Showing posts with label Delhi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delhi. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Running, Pain and Latin

Distance running is a fun way to learn Anatomy, and Latin :)

A part of the fun is of course taken away by the fact that these lessons come packaged in pain. A few years ago, after what seemed like a regular run, my right heel started hurting. I thought I had stepped on a sharp stone, or that I had twisted my heel. After many unsuccessful sessions of massages, rubbing in balms and oils (esp. Murivenna), I looked up the symptoms on the web and discovered "Plantar Fasciitis". It has nothing to do with plantations of fascists. This is simply latin for inflamed feet - plantar (sole of the foot) and fascia (band/sheath of tissue) with -itis (inflammation). For some reason this painful condition is also called "policeman's heel".

Another term you hear among the latinised running communities is "IT Band Injury". Anybody can get this injury - not just software engineers or musicians - because IT here stands for Ilio-Tibial. And the band here refers to a tendon that stretches along the length of the longest bones in your body - the tibia. An injury of this connective tissue gives you IT Band Syndrome (ITBS) - an aching or sharp pain on the outside of your knee or hip. Once again massages are not of much help and what worked in my case was simple, consistent exercises - toe-curls, rolls, stretches.

Last Sunday, 22 Feb., 2026, we had the New Delhi Marathon (NDM). This year's event was sponsored by Cognizant and attracted over 30,000 participants in four events: Full Marathon (42 km), Half Marathon (21 km), 10km and 5km races. I participated in my usual Half Marathon. It was a well organised event with plenty of water-stations, good signages, clean toilets, decent food (hot chole-kulche!), band-baaja, and nicely spaced out dispersals (no clash with the 5km folks walking abreast). I even managed to meet an old college friend from Trivandrum after 36 years, and in getting back to the sub-2-hour timing (1:58:22)!

A day after the run I am now back to my Latin vocabulary. The new words are - Quadriceps and Iliopsoas - the two sets of muscles that seem to have developed Delayed Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). It is peculiar pain that makes the simple act of descending staircases particularly painful.

Quadriceps femoris is Latin for 'four-headed muscle of the femur'.  The four heads are - Rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius and vastus medialis. Vastus is a Latin word meaning "vast," "immense," "huge," "enormous," or "monstrous", while rectus simply means "straight", "upright", or "direct". Straight and huge - the quadriceps are the largest muscle sets in the human body.

Is there a way to avoid this pain? If past experience is anything to go by, it is unprepared muscles that develop DOMS after a distance run. So would isolation exercise like leg extensions help? Let's see...

---------------------------------------------

REFERENCES & LINKS


 


 

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Switching to Sony


Over the past two weeks, I have been looking for options. Now there are so many that I am spoilt for choices - the world of digital cameras has changed a lot over the past 15 years. Cameras have become lighter, smarter and a lot more user-friendly.

What I loved about the D90 kit was that it was sturdy and versatile with a superb battery life - on a single charge I could get over ~850 frames, without the hassle of carrying around the clunky charging kit. The 18-105mm lens was great for wide-angle shots, portraits as well as a respectable zoom. What I did not like was the bulk - it was way too heavy to lug around for treks in the Himalayas. The battery for all is greatness on the plains would simply fail at low temperatures. On brilliant starlit nights when temperatures dropped below zero, the battery would play dead and miraculously come back to life when we descended to warmer climes. 

 

So what was I looking for? First of all, I wanted to graduate from an APS-C to a full-frame digicam, from an SLR to a mirror-less camera. The camera had to be weather-sealed; it had to be as light and compact as possible, and still have a decent battery-life. I knew mirrorless cams were battery hogs, but still, I did not want to carry around chargers/adaptors, and I wanted a camera that offered the highest possible exposures on a single charge.

 

My first option was to stick to the Nikon family. I was familiar with the layout of the camera, and I had been a happy customer for the past 15 years. Unlike the Canon G9 which died on me within a year of purchase in Japan, this one never gave me any trouble (until last week), from the time I had purchased it in 2009 from Yodobashi-Akiba,Tokyo. Starting with the trek to Mt. Fuji summit a week later, it had been with me through all kinds of terrain - mountains, deserts, beaches, humid tropics, the works.


The problem with the Nikon D-90 was that its lenses could be used only on APS-C format bodies, unless, of course you were willing to spend about 25k to buy an adaptor. For that price, I could get a new set of primes! So the Nikon Z5 was out. If I were to stick to APS-C format, FujiFilm offered some good choices with models like the X5 but the price and weight brought me back to the question - if I had to spend so much money anyway, why not focus on full-frames?


This brought me to the Panasonic Lumix S5. I liked the sturdiness of this camera and the demo where mugs of water were poured over it without any apparent effect. Then again, the weight and overdose of knobs and dials on the body put me off. Lens options are limited too.


It is as this stage that I came to know about the Sony E-mounts. Unlike Nikon which has a different set of mounts for its full-frame and APS-C cameras, Sony has the same one across its detachable lens formats. Folks using their APS-C lenses on a Sony E-mount would only had to content with a crop-factor instead of buying separate adaptors. Thanks to this brilliant idea, the E-mounts had arguably the widest range of affordable third-party lenses from Tamron, Sigma, etc..


