Why Ahmedabad is the safest place for women today.

By Zafar Sareshwala and Asifa Khan

A recent multi-city survey by CNN-IBN and Hindustan Times suggests that Ahmedabad may be the safest city for women, with 88 percent thinking so.

There is a reason for this. Safety is partly the result of the administration developing a firm grip on law and order, including control of organized crime. And there is a story to this development in Ahmedabad. As a dry state, Gujarat was once known for its underworld dons, with bootlegging being the main reason for their rise to criminal power. Powerful criminal dons cannot really exist without a nexus between them, the politicians and the police. This was the reality in the 1980s and 1990s, and this nexus was a critical factor in the rise of communalism in the state, since rioting turned out to be a profitable activity for the people concerned and it was usually stage-managed by the powers-that-be.

This nexus had vitiated the atmosphere so much that it was impossible for most people to venture out of their homes late at night. 

Towards the late 1990s, the law enforcers realised that things had gone too far, and soon many underworld dons from both sides of the communal divide were either put in jail or forced to wind up shop. They vanished. By 2003, boot-legging was on the decline, and the associated criminal enterprises also started folding up. In fact, when the authors of this article talked to a very senior police officer in Ahmedabad who also controls law and order, they were told that the previous hotspots of criminal activity had become safer. He said: “There has been no FIR registered in those police stations which were earlier epicentres of all criminal activities over the last eight to nine years.”

The fact that Ahmedabad and most of Gujarat has been riot- and-curfew-free after 2002 suggests that the overall peace dividend has resulted in improved safety for women too.

Meanwhile, the high growth trajectory of the state has improved job opportunities. Once the youth start finding a regular source of income and urban unemployment starts tapering off, the attraction of criminal activity diminishes. Ahmedabad's night life today has to be seen to be believed. In other metro cities, night life is confined to pubs, discotheques and star hotels, where excess imbibing of liquor is the mother of all vices and presumably critical to this form of relaxation. In contrast, Ahmedabad's night life is relatively free from liquor, and is lived out mostly on the streets – not in pubs or discos.

Manek Chowk and Law Garden are just two examples. Young girls on their Scooties hang out here long past midnight and various other lively spots in Gujarat’s capital city. There are very few places in the country where you will find women street vendors plying their trades as late as 2 am. You will also increasingly find scores of Muslim families, including burkha clad women, as pillion riders at various spots such as CG Road and SG Road. Once upto a time, even Muslim men would not venture out at night.

Don’t get us wrong. We are not saying people don’t drink liquor in Gujarat. They do so in private parties, but they dare not venture out after getting drunk because the police not only lock them up but are publicly named and shamed, with their photographs being published. The near-absence of drunkards in public places is an important contributor to women’s safety in Ahmedabad. In fact, Muslim women travelling alone is now a common sight in the city. The safety standard of any city will be judged by the safety of its women. In most cities around the country and particularly in the metros, the easy availability of alcohol (when even water is scarcer) and non-existent policing make public places unsafe. In Ahmedabad and several other cities of Gujarat, you will find visible police persons and patrols. This inhibits criminals.

The authors believe that night life ought to be about food and merriment and good behaviour, and not juiced by alcohol. This will bring families out to claim the night life rather than just criminals and mischief-mongers.

(Asifa Khan is a member of the Gujarat BJP, and Zafar Sareshwala is a Gujarati businessman who opened a dialogue with Modi to improve the lot of Muslims in Gujarat)

India continue's to pay price because of Congress mis-governance of Indian Economy

All round scams, corruption, no new jobs, high inflation, negative industrial growth, depleting forex reserves and general hopelessness is what describes India of 2013. What a fall from the days of this century being dubbed as India's century.

I am arguing in this column that this is a direct result of the 2004 and 2009 elections results being misread by both Congress and BJP.


Let us start with 2004...


Myths:
1) That 2004 was a crushing defeat for BJP and resounding victory for Congress

2) It was a failure of India Shining campaign and therefore a vote against reforms

3) Even if remotely, 2002 Gujarat riots were to be blamed for BJP's loss

Reality:
1) Congress won only 7 seats more than BJP, so it wasn't a resounding vote for Congress or against the rule of NDA.

2) If you look at the elections results closely, BJP's loss was primarily on account of the party losing its base in UP (which gave it 58 seats earlier and only 10 in 2004) and NDA losing allies like DMK. So the cause prima facie seems to be loss of UP and of some key allies like DMK and not reforms or 2002 Gujarat riots.

Impact of misreading 2004 results was that Congress and Sonia Gandhi took this as a vote against the brilliant reforms that NDA carried out and as a result, focused entirely on so called "inclusive growth" (an euphemism for povertarianism) and dumped reforms almost entirely. So UPA-I was not only wasted on reforms push but also came out with regressive schemes like MNREGA and Farm Loan waiver.

