Slums separate Bombay from its future
Sudhin Thanawala (’07), Chronicle Foreign Service
October 12, 2006
Many Indian authorities here proudly claim this seaside metropolis — the nation’s largest — as an Asian financial hub on par with Shanghai and Tokyo.
But critics quickly point out that India — touted as an international powerhouse in the 21st century along with China — will never become an economic success story until it eradicates its many urban slums. More than 40 million people, or 14 percent of the nonrural population, live in shantytowns, according to the 2001 Indian census.
India, which has 1.1 billion people, is expected to expand its urban population to 575 million by 2030 from 285 million today, making an increase in slums one of the nation’s most pressing problems. Urban blight is most evident in Bombay, more than half of whose 16.4 million inhabitants reside in shantytowns. Also known as Mumbai, Bombay is often called “Slumbai.”
Read full story here.
[NOTE: This story came out of the Spring 2006 Covering India course taught by Carolyn Wakeman and The Hindu's Parvathi Menon]
Your story, and your comments, are well-worthy of note. What you have said supports, sadly, my own experience of India.
Somehow, my many Indian friends, some living in UK, as I do, seem to miss the very facts your article has highlighted. I shall now point a few of them in your direction, and hope that you can have some effect on their thinking. Good journalism often does.
Good work, sorry I am so late with my support, and best wishes too.
ANDREW SIMPSON.
January 31st, 2008 | #