On a visit to the Sony Camera Lounge in Lajpat Nagar, I noticed a smaller, lighter model - the Alpha-7C2 with a 28-60mm kit lens. From its size I assumed this was an APS-C model but was quite amazed to learn that this was Sony's first full-frame, compact model launched as A7C in 2020. I loved its clean lines, weather-proof built, the retro look of its silver trimming, minimalist use of dials and switches, its fully articulating screen, and the fact that it had an EVF view-finder too!


I liked the fact that the A7C had been tried and tested in the market for the past four years. It had now been replaced by the A7C-2 which is substantially more expensive. This meant that the older model was selling for an attractive discount :) The die was cast. Future Forward, LPN was offering a great deal too (cash + UPI ) - A7C body + battery + external adapter/charger + carry-bag. 


Now for the E-mount full-frame lens. Nearly all the reviews on the internet (there are loads!), had rated the standard 28-60mm kit-lens rather poorly, so, I decided to pair my A7C with a Tamron 28-200mm. The set looks beautiful. In terms of size it is just about the same weight and volume as the Nikon D90 + 18-105mm. This meant that my old faithful Lowepro would do just fine.





---------------------------------------------------------------------

REFERENCES & LINKS


CAMERAS - APS-C 

35mm Full frame 

Comparisons

Full-frame lenses

Lens Comparison:

Sony A7C Reviews

----------

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Invisible Demons

 



I have often wondered - if global warming and climate change is really a ticking time-bomb, why does it not bother most of us?

A part the answer to this question was found in an event I attended last week at the Max Muller Bhavan in New Delhi. 

MMB is the German cultural centre in the heart of of the city. In the pre-internet days it used to be considered a cool hangout for its cafe, library and cultural events. This particular event was in two parts - screening ofa documentary titled, "Invisible Demons" directed by Rahul Jain, followed by a panel discussion on Art, Activism and Climate Change. 

This is essentially about environmental pollution in north India, especially Delhi. The film starts in an arty format with a guy slowly fogging a DDA park in Delhi. This set the tone for the rest of the documentary - long lingering shots of the worst sights in the city: drains emptying into the Yamuna, turning its waters black and foamy; mountains of garbage dotted with rag-picking children; destitute families living on the streets of Delhi; endless traffic jams interspersed with shots of fishes packed in tanks and cattle crowded in pens; patients wheezing into a nebuliser and an endoscopic view of blackened lungs.

The film is meant to evoke disgust, and it does so quite effectively. The director too was glad to tell us that at every pre-screening event, the audience rushed to open the windows to let in some fresh air. The only hint of optimism in the the whole documentary is footage of an un-named young man showing the little forests he had created on the Yamuna floodplains. He is the well known Miyawaki forester, Shubhendu Sharma, but for 'artistic reasons' he remains un-named in the film.

I have seen plenty of poverty-porn coming from media houses sponsored by Western entities - the ones that find great delight in highlighting the worst from developing countries, without offering any viable solutions. This must be a new genre called environment-porn.

-----------------------------------------------
LINKS & REFERENCES

- 18 Jan 2023 - Panel discussion on Art, Activism and Climate Change - Rahul Jain, movie director | Helene Bukowski, writer | Dr. Philipp Ackermann, German Ambassador | Philo Magdelene, Protect our Planet (PoP) movement

- Miyawaki Forests - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/they-grow-fast-and-easy-but-do-miyawaki-forests-meet-the-fundamental-principles-of-ecological-restoration/article65258901.ece

- Shubhendu Sharma, Forester, founder - Afforestt - https://blog.ted.com/shubhendusharma/

- Judith Chevalier, Env Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Chevalier


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Power Supply vs. Demand


A couple of days ago Delhi consumed more power in a single day than ever before. 

According to reports from the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC), the national capital recorded its highest ever peak power demand on Tuesday (29 June 2022) noon when it crossed 7,695MW. In the coming days this is expected to cross 8000MW - this is quite a jump from the previous recored of 7,409MW on 2 July, 2019.

The spike in demand has been attributed to the really hot and and humid summer this year with the city's Heat Index (HI) or 'real feel' temperature climbing up to 53C.

While such high temperatures are par for the course for summers in North India, what surprised many of us is near absence of power outages this year. Not once did an extended power cut knock out the inverters leaving us sleepless on sweltering, sweat-soaked bedsheets, seeking refuge on balconies teeming with mosquitos.

What explains this? 

A part of the answer comes from an oped written earlier this month by RK Singh, the current cabinet minister for power and renewable energy. Writing for the Hindustan Times, he presented some interesting numbers:

  • India's capacity to generate power was 248,554 MW in 2014. in the last 8 years this has increased by 169,110MW, taking the total power generation capacity to over 400GW
  • Maximum demand this year - 215 GW
  • The country now has the world's largest integrated grid. Inter-regional transfer capacity has increased from 37,950MW to 112,250MW.
  • At COP-21 India pledged to increase power generated from renewable energy sources to 40% by 2030. This goal has already been achieved in November 2021

What is puzzling here is the big gap between capacity and demand. Why are we ramping up power generation capacity when the actual demand is far less? 

