Smart City - Comment on a news article. Japanese visits India.

Article in the Indian Express

Smart City. Japanese visits India.
And the comment is
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 You see, this Smart City tag is very discomforting as well as alarming because there is a risk or danger of the chosen or designated place or City being "imposed" upon with "very limited" ideas, and thereby even making a mockery of the entire exercise. I don't know how many Architects were involved in the drafting of this programme - this Smart City jig (I hope that this ends up like that - a jig, a dance, an experiment soon taken off) - but it seems that babus only, who thought that they knew but actually knew very little, did some research of their own and then later thought that they 'cracked the code' and that 'they now know' 'how to make a city' when it is never that simple. You see, think of this like this - every place is unique. What works here may not work there. The same stuff will hold a different complexion somewhere else. My main apprehension is that these people are very "limited" in their outpouring (their idea, I mean). This Smart City 'agenda' cannot satisfy all that the city must possess. The agenda is a piece or pieces of paper with some "standard" stuff written. They may be many pages, I don't care (to hell, out the window), but it is still limited (to say the least). I am not suggesting to increase the no. of pages and to write more (as some idiots will interpret) but "contextual" (CONTEXTUAL) development anywhere is the way to go, as simple (as that). It takes a Japanese to make you understand that. Alas! This Japanese or that foreigner may not have used the word 'contextual', but that is what is meant when he says culture, history etc. They come under context, and within context come many other things. Any City's people (and their children) under this 'Smart City' initiative by people who are actually not very smart but only 'Samraat' (pun is intended) will probably cry after many years when they realise that what they got was a very myopic, limited, stupid, sanitised blub and the 'Corporate' (ha ha upstart thought himself intellectual) people will then do some patch up exercises then and then the children of these babus will then come up with 'Smart PatchUp' or 'Smart Damage Control' exercises. And then another foreign Architect will come and start explaining things to ye all, and ye all shall be mesmerised again. These so called corporates who are feeding the Government are themselves very limited in everything. You see if you are B.Sc. in Arts or B.A. in Science and then you start drafting major schemes like this as if you know all (when you know zero anda) then I don't understand that. Somebody said that this is a branding exercise. Whatever it is, I have HUGE apprehensions actually - wonder what they are up to. You will all be "boxed in", and suffocation will be there. I know many of you will disagree with me!
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Comment on a news article in the #IndianExpress .The comment wouldn't show up there, so I have shared the article...
Posted by Sandeep Vij on Thursday, February 18, 2016