Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Builders cant sell parking lots

Builders can't sell parking lots 
(The Hindustan Times: 20-07-11)

Author: Naresh Kamath   

You will no longer have to pay hefty amounts to secure a parking lot in your residential society. As per an order issued by the state cooperative department, the society, and not the builder, will have the right to allot parking lots and similar open spaces. The order was issued based on a Supreme

Court (SC) verdict, which had come down heavily on the sale of the parking lots by builders, a practice the SC termed ‘illegal’.        
  
So far, builders have been charging flat purchasers exorbitant amounts for parking lots.
“The law clearly states that open spaces are the property of the society members, and not of the builders,” said Vinod Sampat, a lawyer specialising in real estate matters. He said that the state cooperative department has given clear directions to not recognise the rights of allottees in both, open as well as stilt parking spaces, which a few flat purchasers may have purchased from the builder. By implication, the order could be a problem in cases where people have purchased parking lots from builders, but the society management does not acknowledge the sale.

In several cases, builders have made it compulsory for homebuyers to purchase parking lots along with apartments. Currently, a single parking lot is priced around Rs3 lakh in suburbs, while it can go up to Rs 30 lakh in the island city. In some cases, flat owners have bought multiple parking lots, causing inconvenience to other members of the society.

Predictably, the builder lobby has expressed its disappointment over the order.
“This will cause chaos, as we allot parking lots as per the requirement of flat owners,” said Lalit Kumar Jain, chairman and managing director, Kumar Builders.

A similar argument was made by Rajesh Vardhan, Managing Director, Vardhaman Group who claimed that a substantial amount goes into creating parking lots. “Builders will neglect parking lots if their right to sell these is snatched,” Vardhan said.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/tabloid-news/mumbai/Builders-can-t-sell-parking-lots/Article1-723233.aspx

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Analysis First understand the dynamics of terrorism then fight it

Analysis First understand the dynamics of terrorism then fight it 

(DNA: 18-07-11)


Author: Julio Ribeiro


The one question that is constantly being asked by every Mumbaikar is why the police were not able to prevent another terrorist attack in the city. Many commentators on television channels have vented their anger on the police as well as the political leadership.The Opposition leaders, including LK Advani, have blamed the government for a “policy failure”, without spelling out what they would do which this government is not seen to be doing.

Having tasted terrorism in the Punjab between 1986 and 1989 I think I have some firsthand knowledge of the subject. The type of anger I notice here is the same as that Hindus in Punjab used to exhibit at the height of terrorism there. At first, not understanding the dynamics of terrorism, I thought that if we made a list of the various terrorist groups and their foot soldiers and eliminated or captured them, we would put an end to the menace!

Alas, we were wrong.Terrorist leaders and their followers if caught or killed, are soon replaced by other brainwashed young men. In fact, many criminal elements also join the fray.
We soon learnt that the only real answer to terrorism is the classical response advocated by people who had experienced it in other parts of the world — go after the brainwashed cadre with single-minded determination and kill or capture them but, simultaneously win over the hearts and minds of the community to which the terrorists belong.

It is only when the Jat Sikhs in the villages of the Punjab turned against these boys that we could wave goodbye to terrorism in that state.Something like this has to be tried out with the Muslim community in Mumbai. Most Muslims are self-employed artisans or traders and they have nothing to do with the terrorists or their cause.

The Mohalla Committee Movement has been attempting to bring Hindus and Muslims to understand each other by constant meetings in their own localities.The movement has also associated the police with this venture because unless the minority community feels confident that the police will not take sides and will not be unjust they are not likely to come round. 

It is absolutely impossible for any police or government in the world to prevent a terrorist strike of the type that occurred in Mumbai on 13/7 unless there was pinpoint intelligence available.Such intelligence is likely to come by if citizens, mainly of the minority community, have more confidence in the police. 

This brings me to the second part of this article and that is the willingness of the police at the thana level to take heed of gossip or information passed on to them. Unfortunately, the police force is not the same as that which was in 25 to 30 years ago. Corruption has become more endemic and even some senior officers have fallen prey to the menace. 

There is a general fall in values concomitant with the falling morals in our society. Much of it stems from political corruption emanating from electoral politics. When politicians insist on running the force by dabbling in transfers and other establishment matters you have a situation when the control slips out of the hand of the man who should be in charge i.e. the commissioner of police.
The proposed police reforms had concentrated on this one ill that ails the body politic. If we can separate the politician from daily policing and appoint only the best people at the top of the hierarchy the delivery system would certainly improve exponentially.

On 13/7 the police did perform much, much better than they did on 26/11.The only criticism I heard was that they were not able to control the crowds at the sites of the blasts.This is a perennial problem in the country and not only in Mumbai. 

Since the use of force has to be avoided the only solution I can think of is to use loudspeakers to announce constantly that there is a danger of another explosion and also that the scenes of crimes need to be preserved for tracing the culprits.

I have heard demands that home minister RR Patil should be asked to resign. This demand should be ignored for the simple reason that Patil could not have anticipated or prevented the attack.
What is required is a quick response and the capture of the culprits as early as possible followed by exemplary punishment in quick time. Our judicial process takes ages to accomplish what it is meant to even in such serious cases!

What Patil should do is not to cave in to the demands of his colleagues for transfers and postings. Patil himself is not known to be corrupt, like some previous home ministers. But Patil tends to deal directly with junior officials which he should refrain from doing because that disrupts the hierarchical structure and shakes the very foundations of police discipline.

Another public demand is that VIP security should be trimmed so that there are more policemen on the roads rather than pandering to oversized egos. The chief minister had taken his decision but had put it on a hold because of unreasonable pressure from sundry politicians. He would be appreciated if he overruled these gentlemen and went ahead with his resolve to take away these status symbols.

—The author is the former Mumbai commissioner of police 

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/analysis_analysis-first-understand-the-dynamics-of-terrorism-then-fight-it_1566807

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Sad.

Pakistan is inflicting a slow death upon itself. Just that India will hurt on Pakistan's way down as we were once, one. Its sad. God bless the multitude of good people in Pakistan. The unfortunate few are a common menace.

The breakaway group from all religions is called terrorism.


18 dead

131 admitted

26 discharged

82 stable

23 critical