----------------------------------------------------

REFERENCES & LINKS

* SinghRK(2022): The Growth of the Energy Sector is Unparalleled, HT, 16Jun22 - https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/no-power-crisis-in-india-generation-capacity-more-than-peak-demand-govt-122031500831_1.html

* PTI (2022): No Power Crisis in India, Business Standard (15 Mar., 2022) - https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/no-power-crisis-in-india-generation-capacity-more-than-peak-demand-govt-122031500831_1.html

* GoI - Ministry for Power and Renewable Energy - https://powermin.gov.in/en/content/honble-cabinet-minister-power-new-renewable-energy


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Delhi Assembly Elections 2020



Something is amiss in the Delhi Assembly elections.

This is supposed to be prestige battle between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which runs the central government. While AAP is trying to showcase its achievements over the past five years under the leadership of Arvind Kerjiwal, the BJP seems to be making a half-hearted attempt, not to win the elections, but to merely to try and increase its vote-share by playing up communal issues.

With just a week to go for the Election Day, one  would expect to see an action-packed campaign trail. And yet, ground realities seem to be quite the opposite. 

Today was a day of many first. I got a chance to use two new lines of the Delhi Metro for the first time, and trudge across two constituencies of East Delhi - Gandhi Nagar and Krishna Nagar. As soon as I got off the metro, I had expected to all the usual signs of a big fight -- posters, billboards, stickers, loudspeakers blaring out speeches, and people campaigning for their candidates. 

Instead, all I got to see after walking for a couple of hours through the lanes and bye-lanes of these two constituencies was the regular bustle of a middle-class locality. People trying to make their way through the traffic snarls, vendors plying their wares and housewives haggling with cycle-rickshaw guys on their way back from shopping. 



The only reminder about the elections came from a couple of electric rickshaws fitted out with posters and loudspeakers playing out pre-recorded jingles and election promises. There seemed to be a polite understanding between both the main parties (Congress is missing in action) - AAP and BJP not to cross swords because, in any case the sound of the loudspeakers could barely be heard over the cacophony of vehicles.


Is this a muted election campaign due to the efforts of the Election Commission? Are the politital parties so short so funds that they are unable to make their presence felt in these high-density districts of Delhi?




----------------------------------------------
LINKS

Delhi Elections schedule - https://eci.gov.in/files/file/11567-schedule-of-general-election-to-the-legislative-assembly-of-nct-of-delhi-2020/

cVIGIL Campaign by EC -  https://eci.gov.in/cvigil/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Delhi_Legislative_Assembly_election


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Thursday, January 23, 2020

A River and its Froth




The Yamuna river presents a surreal sight these days.

 From a distance it looks like a scene from one of the frozen continents where the arrival of spring has broken the grip of winter. Pure white blocks of snow and ice gently float down a river which meanders and disappears into a mist. 

There has, however, never been a snowfall in Delhi and the last bits of ice in Yamuna would have melted more than a thousand kilometres upstream, long before the river broke out of the Himalayas, on to the plains of North India. What we pretend not to see in Delhi is the effects of reckless industrial and household pollution.

 It seems all that froth floating down the river comes from "excess phosphate in household and factory -use detergents and bars". Why are these pollutants not being removed at source? The answer lies in a mix of apathy and convoluted policies and rules.

 The Central Pollution Control Board has set standards on the quality of effluent discharge but is unable to enforce them because there are simply not enough treatment plants. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS 4955, 4956, 8080 and 9458) specifies the minimum levels of phosphates to be included in detergents but leaves it to the industry to decide the upper limit!

 While this reasoning sounds plausible it does not really add up. India is not self-sufficient in phosphates so it imports it in large quantities - especially for the fertiliser industry. According to PIB we imports nearly 5 million tonnes of rock phosphate, 2.5 million tonnes of phosphoric acid and 3 million tonnes of Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) annually.

 Why would industries want to use excess phosphate when it is an expensive imported commodity? Or is the phosphate used by fertiliser manufactures different from the one used by detergent manufacturers?

 -----------------------------------
REFERENCES & LINKS

 https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/delhi-detergent-waste-chokes-yamuna-at-the-mouth-excess-phosphate-behind-deadly-froth-1191452-2018-03-17  

 https://www.scoopwhoop.com/foam-covered-yamuna-delhi-pollution/

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

A Moth Reappears



"What a lovely butterfly!" said our neighbour Goel-ji, pointing to this large moth sitting on the park wall.

Set against red-sandstone chips in the early morning sunlight, this was indeed a stunningly beautiful creature. Two pairs of translucent 'eyes' set in iridescent yellow, underlined in red and white, stared back at you blankly. No wonder it caught the attention of Goel-ji who knows everything there is to know about the sugar-trade and Hindustani Classical Music, but usually cared little for the difference between butterflies and moths. Yet the sight moved him enough to insist that I take a photo and share it with him on WhatsApp - "This is the first time I am noticing something like this in our park!"

