Carpool Beta Release

I released the Mumbai Carpool site to a limited audience on C**S**F on Saturday. I think it is safe to call this a beta release. If all goes well and people start adopting it, I'm planning to take it to the mainstream media in a couple of weeks. Here's the url: http://patang.org/projects/carpool4 and a screenshot. Why did I write this? It was during August 2003 that I found myself involved quite heavily in a debate about something that shouldn't have been a matter of debate at all. The Pune authorities wanted to break up a mountain so that they could shove a road through it. To me, it seemed like a no-brainer. Of course you can't take away one of the last remaining green spaces in Pune and replace it with tar and concrete and Ford Endeavours. To my horror though, there were enough people, educated people, well-meaning people, to whom that fifteen minutes saved on their commute was more precious. I found myself engaged in endless debates about this issue, and so to educate myself more, I started doing some research. This is when I stumbled upon Enrique Peñalosa, the incredible Mayor of Bogota. What he has to say is much better said by him. Suffice to say that his ideas brought tears to my eyes, for example

One common measure of how clean a mountain stream is is to look for trout. If you find the trout, the habitat is healthy. It’s the same way with children in a city. Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.

or

If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would have to classify ourselves as losers until the end of time. Given our limited resources, we have to invent other ways to measure success, and that could be in terms of happiness. It may be in how much time children spend with their grandparents, or the ways in which we are able to enjoy our friendships, or how many times people smile during the week. A city is successful not when it’s rich but when its people are happy. Public space is one way to lead us to a society that is not only more equal but also much happier.

Here are some links definitely worth following. The Politics of Happiness Bogota-A City Transformed A Tale of Two Mayors:The improbable story of how Bogota, Colombia, became somewhere you might actually want to live Academic Turns City Into A Social Experiment Yes, I recognise it for the childish idealism that it is...:-) but I figure if it can be done in Bogota, it sure can happen anywhere. Wouldn't you like to be able to ride a bike in your hometown if you wanted to?

CSS Imagemaps

Demo here: http://patang.org. View page source for code.

Katrina

I cannot believe what I am seeing on the television. This is the response of the world's most powerful country to an anticipated natural disaster in a major city? Appalling. In India, where some place or the other gets flooded every year, we are well used to seeing footage of planes and helicopters air-dropping food, water and sundry relief materials. Never have I seen the army with guns, police with guns, refugees with guns like in New Orleans. The administration says "law and order" is priority number one. People are being asked to board up their houses against looters. And why are all the people we see all black? This is a major disaster. I cannot believe it. From the coverage, America sure seems like a spiritual wasteland. Where you expect to hear words like "relief", "aid", "medical supplies", we hear "snipers", "firefight", "security systems". Hell on earth.