Amit's Blog

Wealth, Waste, and the Tragedy of the Commons along Mumbai’s Fading Coastline Five decades ago, Mumbai’s coastlines were vibrant, democratic spaces—pristine golden sands where the city came to breathe. Today, they are ecological casualties, buried under tons of plastic and untreated sewage. This environmental collapse occurred not in a vacuum of poverty, but within India’s premier financial hub, home to its wealthiest corporations and most articulate citizens. This comprehensive investigation explores the structural paradox of Mumbai's development: a metropolis that generated historic private wealth while engineering the systemic destruction of its public commons. By dissecting the fragmentation of bureaucratic accountability, the spatial secession of the financial elite, the real estate cartel's war on coastal ecology, and the psychological trap of the "Mumbai Spirit," this narrative reveals the deep contradictions of Indian advancement. It proves that when private...

China is on to a new paradigm. Will it be as spectacular as the earlier paradigm or will it be a white elephant. We will know after a decade or so. Established in April 2017. The area is located about 100 km southwest of Beijing and 50 km east of downtown Baoding. Its main function is to serve as a development hub for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Jingjinji) economic triangle. Additionally, "non-core" functions of the Chinese capital are expected to migrate here, including offices of some state-owned enterprises, government agencies, and research and development facilities. The area covers the regions of Xiong, Rongcheng and Anxin. Its name is a compound of the first elements of the names of two of them: Xiong and Anxin. The construction of the area is described as part of the "millennium strategy"Unlike other "new areas", Xiong'an's development is taking place under the direct oversight of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the...