As I continued my way, I wondered what is this moth called. It looked vary familiar but I could not recall its name. Was it the Atlas Moth? Or was it a new entrant into our monsoon-soaked neighbourhood?

Later, I kicked myself for not remembering. No, it was not the Atlas Moth but a species that had been attracted to the Arjuna trees (Terminalia arjuna) in hordes three years ago. It was the Tussar Silk Moth!

Three years ago the caterpillars of this moth (Antheraea mylitta) had made a dramatic appearance on the young Arjuna trees. Hundreds of them had suddenly appeared on the trees, clinging to every available branch, leaving them almost bereft of leaves, and then growing into enormous creatures built like bright green trailer trucks fitted with psychedelic lights.

A few days later many of them had fallen off the crowded trees, and lay helplessly on the grass - too large to crawl, and too numerous - or too distasteful -  to be eaten by birds and cats. The ones that remained on the trees soon turned into lovely oval cocoons and hung there like thousands of fruit, swaying in the breeze. We had seen only a few moths that emerged from these cocoons. Some were larger, and looked haggard after getting drenched in the monsoon rains but none of them had a bright golden sheen like this one.

The Arjuna trees are now 20 feet higher and far less vulnerable than they were three years ago. How may eggs are these Tussar Moths going to lay this year?  How many caterpillars are going to fall off the swaying branches?  Let's see.

--------------------------------
REFERENCES & LINKS

Paper - Checklist of Moths in Delhi (2017) - https://www.journalcra.com/sites/default/files/issue-pdf/24350.pdf

Tussar Silk - Utsavpedia - https://www.utsavpedia.com/textiles/tussar-silk-the-story-of-wild-silk/

Tussar Silk Moth -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antheraea_mylitta

Life-cycle - http://www.notesonzoology.com/sericulture/life-cycle-of-various-silk-moths/323

What's that bug? -  https://www.whatsthatbug.com/2007/10/10/antheraea-yamamai-from-india-or-perhaps-antheraea-mylitta/

Flikr - Moths of India - https://www.flickr.com/groups/mothsofindia/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, January 12, 2018

Jaipur, 1727

"Where do the poor in your city live?
Are they consigned to shanties and ghettos, far from the 'gated communities', 
or do they share a common, egalitarian space?"

Earlier this week, I found myself at IHC, a refugee trying to escape the evening traffic, looking for something worthwhile do until it was safer to drive back home. On the boards was a talk titled, "Architecture and Society Series: Future City Jaipur". It was apparently part of a series initiated by M.N. Ashish Ganju, and the speaker who posed these questions was Sudhanshu Mukherjee, an architect who thought that city planning in 1600's was a lot better than it is today.



Having visited and stayed in Jaipur numerous times, this did seem like a tall claim - until the speaker explained how the city came into being. In the early 1700s North India was in turmoil - the Mughals had weakened considerably and Raja Jai Singh thought it was an opportune time to build a new city which would attract businesses away from Delhi, Agra and Mathura, along an alternate route to the ports of Gujarat. Like any modern SEZ, the city of Jaipur offered numerous sops and incentives to traders who were willing to relocate to the new city.

The city was conceived as a nine-box grid, aligned not only to the principles of Vaastu-Shastra, but also the existing temples to the Surya and Krishna/Vishnu. While common infrastructure and services were provided by the state, each Mohalla or quarter was allowed to design living spaces as they wished, after the plans were duly approved by the chief city planner, a Bengali named Vidyadhar Bhattacharya.



The advantage of this flexible planning was that it integrated citizens from various economic and social strata into common living spaces. This, in turn, fostered a sense of belonging and an egalitarian sense of solidarity amongst various communities in the city.  This approach to city planning was later abandoned in favour of Western style grids that separated living and working spaces, in creating cities like Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar that end up looking "more like army cantonments than bustling metropolises; cities built for automobiles rather than human beings".

It seems there have been attempts to revive this approach, such as Norman Foster's Masdar City in Dubai which aims to be a "a mixed-use, low-rise, high-density development" with an emphasis on pubic transportation. Another example is Khuda-Ki-Basti (Hyderabad, Pakistan), and Incremental Development Plan which won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995.

As one of the few non-architects attending the lecture, I was struck by the pessimism of all the city planners present (were most of them Bengalis?). It also brought out the disconnect and the turf-wars going on between those who were teaching (mostly at SPA, Delhi), and those running their own studios.

In a hall that seemed full of articulate, long-winded experts, if there was one person who made an impression, it was the elderly Ashish Ganju. A practicing, teaching architect who had been staying for the past 18 years in Aya Nagar, a crowded village wedged between Delhi and Gurgaon, he seemed to be the only one walking the talk!

---------------------------------------------------
References & Links
* Book - Jain, Kulbhushan(): Indian City in the Arid West - https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/indian-city-in-the-arid-west/author/jain-kulbhushan-jain-minakshi/
* SlideShare - https://www.slideshare.net/saumyakohli/architecture-and-planning-of-jaipur
* Norman Foster's Masdar City, Abu Dhabi - https://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/masdar-city/
* Khuda-Ki-Basti, Hyderabad, Pakisan - http://www.akdn.org/ru/architecture/project/khuda-ki-basti-incremental-development-scheme

----------------------------------------------------
More Qs:

* How did Vidyadhar Bhattacharya end up in Jaipur? Is there a link between Jai Singh's tenure as Akbar's Subedar of Bengal, and his presence in the desert kingdom?

