It Provides financial assistance to m
Share It

Khasi People

The Meghalaya High Court has admitted a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) concerning the tribal certificate issuance for the Khasi community.This PIL challenges a government decision that has halted th
Share It

Similipal Tiger Reserve

Odisha High Court issued a notice to the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) over a ban on Munda tribals from accessing Jayara, a sacred grove inside the tiger reserve.This raised concerns ove
Share It

Begonia nyishiorum

A fascinating new species of flowering plant, Begonia nyishiorum, has been discovered in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, further highlighting the rich but underexplored biodiversity of
Share It

Asiatic Wild Dog

Asiatic Wild Dog A new study by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has confirmed the return of the dhole (Asiatic wild dog) to Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong Landscape (KKAL) in Assam, after being beli
Share It

Newsletter Subscription


ACQ IAS
ACQ IAS