CULTURAL QA 07202422
TOPIC- GENERAL- BASE QUORA QA- Compiled
Q1 Why do temples not give free meals to devotees like
gurdwaras do?
KR Being a young FOODY did not try to learn as the compiler who
visited so many temples, also failed to provide a good answer. Basically, a
temple provides only free food; anna dhanam (incidentally before reading
this, how Kerala History depicts through the udayan Cheralathan King family
having provided anna dhanam to Mahabharatha war time I had written) is the
basic concept of India. WHAT IS PRSASADAM? GOD IS NOT GOING TO EAT; it is
provided as anna dhanam to the people who may come around the noon or night
before the closure of the temple. When the same is expanded according to
the fund’s availability or regulations of the king or the constitutions,
they become anna dhanam to 50000 per day. Gurudwara learnt it from the
Hinduism and not the reverse.
The TN by regulation provide food in all temples. Sai temple is
the biggest food provider than TTD. Have you seen the drums erected there
in Sai Temple of Nasik seeradi Maharashtra? Ramanatha swamy Rameswaram,
Arunachala of Tiruvannamalai and Madurai Meenakshi temple serve food not at
one or two times a day, but whenever you step into shall be provided. Isha
, Sabari mala and Godmen and Mutt centres provide food all the time. Should
I list more?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Q2 What is a comical accident case in India?
My note-Happa- Source is told. Otherwise my only critic Mr Rajaram with
negative words would have asked for source and blame me for furnishing
worng information in groups.
I have never met in my life such a critic adding only negative response
to this much extent on a person and furnishing rubbish addition mostly not
related to the QA. I pity Mr Rajaram . A QA is intended only for answer to
the point and not pages of data.
Dear friends, I am forced to make the above note, after going through very
bad reactions of Mr Rajaram on my recent QA postings. You may go through
his responses.
KR This has 2 definite deviations; is that funny? Comedy? The
unintelligent Gopalakrishnan alone can think that way; also when writing
something writing only the nonsense, he thinks as sense is not a sense of
presentations; as his sense is senseless, that too in the late evening,
when he writes Annadhanam is only in TTD, so too, 5 pieces cut and paste,
somehow, Something, not only makes him a fool, but also his inability to
cope with, make him abuse, as if others are fools. Now even in this news he
speaks about vande Bharath 83 cases that too as a joke; but what is the
reality? Now source BBC. Source for nonsense is needed; when he writes
epics, science etc he has to provide; not for Sunil Gavaskar photo. Now the
blatant news source he skipped in haste:
Indian trains ran over more than 13,000 cattle in 2022 according to data
released by the government.
This is up 24% from 2019, when 10,609 cattle were hit by trains, according
to numbers shared by nine of 17 railway zones in India with the BBC.
Cattle deaths from train collisions isn't new in India, though the media's
scrutiny of these deaths has increased over the past few years as the
country launches newer trains.
In 2019, a semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express train broke down just a day
after it was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At the time, a
railways spokesperson was quoted as saying that the train may have struck
cattle on the line.
Last October, Vande Bharat Express trains hit cattle three times in the
western state of Gujarat, causing delays and damage. And last week, another
flagship train in the series was damaged after it ran into cattle during a
trial run ahead of its scheduled launch. And similar accidents do occur
in Mumbai Chhatrapati airport eagles strikes while take off and landing. So
many places are there. And they are not funny but childish reports.
--------------------------------------------------------
Q3 How long did it take for Gutenberg's invention to spread
across Europe?
3rd time in the year; what Gopala can do? he needs everyday 5
pieces cut and paste; and he does not have the aptitude to think also. He
also thinks that he is a peacock dancing in the rain though a turkey only
Sorry sir I am forced to hit him as he started the game.
Was there not printing before Gutenberg?
The history of printing starts as early as 3000 BCE, when the proto-Elamite
and Sumerian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written
in clay tablets.
Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints,
and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such
as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in China by the
7th century during the Tang dynasty, leading to the spread of book
production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and
Japan.
The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is
the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date.
*Movable type* (even before Guten berg] was invented by Chinese artisan Bi
Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty, but it received limited
use compared to woodblock printing.
However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book
from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to
print the identifying codes were made in 1161.
The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed
book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377
during the Goryeo era.
Woodblock printing was also used in Europe until the mid-15th century.
