'City of the Young' Part VII - The Power to Change Our Mangaluru

  •   Wed, Jul 19 2017
  •   By Dr G ShreeKumar Menon, IRS (Rtd), PhD (Narcotics)

July 19, 2017


The tapestry of Mangaluru city is what makes it unique. In the last six articles I had outlined some proposals to make it more unique, vibrant and exciting.

Bold imagination and proactive leadership are essential for building a great city, as also for creating dynamic and inclusive places and spaces where citizens can live and work happily in a healthy atmosphere. With our every action, individually and collectively, we determine the kind of city we are building. The power to change our city rests in our hands. City building is about place making, about creating meaningful and memorable places and spaces, it’s not about granting permissions to build flats anywhere and everywhere. Hundreds of beautiful houses in Mangaluru have been demolished to make way for multi storied structures, without taking into consideration the capacity of the small lanes to cater to enhanced vehicular traffic, fresh water requirement, and sewage disposal systems. No doubt, this is the story across India, which is why we have undesirable urban landscapes everywhere.

 

Mangaluru is reshaping very fast. Market forces are rapidly expanding the boundaries of the city in all directions leading to dispersion of the urban settlements in all directions. In steering the development trajectory of the city the role of the people is very minimal. The political-administrative system commands directly and indirectly the development trajectory. Development policies, especially of Mangaluru are very often in the hands of tourist-bureaucrats, that is, bureaucrats who come for a short term posting and quickly get back to Bengaluru. Thereby, administrations experience fluctuating capacities, affecting multi dimensionality of the city’s performances. It is for this reason that local populations need to be involved in city and municipal governance. Today, there is international acceptance of the general proposition that the provision of basic health care, potable water, fresh air, safe buildings, and proper waste management facilities are rights, not privileges – especially for city dwellers. When things go wrong, urban populations are usually the first to suffer. Almost by accident, good health and good urban planning become bed-fellows.

When the professions engaged in urban planning and urban health is compared, the picture becomes even more complex. Modern urban planning practice is largely concerned with the design and maintenance of the built environment, with practitioners usually working in a highly politicized decision-making context. Health professionals have an entirely different agenda, strongly influenced by the Hippocratic imperative of helping the sick, the infirm, and the disadvantaged. Whilst both professions serve the public interest, their respective sources of praxis and theory differ greatly. It is therefore not surprising that in the structure of the modern city bureaucracy, each sector tends to stand alone and to go its own way – even though each aspires to improving the overall well-being of the citizenry at both the individual and community levels. The health care sector in Mangaluru has distinguished itself by catapulting the city to "12th best in the world, beating even some of the major cities in countries like Australia, the UK and Japan. The fact that Mangaluru is home to some of India's most sought-after medical colleges and hospitals lends credibility to this ranking. In terms of quality of life, Mangaluru is ranked 41, bettering even San Francisco which is ranked 42." (Daijiworld March 26, 2017).

Today, Mangaluru’s local authorities are facing new and daunting challenges in several fields, including social cohesion, the environment competitiveness in the context of globalization, excellence in their various programs, for ways of achieving integration of local and migrant populations, and for opportunities to show solidarity with their most vulnerable social groups. This means devising new ways of responding to old problems whilst coping with new problems, new laws, new policies and regulatory regimes. Daijiworld proposes to supplement the efforts of the local authorities by providing a platform to the citizens to express their views, opinions, ideas and proposals to make Mangaluru into an outstanding University City. There would be competitions, seminars and events to galvanize the citizens, especially the student community, to conceive and plan the futuristic Mangaluru. Shortly competitions will be held for the following events:

a) Tagline for the city. Do you approve and endorse “Mangaluru – City of the Young” or would like to suggest a different tagline?
b) A distinctive colour for the city. Shades of blue were suggested to complement the seas. Do you agree or suggest something different?
c) Designing a distinctive icon for Mangaluru city, (like the Eiffel Tower in Paris)
d) Proposals to make Mangaluru into a great University City.
e) Proposals and ideas to develop Mangaluru into a Medical Tourism destination.
f) Proposals for rejuvenating Mangaluru harbor into an ocean terminal.
g) Proposals for giving a dynamic thrust to the floriculture industry revolving around the iconic Mangaluru Mallige.

The above events are sought to be embellished by a variety of contests like Miss Mangaluru Harbor City, Mr Mangaluru Harbor City, fashion shows, Mangaluru flower festival, flower parades pageant and floats, flower carpets, flower festival queen contest and many more. Send your ideas and suggestions to make these events exciting and unique in the comments section below.

