Author: The Metrognome

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Maken wants to safeguard home buyers’ rights

Union Minister says that proposed real estate regulatory bill would give home buyers a greater say in the purchasing process.

Home buyers may soon get a bigger say while buying a house, as per the provisions of the proposed Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill, which is to be tabled during the forthcoming Union Budget. Ajay Maken, Union Minister for Housing and Poverty Alleviation at the ongoing International Conference in Mumbai on ‘Governance of Megacity Regions’ organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Center for Policy Research (CPR), said that the Bill would aim to safeguard the interests of customers.

Maken said, “The proposed Bill will greatly reduce the prevailing rampant corruption in the real estate and housing sector. Not only will it protect the rights of home buyers, but it will also bring in greater transparency. Developers will be restricted from channelising funds collected from customer for one project to another one, which will provide better security to the home buyers’ investments. Even the property agreement documents, which are prepared and executed by the developers, will not remain one-sided, thereby not favouring the developer alone.”

The Union Minister is contemplating providing ‘Infrastructure sector’ status to the affordable housing segment, which will enable banks to come forward to providing loans to the urban poor, and provide an unprecedented boost in this segment. Banks will be able to provide long-term loans and also with the change in industry status, the ratio of Non-Performing Asset (NPA) from this category will reduce. “The poorer section will receive easy financing options augmenting the affordable housing market and in totality giving a boost to the real estate industry,” he said.

On his suggestion to the Government of Maharashtra for raising the Floor Space Index (FSI) policy, Maken said, “We had a deliberation with the State Government and it has shown interest in considering this option for improving the living standards of poor and hutments in the urban establishments.” Another recommendation he has made it to have mega plans for inclusive development and community participation for Mumbai city’s metropolitan region, as one of the solutions to heightening urban evolution challenges.

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Soft Coroner

To all the sentimental ‘ban’atics

This being banning season, Prashant Shankarnarayan compiles a list of the things and the people he wants to outlaw forever.

The situation – Yet again another series of bans.

The observation: Our sentiments could be considered careless and weak because they seem to be getting hurt left, right and center. So much so that bans are being demanded, ordered and granted like the free masala puri at a chaat stall.  Will these upholders of sentiments ever realise that if everybody starts banning things around, they and their ilk would be out of business very soon? These ‘banatics’ have instilled confidence in me such that even I would love to ban a few things as they hurt my sentiments, for instance:

When three young girls from a certain State (from the rock band ‘Pragaash’, in the featured picture) are banned from singing and performing.

When other youngsters in the same State are armed with AK-47s instead of education and jobs.

When someone bans a movie citing their God has been portrayed in a negative light.

When someone believes that only his God is the best God.

When someone bans a book believing that it has offended his community.

When someone believes in a book so much so that it shapes one’s very idea of life.

When a random godman says that a girl on the verge of being raped should bow in front of the monster and call him her brother.

When people still believe in godmen and godwomen…and Gods.

When someone expects me to consider a 17-year-old rapist and murderer as a child.

When someone stresses on the human rights of the accused, ignoring those of the victim.

When people don’t lease out or sell their flats to members of a certain community.

When people don’t get out of their ghetto mentality.

When people blame Western culture for everything that’s wrong with their society.

When the same brag about their children being settled in the West.

When someone bans a painting on the grounds that his Gods and Goddesses were painted in the nude.

When the same person doesn’t think twice before insulting someone else’s God.

When someone equates religion with morality and benevolence with God.

When the same person believes that God expects us to fear him, else he will burn us in hell.

When someone believes in an unknown God, but doesn’t trust a known conscience.

When I know that despite wanting to ban Religion and God forever, I still believe in a person’s right to practice his/her faith freely simply because I am not a ‘banatic’!

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a media person who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. ‘Soft Coroner’ tries to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Picture courtesy theage.com.au)

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Learn

An auction and a film search engine

Neville Tuli launches the first Osianama Series Auction for antiquities, modern and contemporary fine arts, apart from vintage film memorabilia.
by Humra Quraishi

Neville Tuli, founder Chairman, Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, is known for hosting big-budget, futuristic film festivals in the country’s capital city. With his newest endeavour, Tuli’s going back to the past – earlier last week, he launched the Osianama Series Auction, in the backdrop of the opening of the Osianama Art and Film Museum in New Delhi.