Late medieval German inventor Johannes Gutenberg created the first printing
press based on previously known mechanical presses and a process for
mass-producing metal type. By the end of the 15th century, his invention
and widescale circulation of the Gutenberg Bible became responsible for a
burgeoning economical book publishing industry across Renaissance Europe
and eventually among the colonial publishers and printers that emerged in
the British-American colonies. This industry enabled the communication of
ideas and the sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale, leading to
the global spread of the printing press during the early modern period.
Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of
image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing
and photocopying.
So, this is not my new one and the same thing was provided in his
earlier parts too. Yet Gopala do not develop knowhow at all.!
----------------------------------------------------------------
Q4 Can you name any politicians in India who have not been
involved in corruption or bad politics?
KR Gopalakrishnan gets wild; he copies north patriotism; who is Ayub
khan? Pak president? Shall I account his history of corruption?
2 Sastri Good
3 Kamaraj was not there? Namboodirippadu? Kakkan? So many are
there. But when you copy and paste, mind does not think well. Happy (huppa)
in providing wrong sources for error prone resources.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q5 Why don't we demolish slums and tell the inhabitants to go
back to their villages (India)?
KR The subject is world wide sir; you’re basking under Quora
may not incite you to learn more; al you have asked were answered already
by the world thinkers. Have you read any of them? It is relevant for all;
if you think otherwise, I don’t care for the fools.
The world’s largest slums include Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa
(400,000 people); Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya (700,000); Dharavi in Mumbai,
India (one million); Neza in Mexico (1.2 million); and Orangi Town in
Karachi, Pakistan, which, with 2.4 million inhabitants, is the world’s
largest slum. Despite the fact that many slums are as large as many cities
that benefit from economies of scale, their inhabitants face a ‘poverty
penalty’, paying more for basic services than those in richer areas. They
remain exposed to hostile policy environments, social exclusion, climate
change and inadequate public health systems. Only 20 per cent of Kibera has
electricity and each latrine is shared by 50 shacks. Violence can be
shocking: in Orangi Town, 77 per cent of women report having been raped.
So how to create real change? It used to be thought that the best
method of limiting *slums was to encourage people to stay in rural areas,
but nowadays, most experts agree that incentivising people to remain in the
countryside doesn’t work*. The pull factor is just too strong. People will
come to the city whether or not there are services to meet their needs.
If you try to forcibly block people from coming, evict them from slums,
you just displace them to another part of the city. The only thing that it
creates is bitterness and social division. Julian Baskin, Principal
Urban Advisor,
Cities Alliance
‘Urbanisation has often been viewed as a negative process characterised by
arguments to keep people in rural areas,’ says Minna Örnéus, senior
programme specialist at the SIDA’s Unit for Global Cooperation on
Environment. ‘But this view is misplaced – not to mention having
questionable implications for people’s freedom of movement.
‘Migrating to cities is attractive and, to some extent, reflects progress
with development if it is managed the right way,’ she continues. ‘Look at
Europe – we are really urbanised. People look for opportunities in cities
that are lacking where they came from. Maybe they can’t support their whole
family in a rural area. If you’re young, maybe you’re attracted by the
urban lifestyle and promises of better-paid jobs.’
*One impact of creating a hostile environment for migrants to cities is
that slums are perceived as a bolt-on*. This translates into a lack of
access to urban amenities and social infrastructure, and the
non-availability of community buildings, public spaces, sports facilities,
schools, and health services. Housing will generally comprise poorly built,
tightly packed concrete blocks.
‘Ten years ago, urbanisation was seen as a problem and symptomatic of a
failure of rural development,’ says Julian Baskin, senior urban advisor at
Cities Alliance, a UN agency. ‘This went as far as actively not investing
in cities, in case it attracted people. But if you try to forcibly block
people from coming, evict them from slums, you just displace them to
another part of the city. The only thing it creates is bitterness and
social division.’
Thinking has partly shifted because data built up over decades demonstrate
a link between urbanisation and lower poverty rates. According to the UN
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, urban areas account for 70 per
cent of global GDP. ‘The evidence shows that no nation can become a
middle-income country (MIC) without urbanisation,’ says Baskin. ‘The moment
Ghana hit a threshold of 50 per cent of its population being urbanised, it
was also designated a MIC.’ This does not, however, mean the rural economy
should be overlooked or discouraged.
