Elephants on our roads!

Time and again someone asks me, "Do you have elephants roaming around on roads in New Delhi ?". And I give him/her a 10-15 min explanation on how India has changed over years and how elephants have disappeared from city roads and unfortunately, tigers from jungles. Well, at least elephants don't roam around freely on Delhi roads.

Apparently, this 18th century image of India (or New Delhi) has been created by some news channels here by showing such clips. They might just be showing the Republic Day Parade. I don't know. And if people are asking me, I think I should give them the right notion of a 21st century India. Afterwards, I wonder to myself. Sure, "India is poised" and economy is growing but do our cities even qualify for a world ranking of international cities.

Elephants might not be there anymore but has that made public transport any better now. Although Delhi roads are quite good, practically, except metro every other means of public transport sucks. Reckless driving by Blueline drivers has created hell on roads and their recent strike shows how much we depend on these cranky & unreliable buses. Auto-rickshaws fare no better. I think Government has taken a right step now by inviting private companies to run the buses.

Bangalore is a much touted IT city of India that people know here apart from Delhi. But according to my own observation, the road conditions and other public infrastructure are worse compared to other major Indian cities. The Bangalore shine has attracted brands like Google, MSR, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc. to open up offices there but the city needs a massive overhaul to keep the investment coming.

Infrastructure in Delhi has improved a lot over the last few years and further improvements are taking place thanks to the upcoming commonwealth games. Do we need such events in other cities also before our political leadership wakes up to the needs of an upcoming and modern society.