* In 1739, within a decade of Jaipur coming into being, the Persian marauder, Nadir Shah plundered what remained of Mughal Delhi. In Delhi alone, he is recorded to have massacred over 20,000 people. How many of the survivors ended up in Jaipur?


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Air We Breathe





Over the past one week, I have been analyzing the market for air purifiers in the NCR Delhi region. It is just the right time of the year for an assignment like this - the quality of air here takes a nosedive with the onset of winter.

Today the reports of suspended particulate matter - especially PM 2.5 - were particularly alarming. It peaked at over 715 mg/m3 when the prescribed limit is below 60 mg/m3!

Just before the festival of lights, Diwali, farmers in Northern India harvest their summer crops and prepare their fields for the winter sowing season. Since it is too expensive to physically remove the post harvest residue from the fields they just burn it.  A huge cloud of smoke then slowly drifts over Delhi and settles down with all the smoke from Diwali firecrackers, turning the national capital into a gas chamber.

This year, a one-off intervention by the Supreme Court resulted in a ban on the sale of firecrackers, so there was a marginal reduction in the smog and haze, but it still left most of us teary eyed, and with a niggling irritation in the throat.

Pollution is not bad news for everybody. There has been a spike in the number of companies selling air purifiers, big advertisements in the newspapers point to the fact that 15 odd companies are all set to make hay while the sun shines dimly through the smog.

According to the Philips salesman at GIP Mall in Noida, air purifiers have been flying off the shelves as Diwali gifts. The company is barely able to keep pace with the demand. From what one could see, in their enthusiasm to sell, their glib sales pitch is also barely in touch with scientific facts.

"We human being consume about four kilograms of food everyday", said the Philips salesman, "But do we know that we also breathe in about 24 kgs of air, with all the pollutants in Delhi?" I did not know that. Having been under the impression that the volume of air is measured in liters or cubic feet or cubic meters, I have been trying to figure out the actual volume of air consumed by us everyday.

The World Health Organisation and US-EPA has some clear figures on this. Considering the fact that the air contains 20-23% of oxygen, and that an average human being breathes in about 0.5 liters of air with each inhalation. At about 20 inhalations per minute, we are consuming no less than 6-8 liters of air while we are sitting around doing nothing. This jumps up to 60 liters/minute while running at 5 miles/hour. So it turns out that we are breathing in no less than 14,400 liters of air every day (0.5 * 20 * 60 * 24). This volume would take up all the space in a room measuring about 500 cubic feet!

The Philips salesman might have been talking through his hat, but there is no denying the fact that most of us are unaware of the sheer volume of contaminated air entering our lungs every day!

-------------------------------------------------
LINKS and REFERENCES

*  WHO  Factsheet - Ambient air quality and health - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/

* USA - California Env Protection Agency research - https://www.arb.ca.gov/research/resnotes/notes/94-11.htm

* YouTube video - How much oxygen does a person consume/day? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-QYVKYKyfg

* https://www.quora.com/How-much-volume-do-we-inhale-and-exhale-in-a-day

* Oxygen intake - https://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/respiratory/question98.htm



Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

A Bridge That Went Too Far

A debate is raging over one of India's first "successful" Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects.

The Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND), an arterial, privately-built road connecting NOIDA to Delhi has been declared toll-free by the courts, and the company in question, ILFS-NTBCL, is trying it best to return to status quo.

By all accounts, the status quo seems like a perfect sweetheart deal where the private company keeps on making handsome returns in perpetuity, at the cost of the public.

The DND story begins in the early 1990s when the country had just initiated major economic reforms and its public infrastructure was in a woeful state. A company formed by retired government bureaucrats, IL&FS, won a contract for building the road-bridge in 1997. The construction was completed ahead of schedule, and the bridge was opened in 2001. Under the contract, the company was to get an assured return of 20% return on investment, over a 30 year period.

What exactly was the investment involved? Now this is where things start getting murky. IL&FS reported that engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) cost was Rs 193 crore. The cost for acquiring the land, facilitated by the Noida administration, was just Rs 11 crore. On to this amount, the company added an a huge  "management fee" of about Rs 200 crores, bringing the total cost to Rs 378 crores.

As if this was not enough, the Total Project Cost (TPC) was calculated ex-post and remained open-ended to include just about anything (with zero-risk to IL&FS). This ensured that the TPC and the toll-rates could be revised upwards with each passing year. It also ensured that the "20% assured return" would always remain unmet, and the total cost spiraled to Rs.5,000 crore in 15 years!

In 2001, the government was wet behind the ears about PPPs. Soon after the DND project was completed it realized that the private developers were leading it by the nose, and came up with a series of measures to ensure fair-play and public accountability in PPP contracts. By 2005, Model Concession Agreement (MCA) were ready for PPP projects, along with samples of other documents like Request for Qualification (RfQ) and Request for Proposal (RfP).