‘Urban and rural areas should not be polarised,’ Baskin argues. ‘They are
mutually reinforcing. Good rural development depends on successful cities.
The future lies in getting the cities right.’
Efforts to address this are increasingly reflected in a change in approach
by policymakers: in the 21st century, slum upgrading programmes tend to be
more encompassing and integrated, recognising the multi-faceted nature of
poverty. Thinking has shifted to view slum communities as a vital part of
the city and how it functions. Rather than being spatially excluded, they
should be at the centre of city and national development. However, as a
consequence, upgrading projects have become complex undertakings.
Removing the stigma
Mistry recalls working in Delhi’s slums during the early 2000s, where he
was struck by how the urban poor succeeded in organising themselves to
secure their right to food. ‘That focus on rights [of all kinds] still
exists today and can only succeed with much greater interaction between
communities of the urban poor and local government,’ he says. ‘There is
still a need for transforming the stigma that has existed around slum
dwellers.’
Providing slums with basic municipal services is a way towards formalising
them, and also a significant step towards local governments realising that
the urban poor have a fundamental right to live in decent conditions.
Minna Örnéus, Senior Programme Specialist, Sida
Concrete policy changes towards slums have been slow to emerge, but another
factor that has helped shift perspectives is a growing realisation among
governments those informal urban economies, especially in sub-Saharan
Africa, make a significant contribution to economic development and the
functioning of cities (and up to 80 per cent of certain national economies
in the developing world).
Slum communities should be at the centre of their city and national
development,’ says a spokesperson for Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the Kenyan
federation of slum dwellers (‘United Slum Dwellers’ in Kiswahili), a social
movement of slum residents, urban poor, universities, civil society, the
private sector and Nairobi’s county government. ‘Slum upgrading is
possible, but only where communities themselves are at the centre of their
development.’
Economic informality generates new employment in the developing world, even
if there are downsides, such as high levels of under-employment, insecurity
and low-income level. ‘Where this realisation exists, there is a bigger
willingness to work with communities of the urban poor,’ says Örnéus, ‘to
try to bring them into the formal system, which can support the proper
functioning of a city through, for example, widening the tax base.’
West Point, informal settlement in Monrovia, Liberia
Better planning, more rights
Experts also recognise that the rationale for planning in slums must be
turned on its head. Traditionally, planning in cities in the developing
world was based on European models of identifying land, buying and then
planning and servicing it before building houses, all of which can take
years. ‘In developing cities, urbanisation happens at an infinitely faster
rate,’ says Baskin.
Mistry puts it a little more bluntly, pointing to ‘archaic’ urban planning
regulations and systems ‘that were originally established in colonial
times, mainly to serve the colonial bureaucracy, with the aim of
controlling local populations and which now serve the ruling elites.’
Early attempts to improve slums concentrated on the provision of water,
sanitation and drainage infrastructure. Today, the best planning is instead
about giving people security of tenure, ensuring that inhabitants live away
from danger zones, such as flood lines of rivers, or are set back from
slopes and landslides (in development circles, the strategic use of
targeted public interventions to trigger large-scale transformation is
sometimes referred to as ‘urban acupuncture’).
Baskin points to an example from Luanda, where poorer inhabitants of the
capital, weren’t given rights to their homes and so invested what little
money they earned in cars – because there was no incentive to improve where
they lived. ‘Why to argue for better sanitation or security if you could be
moved on the next day?’ he says.
Making security of tenure work is possible but far from straightforward. In
Uganda, local authorities in Mbale City recognised that existing
conventional methods of land registration like surveying and titling were
not flexible to the peculiar and complex context of rights in informal
settlements and, perhaps more to the point, are unaffordable for the
majority of slum dwellers. Instead, security of tenure was achieved through
consultation – by participatory slum profiling (which simply means
involving the local people in mapping out areas of action in their
locality) and household enumerations (a field activity that creates a
comprehensive list of all households within the cluster area). This work
resulted in the development of two precinct neighbourhood plans and
improved security for several slum dwellers who acquired tenure documents
for their land rights. The scheme is now being rolled out in ten more
municipalities across the country.