This Auction series is supposedly the forerunner to the upcoming Museum. Speaking to The Metrognome, Tuli says, “With the opening of the Osianama Art and Film Museum in New Delhi imminent, it is important for the public to have a sensibility for India’s fine and popular arts, film-related art forms, crafts and antiquities on many levels. This Auction presents a unique combination of antiquities, modern and contemporary fine arts and vintage Indian film memorabilia.

 

It is important that the collectors’ fraternity begins to view and study Indian arts and culture in a more holistic and integrated manner. The comparability between different art forms is minimal, whether from a historical or economic context, let alone the aesthetic.”

Among the highlights in the cinema section are Hindi cinema’s forgotten and silent era memorabilia from the Zafar Aabid collection, such as pre-independence rare stills including the cast and crew from Himanshu Rai’s 1928 classic silent film Shiraz, a signed year 1930 portrait of the silent era actress Sulochana, photographic stills from 1937’s Gangavataran, the first and the last talkie by the Father of Indian Cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke, one of the first artworks for Kamal Amrohi’s Razia Sultan made many years before the film was completed, an extremely rare and possibly the only existing six sheet poster of the 1980 Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor starrer Do Aur Do Paanch, a rare poster in excellent condition of the Shammi Kapoor starrer Raat Ke Rahi, designed by the famous poster designer of the 1960s, Pradyuman, who also designed the famous BR Films logo.

Apart from these gems is the rare complete set of Pandit RaviShankar’s original LP records of the music he composed for five Indian films – Anuradha (1960), Godaan (1963), Pather Panchali (1964), Meera (1979) and Gandhi (1982).

Tuli is also launching a library and archival collection on Indian arts and culture and the many ‘worlds of cinema’. He says, “We are launching theosianama.com, a dedicated online search engine and educational content for Indian and Asian arts, culture and the worlds of cinema, universally in its beta version before March 14 this year. In its first phase, the online search engine will focus primarily on Hindi and Bombay cinema and the history of Indian modern and contemporary fine arts.”

In this art object-centric site, there is a vast cinematic imagery, covering all forms of film publicity material and memorabilia including more than 2,50,000 original artworks, such as  lithographic and offset posters, lobby cards, show-cards, song-synopsis booklets, photographic stills, handbills, hoardings, glass slides, scripts, costumes and the like, dating back to the silent era.

“Close to 95 per cent of all Hindi films produced have been covered in some form or other, and efforts are on to represent those remaining,” Tuli informs. “As of today, memorabilia representing iconic personalities such as Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Clint Eastwood, James Bond, Robert De Niro, Tarzan, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and a host of others will enjoy prominence in theosianama.com,” he adds.

 

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Event

Kashmiri MBA students create mock tourism company

CII event counselled Kashmiri MBA students on tourism and its career opportunities, at an event held in the city yesterday.

Today, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) held the event ‘Udaan’ in association with Godrej, to address MBA students from Kashmir. The subject of the seminar was ‘Tourism, its scope and the career opportunities if offers’. This is an annual six-week programme.

The session was presided over by co-founder and director of Ecomantra, Ravi Goel. He was among 12 other speakers chosen to address the students, and he has taken the last three batches of ‘Udaan’. This particular batch had 36 MBA students (21 boys and 15 girls) from two top universities in Kashmir.

“It has been a very engaging two-hour session with the students. It was a pleasure sharing ideas with such bright students from Kashmir; I have always found them very committed and sincere. We are very impressed by Udaan’s initiative in creating a real learning experience for these students. (As part of the interaction), I made the new batch start a tourism company from scratch. Some of them came up with very good ideas and I was surprised by the quality of concepts they had. These kids were very, very good,” Ravi said later.

The interactive session required the students to create a tourism business plan based on concepts of demand and supply, dynamic pricing, etc. Earlier sessions had dealt with tourism and how Kashmir can do things differently, the idea of experiential tourism as against mainstream tourism, among others.

Udaan was a programme initiated to integrate Kashmir and its youth in the mainstream economy of India. It was conceptualised to address unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir and was launched by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in 2010.