So what happens to the contract that was signed between IL&FS and the government (UP & Delhi)? The company, quite naturally, continues to claim that it has the legal right to do as it pleases.

Fortunately this issue has come to a head with the filing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The Allahabad High Court noted that NTBCL had “recovered all reasonable returns” on its investment, and was no longer entitled to collect toll. The company filed an appeal to the Supreme Court which tossed it aside with a note of sarcasm - "You have only ten kms of highway", the bench said, "and you claim that you have made a road to the moon"!

A follow-up study is now analyzing the company records for the profits it has made so far. It would be interesting to know exactly how the ex-bureaucrats went laughing all the way to the bank.

------------------------------------------------
* Puri, Pradeep (2016) Article by the ex-IAS officer who joined IL&FS -
"Making the DND Flyway Toll Free can Ring Death Knell for Private Investment in India"  http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/making-dnd-flyway-toll-free-can-ring-death-knell-for-private-investment-in-indias-infrastructure/

* Rejoinder - Mohanty, Nalini (23Nov16) - "Why the DND is a Virtual Sellout at Public Expense" - https://www.newslaundry.com/2016/11/22/why-the-dnd-is-a-virtual-sellout-to-private-companies-at-public-expense

* Mint (2Nov2016) - http://www.livemint.com/Politics/sh9pNZbfTPnt7r0ZPjxjtI/Price-of-making-DND-Flyway-free-to-use-amounts-to-Rs5000-cr.html


* DNA (28Oct2016) - http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-dnd-flyway-row-you-ve-not-built-a-road-to-moon-sc-tells-noida-toll-firm-2268316
* Indian Express (28Oct2016) - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/issues-and-arguments-how-a-key-delhi-noida-bridge-went-toll-free-3730051/

* Singh, Abhinav Prakash (10Apr2013) -- Delhi-Noida Toll Bridge- Loot in the name of Public-Private Partnerships (An excellent primer!) -- http://centreright.in/2013/04/delhi-noida-toll-bridge-loot-in-the-name-of-public-private-partnerships/#.WDVCctV97IU

* Chandran, Rahul (2007, Mint) - http://www.livemint.com/Companies/GaP1xmYycrKNl8KPvvcFEK/With-DND-he-paved-the-way-for-smooth-publicpvt-partnership.html

* Qunit (16Oct16) -- https://www.thequint.com/videos/2016/10/27/bigger-loss-toll-free-dnd-means-commuters-face-ticket-less-mess-noida-allahabad-high-court
- the court noted that “the Concessionaire, according to their own financial statements, has recovered Rs 810.18 crore (approx) from toll income from the date of commencement of the project till 31.03.2014 and after deduction of operation and maintenance expenses and corporate income tax, the surplus was Rs 578.80 crore.”

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Little by Little



Two long journeys passed through Delhi last week: one a 'Walk of Hope' led by a spiritual leader, and the other a festival of Street Art.

The 'Walk of Hope' was started by 'Sri M' (aka Mumtaz Ali), covered more than 5,900 km across the length of India, made its stop-over before continuing towards Kashmir, and Street+Art completed its first mega-scale insallations in a drab government colony, and transformed it into the most stunning open-air art gallery in India. Both seemingly unconnected events had one thing in common. A dogged sense of purpose and persistence that brought to life Mao Zedong's famous quote - "The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."


The Walk of Hope owes its origins to one man's promise to his teacher. Sixty-five year-old Mumtaz was just eight when he had the first 'meeting' with a Hindu ascetic at his home in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. In his late teens he travelled to the Western Himalayas in search of this ascetic, and stayed on for over three years as a a wanderind mendicant, and an "Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master".

Street+Art operated on an altogether different plane. According to one of its founders in India, Hanif Kureshi, it is a collective of artists who used public spaces - often illegally - to express themselves. Last year they had come up with a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in the most unlikely place possible -- on a large blank wall of the Delhi Police HQ. In a city that already sufferes from an overdose of Gandhi memorials, perhaps this was a strategic - or cunning - move to co-opt that most formidable of all life forms of this planet - the  Indian bureaucracy.

The tactic seems to have worked beautifully. This year, the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) set aside 60 years of SoPs to permit Street+Art to put up large government-owned buildings across the city.


According to Kureshi, this is the culmination of eight years of behind-the-scenes work. Apart from persuading the bureaucrats to tweek their old rules and approve each installation, Street+Art also managed to get various embassies to sponsor the various artists; the paints were gifted by Asian Paints, and a small band of students and volunteers ensured that the right set of paints and support equipment reached each artist at the right time.



For instance, when Senkoe from Mexico set to work, there was a crane + operator at his disposal for three days (rent - Manlift, ₹10,000/day), two students from MSU Baroda recording the whole thing with a GoPro on time-lapse, and a group of volunteers led by Arunima helping with the coloring, and making sure that everybody got their food and snacks on time.

In few months time, memories of the Walk of Hope might fade until the next Guru comes around, and street artwork may last a few more monsoons, but both will be remembered for the power of incremental efforts!