But Baskin insists that ‘land tenure does not have to be complex. It can be
as simple as giving guarantees that people will not be forcibly evicted
from their land. That makes a huge difference to what people will invest
in.’ Detailed mapping of settlements can make a psychological as well as a
practical difference, as it gives a name and address to every person. This,
in turn, stirs a sense of citizenship.
Other innovations are being facilitated by technology and allow for the
decentralisation of what would be huge infrastructure undertakings that
might otherwise take years. These include ecological or biofuel toilets
that can be used within a home and negate the need to build vast networks
of sewers; and solar energy, which also negates the need for large
electricity installations.
Covid and slum improvements
The pandemic has thrown an unforgiving light on the hardships of slums. In
the West, millions of people were able to stay at home, subsidised by their
governments. This wasn’t available to slum dwellers in the developing
world. According to Cities Alliance, ‘slums were not immediately accessible
and the scale of needs was unmanageable’.
‘The biggest challenge was the recognition of how short-term the informal
economy is within slum areas,’ says Julian Baskin, senior urban advisor at
Cities Alliance. ‘People were told to stay at home; police tried to lock
down markets. But it became apparent just how quickly people would begin to
starve. People work in the day to buy food for the same night. It wasn’t
workable.’ The long-term response, he argues, must be to invest in urban
agriculture, so that food can be stockpiled and distributed in such
circumstances.
According to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency,
‘much of the progress made in the fight against poverty over many years has
been rolled back by the pandemic’, but spokesperson Mistry says adaptations
to best meet the Covid-related needs of communities can still go hand in
hand with improving conditions. ‘SIDA has worked through partners such as
Slum Dwellers International and Cities Alliance to install hand-washing
stations, disseminate masks and create local small-scale health units’,
which both mitigate Covid pressures and improve services.
Community cohesion
Infrastructure is self-evidently important, but what really makes a
difference, says Baskin, is community organisation, which has a greater
capacity to kick-start improvements. ‘You need people who can represent the
community, forums that invest in dialogue. Even if people are poor, things
will happen. If you don’t have that, then criminal elements step into the
void.’
Örnéus agrees, adding: ‘It’s not just about housing and infrastructure,
it’s also about empowering the urban poor and building their capacity to
engage and be aware of their rights. The participation of slum dwellers is
the key to a successful slum-upgrading programme.’
Örnéus stresses the importance of gradual upgrading and contrasts this with
policies prevalent during the 1980s under which whole slum areas would be
forcibly removed, the land cleared and, in effect, ‘retro-fitted’ with
infrastructure. ‘Although in some places, the situation has improved,
people are still forcibly evicted every year and millions are threatened
with forced evictions.’
Nevertheless, there are good examples of approaches that both involve slum
residents and view slums as an integral part of the city. In Nairobi, a
project overseen by Muungano wa Wanavijij puts the emphasis on inclusivity:
slums have been compartmentalised into 1,000 groups, each comprising some
100 people. Each slum group is autonomous and seeks to galvanise community
efforts to improve living conditions.
This community-based approach was applied to Mukuru, a vast, sprawling
243-hectare informal settlement in Nairobi. Mukuru was declared a special
planning area, with priority and funding given for projects that enabled
the slum to be improved and integrated into the city’s fabric. A resident
was chosen to represent each group of households and thousands of people
were asked for their views; 250 community mobilisers were engaged to raise
awareness of the project. Residents were trained to collect data. Every
latrine, water tap and electricity pole in the settlement was mapped. Among
the outcomes has been the replacement of 3,800 filthy pit latrines. Now,
1,000 households have access to flushing toilets and running water. Mukuru
is also Kenya’s pioneering social-housing project as the government has
approved the construction of 13,000 new houses there.
Second cities
Directing rural migrants to secondary cities is another way in which
thinking has shifted in recent years. ‘The primary cities have born the
huge brunt of urbanisation and there’s little capacity to expand land; you
get backlogs, they’re precarious,’ says Baskin. ‘Across Africa, we are
seeing a big strategic shift to secondary cities.’ One advantage is that
migrants can move to a city nearer to their rural origins, where the
language may be the same as in their village. Should they lose their job or
times get hard, they can return home and use their social networks to avoid
being sucked into debt far from home.
The way the world is looking right now, urbanisation is taking place
really rapidly, especially in developing countries. These countries are
severely lacking the governance, capacity and resources to cope.
