-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Drive to any Indian city. Chances are you will wade into chaotic traffic and roads full of potholes. You'll see choked drains, overflowing and smelly bins and streetlights that don't work. The reason for the mess isn't difficult to unravel. Most of our municipal bodies are cash strapped, unable to take care of the city's needs. The workforce is poor. Given the indifferent reputation of urban...

-The Business Standard The Uttarakhand floods have put the spotlight on the competence of the national body which was created with a vision 'to build a safer and disaster-resilient India' When thousands got swept away by floods in Uttarakhand on the night of June 16, little help reached the mountains till at least a day had passed. Though the weather department had issued a warning, the magnitude of the disaster shows that...

-The Indian Express Two years back, 27 high-density national highway corridors were awarded amid much fanfare to developers who outbid competitors by promising to pay the government a "premium", instead of the general practice of seeking a capital grant from the Centre. Of these projects, all of which were touted as a testimony to renewed investor confidence in the roads sector, 24 sections worth a whopping Rs 34,000 crore and spanning...

-Timescrest.com Three successive CAG reports warned the Uttarakhand govt about the consequences of multiple hydropower projects, and their unpreparedness in the face of disaster. The advice was ignored. With aim of turning Uttarakhand into Urja Pradesh, the state has committed to building 680 dams, currently in various stages of commissioning, construction and planning. The powers that be have expedited the clearances for these projects. However, when it came to the issue of credible...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: It's clear that the devastation caused by the flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand was at least in part due to environmental degradation of fragile mountain slopes and reckless commercialization. Yet, weeks before the calamity state CM Vijay Bahuguna had railed against "environmentalists" and "Green Statutes" for hampering development work during a May 23 meeting in Delhi with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Plan deputy chair, to finalize...