 

Dr G ShreeKumar Menon Archives:
By Dr G ShreeKumar Menon, IRS (Rtd), PhD (Narcotics)
Former Director General
National Academy of Customs Excise and Narcotics,
& Multi Disciplinary School Of Economic Intelligence, India
Fellow, James Martin Center For Non Proliferation Studies, USA
Public Administration, Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University, USA
AOTS Scholar, Japan
Registrar, Yenepoya University, Mangaluru
To submit your article / poem / short story to Daijiworld, please email it to news@daijiworld.com mentioning 'Article/poem submission for daijiworld' in the subject line. Please note the following:

  • The article / poem / short story should be original and previously unpublished in other websites except in the personal blog of the author. We will cross-check the originality of the article, and if found to be copied from another source in whole or in parts without appropriate acknowledgment, the submission will be rejected.
  • The author of the poem / article / short story should include a brief self-introduction limited to 500 characters and his/her recent picture (optional). Pictures relevant to the article may also be sent (optional), provided they are not bound by copyright. Travelogues should be sent along with relevant pictures not sourced from the Internet. Travelogues without relevant pictures will be rejected.
  • In case of a short story / article, the write-up should be at least one-and-a-half pages in word document in Times New Roman font 12 (or, about 700-800 words). Contributors are requested to keep their write-ups limited to a maximum of four pages. Longer write-ups may be sent in parts to publish in installments. Each installment should be sent within a week of the previous installment. A single poem sent for publication should be at least 3/4th of a page in length. Multiple short poems may be submitted for single publication.
  • All submissions should be in Microsoft Word format or text file. Pictures should not be larger than 1000 pixels in width, and of good resolution. Pictures should be attached separately in the mail and may be numbered if the author wants them to be placed in order.
  • Submission of the article / poem / short story does not automatically entail that it would be published. Daijiworld editors will examine each submission and decide on its acceptance/rejection purely based on merit.
  • Daijiworld reserves the right to edit the submission if necessary for grammar and spelling, without compromising on the author's tone and message.
  • Daijiworld reserves the right to reject submissions without prior notice. Mails/calls on the status of the submission will not be entertained. Contributors are requested to be patient.
  • The article / poem / short story should not be targeted directly or indirectly at any individual/group/community. Daijiworld will not assume responsibility for factual errors in the submission.
  • Once accepted, the article / poem / short story will be published as and when we have space. Publication may take up to four weeks from the date of submission of the write-up, depending on the number of submissions we receive. No author will be published twice in succession or twice within a fortnight.
  • Time-bound articles (example, on Mother's Day) should be sent at least a week in advance. Please specify the occasion as well as the date on which you would like it published while sending the write-up.

Comment on this article

  • Dr.Phirdose, Mangalore

    Thu, Jul 20 2017

    It's a very good platform that daijiworld proposes here but it should be implemented across a greater cross section of the society ....a more inclusive approach . Mangalore has a good population of highly educated knowledgeable people and we need more involvement , more proactive participation of such individuals too in the betterment of the city per se.

  • Thyampanna, Mangalore

    Wed, Jul 19 2017

    Such competitions have been held before, surveys conducted. But that's where they end, just as competitions and surveys. For example, what happened to the survey about "smart city"? When were the results discussed? The administration already had a plan, the survey was a sham.

    It would be naive to think that the authorities want to listen to citizens or vulnerable groups. They just want to figure out new ways to force citizens to support their ways. All we have to do is look at the unsustainable way in which Mangalore has been developed in the recent past. The power to change our city DOES NOT rest in our hands. It is in the hands of rich builders and industrialists who are only concerned about their profits. And therein lies the real challenge.

  • SIMBOY, MANGALORE/MUMBAI

    Wed, Jul 19 2017

    We are fascinated/attracted by the development of cities around the world, but we don't take into consideration, the developed countries have earmarked the place for specific develeopment and the developement is made accordingly.
    Mangalore is a place which enjoys the connectivity by all ways of transport and its seen as an oppurtunity for development. But Mangaloreans has to decide the price they have to pay for the development. As an individual, I don't want Mangalore to be exploited like other cities, for example like our own Bangalore. It's been studied 80% of dwellers are people outside Bangalore. So the original ddwellers of Bangalore have left the city and are leaving in the nearby city. I don't want to leave my beautiful and pleasent Mangalore for any price.
    So I pray to the intellectuals to please plan the development by safegaurding the history, beauty and the essence called " MANGALORE".

  • Jossey Saldanha, Mumbai

    Wed, Jul 19 2017

    Mangaluru is among the most beautiful cities in India ...


Leave a Comment

Title: 'City of the Young' Part VII - The Power to Change Our Mangaluru



You have 2000 characters left.

Disclaimer:

Please write your correct name and email address. Kindly do not post any personal, abusive, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory or unlawful or similar comments. Daijiworld.com will not be responsible for any defamatory message posted under this article.

Please note that sending false messages to insult, defame, intimidate, mislead or deceive people or to intentionally cause public disorder is punishable under law. It is obligatory on Daijiworld to provide the IP address and other details of senders of such comments, to the authority concerned upon request.

Hence, sending offensive comments using daijiworld will be purely at your own risk, and in no way will Daijiworld.com be held responsible.