Yet most donors still focus on the bigger cities as it can be more
difficult to work with secondary cities and implement improvements. ‘The
megacities – Rio, Bombay, Delhi and the like – have community organisations
that are much more developed and co-ordinated, which makes it easier to
change perceptions there,’ says Mistry. ‘Secondary cities are seeing the
same problems [that emerged in the largest cities] but don’t have the same
resources as the bigger cities to meet the needs of their swelling
populations.’
While planners and grassroots agencies know what is likely to work,
progress can be painfully slow. Self-evidently, income and funding make a
difference in outcomes for slum upgrading. Cities in developing nations
typically have barely a quarter of the resources of those in a developed
nation. Per capita spending in most African cities is US$50 per household.
In Europe, the figure is US$2,100. ‘It would be interesting to see the
impact on a Western European city of a 75 per cent cut in funding,’ says
Baskin. ‘Many cities [in developing nations] pay salaries that are not
competitive. You have top management, no middle management and a huge
number of unskilled workers. The informal economy is huge.’
Avoiding gentrification
One potential consequence of slum upgrading is gentrification, the
phenomenon seen across developed cities where a neglected area is improved
to the extent that wealthier people move in and the original occupants are
displaced.
This was the risk facing Barrio 31 in Buenos Aires, a settlement situated
downtown, close to affluent neighbourhoods. Between 2015 and 2019, the city
provided 18 kilometres of basic infrastructure and services to the area,
including sewers, drainage, water, public lighting and roads. It also
renovated 26 public spaces, improved 1,700 housing units, constructed 1,200
new residences and provided three new public schools and three healthcare
centres.
The conditions were ripe for more affluent incomers to take advantage of
these improvements. However, they’ve been kept at bay by a series of
practical and legal measures. Land titles were given to residents with a
subsidised 30-year mortgage. At 250 square metres, plot sizes are smaller
than the minimum plot standard of the wider city and development rights
were limited to the construction of properties with a maximum of three
floors above ground level. In addition, new residents must pay three times
the property tax. These measures also provided safeguards against slums
slipping backwards because they prevented private landlords from buying up
vacant land and then stimulating slum conditions by building unregulated
structures for rent.
Climate change
Another challenge is that slum areas are often perilously located.
However, if you can get this right, slum upgrading can help address issues
around climate change while also implementing sustainable-development
priorities. ‘Climate change is already having disproportionate impacts in
slum areas,’ says Örnéus. ‘Slums are often located in hazard-prone areas,
on steep-sided hills or along floodplains, making them already prone to
floods and landslides. Their location only worsens their vulnerability to
climate change impacts. This is why governments have to pay special
attention to how to mitigate climate risks in slum areas when they develop
their adaptation action plans.’
Even so, climate change is likely to provide a brake on progress in slum
upgrading. ‘I hope we don’t always have slums,’ says Örnéus. ‘But the way
the world is looking right now, urbanisation is taking place really
rapidly, especially in developing countries. These countries are severely
lacking the governance, capacity and resources to cope.’
Örnéus stresses the importance of not generalising about what works and
what doesn’t because ‘every city is different and everyone moving to a city
has a different reason for doing so.’ There’s a necessity, she argues, for
policymakers to remain agile in their thinking and to avoid slipping into
old tropes that drop-in solutions will work everywhere.
Patience will be key, says Baskin, who’s optimistic that we’ll see
meaningful, widespread change. ‘Incrementally, we will get improvements,
more territorial interaction between urban and rural areas,’ he says. ‘The
headwinds are going in the right direction but it isn’t going to happen
overnight. We’re not going to suddenly end up with model visions of cities
all over the developing world.’
NB: The place is Karail, the largest informal settlement in Dhaka, but
the story is not particular to there. A billion people live in such places
around the world. That number is slated to reach 3 billion people in the
next 30 years.
This means informal settlements are one of the major ways developing cities
are being produced. Conventional planning approaches such as slum
clearance, cookie-cutter high-rises, peripheral resettlement and
back-to-village programs have often failed to manage them.
UN-Habitat, the body with global responsibility for issues of urban growth,
advocates city-wide slum upgrading and integration with metropolitan plans.
Such programs are explicitly “participatory” and inclusive. Specifically,
UN-Habitat recommends member states “recognise the rights and contributions
of slum dwellers and change the view that they are illegal”.
