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2026 : The Road to Smooth Traffic

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  2026 : The Road to Smooth Traffic If ChatGpt could read whispering lips of Mumbaikars then “traffic” would easily earn the title of  “The most Cursed Term of Mumbai – 2025” While other Indian cities too may have experience similar phenomenon, Mumbai traffic gets more interesting because Mumbai commuters can through films of 70s and 80s -  Deewar, Manzil and Muqaddar ka Siqandar derive pleasure from visualizing their dream traffic. Other cities don’t have this luxury. Jokes apart, what big policy level shift happened in Mumbai, post 80s ? Around 1985, Govt of Maharashtra recognized the rights of slum dwellers. Accordingly, slum societies ready to spend their own money towards redevelopment were eligible for free allotment of land from Govt.  The 1995 scheme became more liberal, the slum dwellers were eligible for a completely free home from a private developer who would be subsidized through incentive FSI from Govt. The above brought strategic shift in citizens’ tho...
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Language Wars : When Hindi was David and Marathi – the Goliath

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      Language Wars : When Hindi was David and Marathi – the Goliath         The need of the hour is to use Hindi to build global dominance. However scale would serve no purpose if the soul were lost       Today, if one reads Marathi media, the argument in support of promoting Marathi would be to strengthen the social, cultural and emotional bridge (and similarly in other regional media ).    The Hindi media would argue the case of national integration.    If one follows both, it becomes a polarized debate between Unity of the nation v/s  Vibrancy of diversity. Nationalism strengthens the nation and regionalism empowers the emotional bonding among the locals.   However, in this debate, surprisingly no media has discussed how history has dealt with a similar issue of conflict between two languages - one representing power of ruling authority and other the soul of the masses. Interesting, it was a case of...
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Social Media : eliminating the unsocial

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   Social Media : eliminating the unsocial The solution to radicalistion  lies not in breaking digital bonds but in building family bonds.     For last several decades, women’s lib and women empowerment have dominated media space as well as political narratives. Its polar opposites – movement for injustice against men and misogyny - were part of my blog in Dec 2024 .  But now with large discussions around the eye-opening Netflix film Adolescence, this subject now needs a deeper analysis.   The film Adolescence illustrates the core of the incel movement - which lies in the 80:20 phenomenon ( incel  :  involuntary celibate ). 80% of the young girls like 20% of the young men. As a result, 80% young men are being forced to live without a female partner. To express their angst, these young men look out for other like-minded people. And the digital world, with its immense capabilities in building communities, provides the right platform for these u...
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Pushpa, Ladli Behna & Trump….the Connecting ALPHAbet

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 Pushpa, Ladli Behna & Trump….the Connecting ALPHAbet   The rising need to see a strong alpha male is generating new trends in box-office  as well as in global politics     A lot has been analyzed about the box office success in the north India for southern films like Pushpa. Most of these analyses conclude that Hindi film producers left the masala film space which has been captured by the southern films. Even assuming that this is true, what still remains unexplained is why were masala films  (that dominated the Bollywood during 70s/80s/90s ) ditched by the film producers during 2000s and 2010s. And then why did suddenly in last five years, we saw a market for masala films.   Let’s take a deco of the history. The core audience of Bollywood masala films was the middle class of 70s/80s/90s. But by late 90s and early 2000s, a big shift had happened in the box office collections of Hindi films – the titantic dominance of the urban multiplexes and...
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US Elections & Mumbai Realty : The Common Conundrum

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        Economic Power v/s Political power is a challenging task faced by these institutions and in addition they have to balance a third critical factor.   --------   --------     --------   --------    --------   --------           US is the most diverse nation in the world, and Mumbai - the most diverse city in India. This diversity has led to a strange conundrum that is common to both.   During the last 50 years, large cities in India have seen large migration as well as rapid changes in consumer aspirations. Resultantly, we had two faces of these cities - the old establishment or the core city ; and the new zones (Island city vs Suburban Mumbai, Delhi vs Gurgaon/Noida, Bengaluru city vs Whitefields/Devanahalli etc. ).   Historically, the core city would house the powers centres - govt offices, key markets, centres Arts & Entertainment etc. makin...
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South India : The Rise and Rise of Hindi

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    ( Hindi Day Special)     1930s :  Govt’s incorporates a law for compulsory teaching of Hindi language in schools in Madras Presidency. A major public uproar in Madras (Chennai).   1960s :  Discussions begin in Delhi on making Hindi as the only official language. Anti-Hindi protests across South.   Most of the readers would not have witnessed the above.   However, a few would have witnessed the ban on Hindi films and the defacing of Devnagari banners and hoardings across Tamilnadu (TN) during 1980s. During the same time, one of my  friends from south was so passionate about cricket that he could not afford to miss a single minute of update. However, on radio, Hindi commentary every 15 minute became an impediment. He found a solution He learnt only the Hindi numbers (1 to 500) but avoided learning the language. This way he could get a continuous update on cricket score but by not learning Hindi he also was able to  showcase his an...
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Hindi : Ab ki baar, Dakkhan paar

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  ( हिन्दी- दिवस विशेष)     193 7  : मद्रास प्रेसीडेंसी के स्कूलों में हिंदी भाषा अनिवार्य  …..  सरकार के इस फ़ैसले से काफ़ी सुगबुगाहट।   1963 : दिल्ली में हिन्दी को एकमात्र राज भाषा बनाने पर चर्चा  ….. दक्षिण भारत  में   हिन्दी विरोधी हिंसा एवं धरना।     आज के कई युवा इन घटनाओं से शायद ही अवगत होंगे। कुछ वाक़िफ़ भी होंगे तो शायद  1980 के दशक में तमिलनाडु में हिन्दी फ़िल्मों पर प्रतिबंध और हिंदी होर्डिंग और बैनर पर  लगी  कालिख से।   पर सभी पाठकों को  मेरे  क्रिकेट -प्रेमी मित्र का क़िस्सा उस समय के हालात से रू-ब-रू  करवाएगा । 1980 के दशक में क्रिकेट की कमेंटरी सुनना, क्रिकेट प्रेमियों की दीवानगी या शग़ल था। रेडियो पर कमेंटरी का आधा हिस्सा  हिन्दी में प्रसारित किया जाता था। और यह दक्षिण के मेरे इस मित्र के क्रिकेट-प्रेम के आड़े आता था। उस समस्या को दूर करने के लिए मेरे मित्र ने  सिर्फ़ 1 से 500 तक हिन्दी के अंकों को जान लिया ताकि उसे स्कोर की जानकारी तो मिलते रहे पर हिन्दी ना सीख कर उ...
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