-------------------------------------------------------
LINKS & REFERENCES

St+Art India - http://www.st-artindia.org/

* Menon, Aparna (2015): Shipping Containers in  Drab Container Yard -- http://www.thebetterindia.com/47944/shipping-container-street-art-start-india-tughlakabad-delhi/

 Walk of Hope -- http://app.walkofhope.in/#!/








Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Monday, November 30, 2015

Jaipur Metro




If ever you feel like having a better appreciation for what has been achieved by Delhi Metro, please take a ride - if possible during rush hours - on Jaipur Metro.

Built at at a cost of Rs. 2023 Crores in about four years, it touted as a futuristic project that was implemented in record time. Perhaps it is also the first metro project in India that has been implemented entirely using a state government's own resources. JMRC has much to be proud of.

How does this infra feel at the ground level?

I had a chance to to ride to ride the Jaipur metro a few days ago (Ramnagar to Sindhi Camp), and my first impression is that, as of now, it seems like a white elephant. A lonely white elephant with very long legs. 

Even six months after starting the services, the metro stations were practically empty during the rush hour. Since it was not considered worthwhile to waste energy on the escalators for so few people, passengers had to climb almost 150 steps to reach the platform level!



The platforms, however,  are better designed than the ones you see on Delh Metro. Guidelines marking the entry points are not painted on the platform floor as an afterthought but built into the stone tilework, so they are never going to get worn off. Unlike in Delhi where most elevated lines run at the rooftop level, the height of JMRC pillars ensure that you get a fantastic panoramic view of Jaipur city, with its old forts on the surounding hilltops.

There are a few puzzling features too. The overhead pantographs on the trains seem a lot thinner and less rugged than in Delhi. Does it make a difference to the travel experience? I doubt it. However, the steep gradient of descent from the elevated to underground lines ensures that the sound of brakes and grating metal stays with you long after you leave the train.

This is a work in progress. So one hopes that the JMRC will expand it network and persuade more and more people to use its services. Getting the escalators to work may be a good way to start.

---------------------------------------------
LINKS

* Official website of JMRC (very useful!) - https://www.jaipurmetrorail.in/

* (3Jun15 - IE) - All you wanted to know about Jaipur Metro in 18 points - http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/jaipur-metro-rail-all-you-wanted-to-know-in-18-points/79835/

* https://www.jaipurmetrorail.in/pdf/39Brief%20Note%20on%20the%20Project.pdf
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Saturday, November 07, 2015

Energy Poverty

According to the World Bank, 78.7 percent of the population in India has access to electricity. Another report states that by 2012, the national electricity grid has reached 92 percent of its population, i.e., 880 million people.

On the face of it this bit of data may sound impressive for a country with 1.2 billion people spread across 3.2 million square kilometers.

Now you look at the statements more carefully, your realize that it does not hold much meaning on the ground. When an electricity line is pulled into a village it does indeed get connected to the grid, enough for a village to be declared as "electrified", but it certainly does not mean that every household has access to power supply when they need it the most.

Neither does available data give an indication of the quality of power supplied to the village. For instance, a village in Westren Uttar Pradesh, not too far from the National Capital Region of Delhi, may have electricity poles running along one of its roads, but its of no use to the villagers if even the streetlights do not light up at night.

A major part of this problem is the way in which state-level electricity agencies are managed. Over the years, their level of reliability - and credibility- has dropped so low that people are just now willing to pay for poor service. With little money coming in from its customers, these agencies do not have the capacity to buy electricity from the power plants. So we now have this amazing situation where the country has an installed power generation capacity of 272,503MW, but out of this, only only around 145,000MW is operational -- just 53 percent! -- because the distributors do not have the money to buy what is readily available.

This brings us to the issue of cost of power generation, profit margins, and the tariff that the customers are ready to pay for reliable electricity supply.

Is there any data available to show the number of hours of "reliable electricity supply" in the rural and urban areas, across the country?


----------------------------------------------
LINKS

* WB (2011-15) - Access to Electricity - http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS

* WB (2015) - Power for All - India - http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2014/11/03/000333037_20141103235403/Rendered/PDF/922230PUB0978100Box385358B00PUBLIC0.pdf

* Andhra Pradesh - Power for All ( PFA 2015) -- http://powermin.nic.in/upload/pdf/joint_initiative_of_govt_of_india_and_andhrapradesh.pdf
- Energy and peak demand -  43,684 MU & 6,158 MW

* Bhaskar, Utpal (2015): India's per capita consumption of electricity reaches 1010 kWh -- http://www.livemint.com/Industry/jqvJpYRpSNyldcuUlZrqQM/Indias-per-capita-electricity-consumption-touches-1010-kWh.html
- India has an installed power generation capacity of 272,503MW, but out of this, only only around 145,000MW is operational -- just 53 percent!

* Bhaskar, Utpal (2014): India faces daily power outage of 30,000 MW -- http://www.livemint.com/Industry/tnV2NUSAK8PbFs7pSzoL0I/India-faces-daily-power-outage-of-30000-MW.html
- Even with one of the lowest per-capital electricity consumption in the world (India 940 kWh; Chine 4000 kWh), power plants in India run far below their capacities because it customers (state electricity agencies) just cannot afford to buy the quantum they need!