2050 will have 40% more huts, 3 billion out of 8 as of date ratio living in
huts. What is your proposition sir? Servants, labourers etc are nonsense.
In the 1950s how did you manage without them? Have you seen typical huts in
New York? Problem is freedom of mind and the solution is the space problem.
K Rajaram IRS 22724
NOTE GOPALA ALL KNEW YOUR LIMITATIONS; SO DO NOT PRETEND AS IF YOU ARE A
THINK TANK AND SOMEONE IS ERRONEOUSLY AGAINST YOU; NO; YOU ARE AGAINST
YOURSELF. YOUR ACTION YOUR OWN INVITE PROBLEMS WHICH HURTS YOU EVERYDAY BUT
CHANGE SHALL ARISE AT YOUR END.
On Mon, 22 Jul 2024 at 10:38, Gopala Krishnan <gopa4...@gmail.com> wrote:
> CULTURAL QA 07-2024-22
>
> TOPIC- GENERAL- BASE QUORA QA- Compiled
>
> Q1 Why do temples not give free meals to devotees like
> gurdwaras do?
>
> A1 Aashish Kumar Dimri, One who loves his food !Jul 13
>
> Tirupati : It runs a state of art grand free kitchen known as Anna
> Prasadam Kshetram.
>
> It runs one of the largest temple kitchens across the world.
>
> Every visitor at Lord Venkateswara temple is obliged to enjoy free Prasad
> (full breakfast ; lunch and dinner).
>
> No wonder, nearly 50000 devotees are served daily by TTD.
>
> Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams’ volunteers also serve free meals to many
> others- outside temple premises.
>
> Breakfast : Every day , devotees and visitors are provided either Upma or
> Pongal or Vermicelli upma and delicious chutney as healthy breakfast.
>
> Lunch : Visitors can also partake sumptuous vegetarian lunch between 10.30
> A.M. to 04.00 P.M daily .
>
> It includes - Chakkara Pongal, curry, Chutney, Rice, Sambar, Rasam &
> Buttermilk (Chanch)
>
> Dinner : They can also enjoy similar vegetarian dishes as dinner.
>
> Free : Well, the only conditions are cleanliness and reverence to Hindu
> faith.
>
> There is no moral policing or social taboos and dogmas. Aggression and
> arrogance are never displayed by any servitor or devotee.
>
> Ample : Devotees are served oft and again with utmost dedication and
> humility. Interestingly, many food experts claim that TTD serves more
> food to hungry souls than presumption and assumption .
>
> Those who have darshan of Lord Venkateswara also receive special ladoo as
> a blessing.
>
> Well : Afterall they are treated as special guests or beloved ones of
> omnipotent almighty.
>
> Remember : There are many Hindu shrines across India and abroad that
> follow Anna Danam.
>
> Prayer:Sri Venkateshaya Namah Govinda Govinda Govinda !
>
> Q2 What is a comical accident case in India?
>
> A2 Rupinder Singh,lives in India9h
>
> One morning in the middle of April 2023, 82-year-old Shivdayal Sharma was
> urinating near a railway track in Alwar, Rajasthan. Suddenly, a flying cow
> fell on him and he died on the spot.The cow had flown in the air after
> being hit by a Vande Bharat train that left from Kali Mori gate. Many
> such cases have been reported of cattle dying after straying onto railway
> tracks of VB trains.
>
> Shivdayal had retired from the Indian Railways as an electrician two
> decades ago. He was around 30 meters away from where the train hit the cow.
>
> It flew that distance and fell on the old man. Another man near the spot
> narrowly escaped.
>
> As per 2022 reports, as many as 68 cases were reported in 6 months of
> Vande Bharat trains suffering minor damage after hitting cattle on the
> tracks.
>
> More such cases have been reported on the Mumbai-Gujarat route. Union
> Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnav claimed collision with cattle was
> unavoidable and VB trains were designed accordingly.
>
> To keep cattle away from tracks, Vaishnav announced the cleanup of garbage
> and removal of vegetation from around the tracks.
>
> Western Railway decided to install metal fences along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
> route to stop cattle from straying onto tracks.