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Big story

What the BMC’s planned for the city this year

Surplus budget announces ‘Banner Free Mumbai’ and a 24/7 helpline for the mentally distressed, among a slew of other things.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has several designs on the city this year, and it announced its plans for Mumbai through its Budget 2013-2014 today at the BMC headquarters. BMC chief Sitaram Kunte presented the surplus Rs 27,578 crore budget; this is the highest municipal corporation budget in the country.

Budget 2013-2014 exceeds the previous budget by over Rs 1 crore.

The following are some of the announcements for this fiscal year:

– Rs 6,443.76 crore has been assigned for water supply and drainage works.

– Rs 45 crore has been proposed for the widening and cleaning of Mithi and other rivers.

– Road concretisation and building of new flyovers will get Rs 2,650.74 crore.

– On the health front, the BMC Commissioner announced such ambitious measures as the setting up of a 24/7 helpline for the mentally distressed, a Rs 20 crore corpus for a state of the art diagnostics facility at KEM Hospital, and the setting up of a University of Health Sciences, among other things.

– 26 new fire brigade stations will be set up in the next five years. The Fire Brigade’s equipment is also to be upgraded.

– It is proposed to set up four new water tunnels on the Malabar Hill-Cross Maidan, Powai-Vairavli Maidan, Maroshi-Ruparel via Vakola and Gundavli-Bhandup routes. This will cost Rs 1,069 crore. Two new water tunnels are also proposed from Chembur to Trombay and Chembur to Wadala.

– Rs 82.11 crore to be set aside for beautification and development of gardens.

– The BMC proposes to set up a permanent laser show display at Powai Lake.

– An entertainment and activity centre for senior citizens has been proposed.

– The BMC chief has announced a ‘Banner free Mumbai’ and a continuation of the zero garbage policy for the city. Instead, the BMC is mulling the idea of designated zones for hoardings and banners.

(Picture courtesy scamsleak.blogspot.com)

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Overdose

That thing called God

Jatin Sharma wonders where the line between our faith and the display of our faith begins to blur, and why.

God can be defined in a number of ways. Someone can define God as a superior power, another as faith and someone else as just a personal feeling. I define God as a personal feeling. God is always The One. The One who makes you become a better person. The One who makes you not lose hope even in the worst of the times. The One who makes you take care of each and everything that you come across, and which needs your help.

God was created by Man. Man was created by God. But the whole concept of God has gone haywire these days. Everything around God is not so much about God, but more about Man’s own interpretation of God. God is being manipulated and I think God must feel truly helpless right now. No shashtras or holy books have specified that you need to put up a mammoth display of your worship or prayers. But with each passing day, the actual display of our faith is becoming bigger and bigger. Everybody wants to prove to the world that their faith in their God is bigger than others’. We are not praying to God anymore; we are pandering to a religious ego.

I was in Andheri yesterday, and I saw this gigantic rally on a ‘display rampage’. The rally took place during peak travel hours, and thousands of people, both belonging to the faith or not, were hostages to the whole drama. People were forced to see how ‘cool’ this faith being celebrated was, how amazing it was to worship someone a God like that. Commuters and autorickshawwallahs were reduced to becoming hapless victims of traffic snarls, besides getting really late for work. Plus, there were loudspeakers blaring, and these must have scared a thousand birds and hundreds of street dogs for miles.

Let me remind you that I am in no manner against any particular faith, but the whole public display of one’s faith and one’s God always makes me think about the matter. Are we and our intentions really pure when we want to worship God? I’ve often asked myself: why is a Rs 5,001 worth aarti  bigger than a Rs 1,001 one? Does God have an accountant to keep score of the value of each individual aarti offered and who decides, for God, whose prayers must be answered first? Why is there so much pompousness attached to the most simple thing in the world, this thing called God?

If God is truly in your heart, no one can shake your faith by approving or disapproving your faith, and it simply does not matter how many julooses or holy processions you led amidst growing traffic on the streets. Your faith is like your heartbeat – nobody but you knows it is there, and you can feel it if you pay attention.

And the whole idea of coming together and celebrating one’s faith is perfectly fine, but please, can it be a gathering at a single place to accommodate the like-minded? Don’t go shouting on the road and screaming your lungs out to declare that your God is the best. No doubt he is, and we all respect Him/Her for that. Just don’t go out and make your God a pawn in a competition that decides which God wins. After all, doesn’t your God tell you to win others’ hearts by love and compassion, and not by loudspeakers and competition?

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

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