Not only Congress but BJP too assessed 2004 results similarly and became apologetic of NDA reforms, or handling of 2002 Gujarat riots. This of course resulted in an opposition which was in a disarray, confused and which didn't oppose UPA on regressive socialist measures like MNREGA or farm loan waiver.

Indians meanwhile were still hungry for more free-market reforms but were more than content with the smokescreen created by very high growth experienced during the period, although this growth was entirely a result of earlier NDA reforms and global factors.

Amidst this background and out of nowhere, the dysfunctional Manmohan Singh, with objective of leaving a lasting legacy (UPA-II was nowhere in the picture then and he would have seen UPA-I as his final term), stuck his neck on the Nuclear deal which although Congress seemingly not being too convinced about, backed it for the sake of Sardarji. BJP, forgetting that NDA itself tried for such a deal and as right wing should have supported being pro-American, opposed the deal vehemently for the sake of opposition. And what a disaster! BJP didn't calculate that the middle class India is emphatically pro-America (wasn't there a survey?) and didn't realize that much of its base comes from middle class urban India.

Cut to 2009 elections which where fought on back of a period of high growth, low inflation (out of 5 years of UPA-I rule, only in last 10 months the Inflation was higher and hence supposedly ignored by electorate) India story still supposedly intact, recently concluded Nuclear deal, still "Mr. Clean" Manmohan Singh at helm (remember, UPA-I scams like 2G, CoalGate were not yet exposed) and the alternate on offer being Mr. Advani.

Myth of 2009 : That the resounding victory of Congress was because of populist measures of MNREGA and Farm Loan waiver.

Reality: If you look at the results closely, almost all the incremental seats of Congress were from urban areas, previously held by BJP. Now the urban areas were not the beneficiaries of MNREGA or Farm Loan Waiver, so why did they vote for Congress? My hypothesis is that urban India voted for Congress in drove because of high growth (although not to the credit of UPA but nevertheless) and surprise surprise, Nuclear deal. Middle class India got sold on Manmohan Singh's false promise that Nuclear deal will solve India's electricity deficit( has it since 5 years?) and which saw this as coming closer to Amreeka) was disappointed (or disgusted) with BJP's (opportunistic) opposition to the deal. And the rest as they say, is history...

The result of 2009 results being misread by Congress was that it became even more brazen in its corruption, more socialistic in its schemes (RTE, FSB and what not) and now completely abandoned reforms. The cock was back and within no time (in 4 years to be precise) India was staring at a 1991 like crisis!

BJP has already paid the price of misreading the results, India too has heavily paid and next in line is Congress, which may in fact get decimated forever. But the question is, will India be able to redeem itself and rise from the ashes?

We will see in 2015-16, if not in 2014.

Credits -Author : Prakash Sharma | Follow twitter.com/Prakash_Sharma

ProFreedom, Centrist, liberal, Atheist. IITD, DCE Alumni

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Can Idoit Rahul Baba even think of this in his Dreams- Atal Bihari Vajpayee at its Best in his speech against Pakistan

Can Idoit Rahul Baba even think of this in his Dreams- Atal Bihari Vajpayee at its Best in this speech

Gujarat to host Asia's largest solar energy park

Gujarat would house the largest solar energy park in Asia in two years, with a power production capacity of 500 Mw.

This would be set up with an investment of around Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) flowing from companies such as GMR and Lanco, which have been assigned generation capacities under the Gujarat Solar Mission.

Gujarat had announced a solar power policy in January 2009, with a target of installing 1,000 Mw capacity by 2012 and 3,000 Mw by 2014. The state has already signed power purchase agreements for  934 Mw.

"We would have around 100 Mw solar power capacity commissioned by the end of this year, as part of the 500 Mw solar park project. Overall, we have allotted 274 Mw capacity to companies. Around Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) would go into setting up every Mw of power," D J Pandian, principal secretary (energy) in the state government toldBusiness Standard.

The park, on the lines of an industrial estate, is being developed by Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd, as the sectoral nodal agency, on around 2,000 hectares of wasteland bordering the Rann of Kutch, in Patan district. When commissioned, the project would provide 800 million units of power.

In the first phase, 15 solar power generation companies would produce 176 Mw and Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation would set up a power pooling station.

The overall project cost in phase-I would be Rs 1,287 crore (Rs 12.87 billion). This would include Rs 351 towards the cost of land and power infrastructure and Rs 624 crore (Rs 6.24 billion) for evacuation facilities.

The Planning Commission has already approved a one-time additional central assistance of Rs 210 crore (Rs 2.10 billion) for rthe development of the solar park.

The Asian Development Bank has approved a soft loan of $ 100 million for the project. This includes development of a 'smart grid' for evacuation of power.

Pandian said the state government had already signed an agreement with the Clinton Climate Initiative, which would be the technical consultant.