Call for going green

The Copenhagen circus and poor Dr Pachauri's glacier-gate issues may not have made any headway on climate change, but our clearly enthused Dilli sarkar has decided to actively promote green vehicles. Apparently, the muse behind the move is the tiny electric car Reva, which is yet to come into its own. But that may be about to change, if chief minister Sheila Dikshit's initiative works out, Dilliwalas who buy electric cars will get attractive subsidies u2014 15 per cent on the base price of the vehicle and many tax breaks, making electric cars imminently affordable.

u00a0Jumping on to the eco-friendly car bandwagon, a local power supply company has even tied up with Reva's manufacturers to provide 100 free chargeports at various locations across the city. Will it all work now?

Call for change
Often books arrive uninvited on my doorstep, a bonus of having free-ranging interests. One of the most brilliant examples in recent times is William Bissell's "Making India Work", and perhaps at a different level is a more recent work on terrorism on our roads, on India's traffic and attendant problems.

u00a0Bissell's book looks at the macrocosm of re-organizing and indeed providing an alternate set of values for India, a worthy tome that goes where more profound authors have never dared to go.
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But looking at traffic, especially at a time when both Delhi and Mumbai are slowly choking to a crawl, is perhaps relevant. In "Tsunami on Roads: Wake Up India!", Dr Sanjay Kulshrestha, a senior medical practitioner, has painstakingly deconstructed the deterioration in Indian traffic conditions and the resultant toll on human life and our environment. His is the urgent voice of a common citizen and his analysis is unerring in logic. Both these works, while addressing different issues, share a common purpose in calling for some urgent rethink of our development goals.