World Habitat day of Oct 2009

I was going through the newspapers on 5 Oct 2009 in which 2 articles caught my special attention. One was the first column news in Hindu that published the picture of a lady mourning on seeing her submerged house in Garlapdu village near Hydrabad during the heavy rains. Other, was an ad published in the Manorama daily of same day, by Apple A Day Properties on their new offer, exchange of house. "Exchange your old house with Apple A Day's newly built flat or villas". Why this article caught my attention was, both of them published on the same World habitat day".

This day too went unnoticed. No one was aware of this day it seems, other than the creative minds in Apple A Day. Both the articles disturbed me a lot. First one for the poor lady's fate and the other one for the new trends in consumer behavior. We are adopting a use and throw culture. Owning a flat in Kerala's industrial capital is a dream for most of the urban population(i don't want to be in that category ;). The boom that happened in the real estate, made the job easy. Along with the real estate, land mafia too developed.

We are exploiting. Exploiting the land, rivers, forests... and the dreams of the middle class too. Fortune is yet to come to the bottom level.

Lets come back to the flood affected Andra and Karanataka.Its been more than 2 months, since the flood. Everyone have forgotten this. (Now the hot topic in Andra is the Telengana and Governer Tiwari and in Karanataka, the illegal mining contract.). Whom to blame? The nature? the govt? or the common man?? The majority who produce the food for the privileged minority, live in starvation. The hands which build houses and palaces, hardly enjoy the safety of a shelter. With the govt stepping back from the agriculture, education and public sector makes the things worse. But, definitely I appreciate the NREGA initiative by the Govt. Its a blessing for thousands under the poverty line.