* Much of rural India still waits for electricity (2013) -- http://artsci.washington.edu/news/2013-10/much-rural-india-still-waits-electricity

* Chakravorty, Pelli and Marchand (2013) - Does the quality of electricity matter? Evidence from Rural India -- http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1121559.files/April%2010%20-%20Ujjayant%20Chakravorty/CPUIndiaElectricityMarch13.pdf

More at:

* Misra, Udit (23Nov15, IE) - Surplus. shortages go together in Power paradox -- http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/simply-put-surplus-shortages-go-together-in-power-paradox/
. T&D losses account for almost 25% - double global average of 12%
. Remaining 75% is sold at prices that are much lower than the procurement cost of the discoms!
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Cuscuta in Noida



A mop of blond hair looks ugly on evergreen trees.

Parasitic infestations by the Cuscuta species, that seems to have started as an nuisance for garden hedges, seems to have grown in to full blown epidemic in various parts of NCR Delhi.

In Noida, there is an entire avenue that has been colonised by Cuscuta species..

Is there a way to rid the magnificent pilkhan trees of this infestation? So far all available information on WWW seems to suggest that the scientists have only figured a way to deal with this infestation in cash-crop plantations.

If you have an alfa-alfa farm, a solution - albeit expensive - may be at hand. But isn't there a biocontrol agent that could deal with the cuscuta problem? -- a parasite that kills another parasite perhaps?

-------------------------------------------------------------
LINKS:

* e-Flora of India - https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/species/a---l/cl/convolvulaceae/cuscuta/cuscuta-species-1/delhi
- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/indiantreepix/u1eHxg-Gldk

* Biology and Control of parasitic weeds -- http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/boggulareddy-1406855-biology-and-control-of-parasitic-weeds/
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Saturday, October 10, 2015

A City of Transformations


In Miyazaki's movie, "Howls Moving Castle", there is a little colored dial above the door. The world you want to see on the other side of the door, depends on the color you choose on this dial. Just a flick of this dial and your door could be opening either into a barren wasteland or into a neat city street.

Delhi feels a bit like Howl's Castle sometimes, without the doors and colored dials. It is quite amazing the way the city transforms from one district to another.

One of my favourite transformations is on the metro yellow-line, from Central Seretariat to Chawri Bazaar. You step down from the rolling green lawns of the central vista in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ), and emerge few minutes later from the deepest underground station in Delhi, right in the middle of one the busiest market in Old Delhi.

This is where chaos hits you like a ton of bricks. The noise of a thousand blaring horns, diesel fumes mixed with the smell of sweat, urine and cooking oil, the rush of crowds heading in all directions, and narrow alleys littered with assorted garbage. And all this packed in an area smaller than some roundabouts of central Delhi.

On a different scale such transformations can be seen within districts as well. In South Delhi, the roads that take you from Greater Kailash, to Kalkaji, and then to Govindpuri would make you feel like an explorer stepping into the urban jungles of our time. From the 'Bania-Gothic' style of architecture to entire neighborhoods created out of a seemingly haphazard of collection of bricks, mortar and garish paint.

My latest addition to this list is the Ramakrishna Mission near Paharganj. It is another of those dramatic transformation of spaces within city districts. There are two ways of getting there - a metro ride down the Blue Line, or a cycle rickshaw from New Delhi railway station. The latter is better for those who are seeking a bit of drama, shock and awe. You step out of the sprawling New Delhi Railway Station and head down Pahargunj Main Market street. This crowded throughfare not very different from the roads of Govindpuri or Chawri Bazaar but almost completely oriented towards hippies and backpackers.

You make your way down this road, past the travel-agents, money-changers, garment shops selling baggy trousers and pleated cotton skirts, past signages in Hebrew, Russian and English, kiosks selling "Smoking Accessories" with suggestive cannabis leaf imprinted outside. A slight turn to the left at the far end of this road brings you the the Ramakrishna Mission.

The first thing that strikes you here is a sense of order and purpose, centered around the domed RKM shrine. Neat pathways lined with evergreen shrubs, lead you to the other buildings in the complex - a 'show room', an office complex, a large library and two auditoriums. Every little vacant space in between the buildings is lined with  flowerbeds and rows of fuits and vegetables.

RKM seems like the antithesis of everything that exists beyond its neat whitewashed walls. On one side there is pushing and shoving, abusing and haggling, and on the other, you have the 'order of monks', silence, polite conversations and sonorous prayer songs.

It is quite amazing to see how people flit between the different worlds that exist on either side of the walls. The lady who had just been haggling at the gates with a cycle-rickshawallah over a fiver will, fall at the feet of a swami in ochre robes and drop a few ₹500 notes into the donation box, to 'serve the needy'.

The ways in which buildings and spaces transform people, is quite astounding.

--------------------------------------------
LINKS

* LBZ to be reduced by 5.1 sqkm, -- http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=126433

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)