>
> Sources:- IndiaToday 2362617,- LiveMint 11671011310508
>
> - Zee News 2597507
>
> *My note**-Happa- Source is told. Otherwise my only critic **Mr Rajaram
> with negative words ** would have asked for source and blame me for
> furnishing worng information in groups. *
>
> *I have never met in my life such a critic **adding only negative
> response **to this much extent on a person and furnishing **rubbish
> addition mostly not related to the QA. **I pity Mr Rajaram **. A QA is
> intended only for answer to the point and not pages of data**.*
>
> *Dear friends**, **I am forced to make the above note, after going
> through very bad reactions of Mr Rajaram on my recent QA postings. You may
> go through his responses .*
>
> Q3 How long did it take for Gutenberg's invention to spread
> across Europe?
>
> A3 Silk Road, Physics/History Connoisseur, AI Machine
> Learning. Jul 3
>
> This dude came up with a way to crank out books like hotcakes.
>
> It was 1450 or thereabouts, in Mainz, Germany. Johannes Gutenberg, a
> goldsmith by trade, had this wild idea.
>
> Instead of painstakingly copying books by hand, why not make little metal
> letters, arrange them in lines, and then BAM - press them onto paper?
>
> It was a game-changer, and it didn't take long for word (or rather,
> printed page) to spread.
>
> By the end of the 15th century, Gutenberg's printing press was like
> wildfire across Europe.
>
> Within a few decades, printing shops had popped up in over 270 cities.
> Imagine the scene: ink-stained apprentices running around, the rhythmic
> thump of the press, and the smell of fresh paper filling the air.
>
> It was a revolution, plain and simple.
>
> By 1480, just thirty years after Gutenberg's first Bible rolled off the
> press, printing shops were humming away in 110 different places, from
> Germany to Italy, France, Spain, and beyond.
>
> This wasn't just some niche technology; it was in "universal use" across
> the continent.
>
> The reasons for such a fast integration into society are plentiful.
>
> The printing press made books a hell of a lot cheaper. Before, they were
> luxury items, hand-copied by monks and reserved for the elite.
>
> Now, anyone who could read (and that number was growing, thanks to the
> printing press itself) could get their hands on a book.
>
> It was like the internet of its day, democratizing knowledge and spreading
> ideas like never before.The printing press also made it possible to produce
> books in massive quantities. We're talking thousands of copies of the same
> text, all identical, all ready to be shipped off to eager readers across
> Europe.
>
> It was a logistical marvel, and it fueled a cultural explosion that would
> change the course of history.
>
> Took only about thirty years for the printing press to become ubiquitous
> in Europe. That's lightning fast for the 15th century.
>
> It wasn't just about books; it was about ideas, knowledge, and the power
> to communicate on a scale never before seen
>
> Q4 Can you name any politicians in India who have not been
> involved in corruption or bad politics?
>
> A4 Himanshu Rai, Studied M.A PSIR from Banaras Hindu
> University Sat
>
> Ayub Khan, a 6 feet 2 inches tall cancelled his plan to visit New Delhi
> after the death of India’s first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in
> 1964. He apparently said ‘who is there [in India] to talk to.
>
> Ayub Khan was known to judge leaders by their physical appearance and
> Lal Bahadur Shastri was thin and short.
>
> The India-Pakistan War of 1965 ended officially with an agreement signed
> in Tashkent with the mediation by then USSR on January 10, 1966. Within 12
> hours of the agreement, Shastri died of heart attack in the plane flying
> him back home.
>
> By now Ayub Khan was so impressed with Shastri that not only the Soviet
> Russia government but also the Pakistan government lowered all their
> national flags on all buildings enroute.
>
> Ayub Khan was the first foreign dignitary to reach Shastri’s home after
> his death on January 11, 1966.
>
> This was the example how Shastri made his image as a strong leader in
> global politics.
>
> But before becoming Prime Minister there was also many incidents where he
> proved that he is not in politics to do bad politics.
>
> Indian railway minister Lal Bahadur Shastri wanted to take political
> responsibility for the accident and offered his resignation to prime
> minister Jawaharlal Nehru, but he refused. After the 1956 Ariyalur train
> accident a similar accident about three months later, Shastri again offered
> his resignation and was accepted.
>
> Even when he was prime minister, country was facing food crisis. At that
> time ,Lal Bahadur Shastri announced to his family one evening that for the
> next few days they would all give up on their evening meal.
>
> There is also one incident
>
> It is said that he had a Chevrolet Impala car for official use, which
> his son once used for a drive.
>
> When Shastri learned about it, he asked his driver to check the
> distance the car was used for and later deposited the money in the
> government account
>
> This all examples showed Shastri was the ideal example of good politics.
>
> Footnotes[1]‘Man who could have brought India, Pakistan together’: When
> Pak military dictator praised Lal Bahadur Shastri
>
> [2]A PM who paid when sons used official car
>
> Q5 Why don't we demolish slums and tell the inhabitants to go
> back to their villages (India)?
>
> A5 Makarand Sahasrabuddhe, In politics for over 20 years.
> Updated 5y
>
> Why don't we demolish slums and tell the inhabitants to go back to their
> villages (India)?
>
> What a brilliant idea. I wonder why no one has thought about it. Oh wait
> a minute.
>
> Someone did. In 1976. Sanjay Gandhi. He went on a demolition of slums at
> Turkman gate which then led to rioting. We all know how that ended for
> Sanjay Gandhi and the Congress in the next elections.
>
> Do you really think that people like and choose to stay in slums?
>
> Do you know how miserable life is for someone living in a slum? How
> dangerous it is for women and children? How expensive it is since they have
> to pay for everything at much higher rates cos thugs control the resources?
> Do you really think that people would live in a slum if they had a choice?
>
> Repeat after me - Slums are a manifestation of a failed rural livelihood
> and urban housing mechanisms.
>
> It is because we screw up in establishing sustainable livelihood systems
> in rural areas that populations come under stress and migrate to urban
> areas.
>
> It is because there is no provision of low cost housing and no unskilled
> or semi-skilled migrant can afford housing in cities (a lot of time even
> the skilled find it difficult to get good housing) that they stay in
> absolute horrific conditions in slums.
>
> But suppose someone brave leader did demolish all slums and make people
> ‘go back’## to where they came from, do you realise what impact it will
> have on a big city**? Let me try to tell you
>
> No more house-help since most of them come from slums or slum-like
> tenements. Ditto for security guards, nurses, ward boys, ambulance
> drivers, bus drivers, railway motormen, personal drivers, class IV
> employees of municipal corporation who are responsible for sanitation and
> garbage clearance etc.
>
> More than 1/2 the police constables would be gone.
>
> Most of the petty traders, plumbers, carpenters and other skilled workers
> - gone.
>
> Since you have internet, can speak English and are on Quora - you are
> likely to belong to the urban middle class. Do you realise what this means
> to you and your life?
>
> Any skilled or semi skilled labour you hire - you pay more.
>
> Any domestic worker you hire - you pay more.
>
> If you are ailing or involved in an accident, it is more difficult to get
> to an hospital and get services.
>
> You do more work at home. You are at increased health risk from poor
> sanitation services.
>
> I could go on but I suppose you get the point.
>
> To conclude, slum eradication is not the solution. You need to alleviate
> (eradicate) poverty and not the poor. (गरीबी हटाओ, गरीब को नहीं) Removing
> slum dwellers from cities and sending them ‘back’ is like taking a pill for
> a headache when the real problem is probably strain on the eyes or
> constipation. The headache is only the manifestation of the problem.
>
>
>
> I am not saying that slums need to stay as they are, we can and should
> build low cost housing so that the essential service providers can live
> with dignity. We should invest in rural livelihoods & infrastructure so
> that people are not forced to migrate; they can move of course but not in
> distress, by choice.
>
> ## Of course the ‘go back’ in case of 3rd or 4th generation slum dwellers
> may pose a slight problem. Where ‘exactly’ would they go back to?
>
> ** I am not even speaking at length about what will happen ‘back home’
> where they go to. Starvation, rupture of social fabric, children dropping
> out of school, increased violence and collapse of socio-economic-political
> fabric. And this will just be the start.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "iyer123" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to iyer123+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/CAEE2L%2B3kN_uoemMoryhNu9zRbYwew%2BwEZoGeicw%2B4agNzdg%3DVA%40mail.gmail.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/iyer123/CAEE2L%2B3kN_uoemMoryhNu9zRbYwew%2BwEZoGeicw%2B4agNzdg%3DVA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> .
>
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Thatha_Patty" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to thatha_patty+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZoo-PthxXas%3DJO8xjfdM%3DrNFx%3D1F7ganokMbWj5Askjm8w%40mail.gmail.com.
