Prewritten script?

Let us not, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expect, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people, who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroys the forest to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centre and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so that were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry of their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy season….Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage of all other creatures on being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.

Nikolai Bukharin

News now!

Politicians have already expressed alarm over the snail-paced preparations for the 1.15-billion-dollar showcase which features former British colonies.

The government plans to build new flyovers to relieve crowded roads, renovate the airport, construct new stadia as well as the Games village that will be converted into a residential complex after the event.

The Urban Development Ministry has said that it has got an environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for building a Commonwealth Games Village near the Yamuna.The Games village, off NH-24, near Akshardham flyover, will be developed on 63.5 hectares and will house about 7,500 sportspersons and officials. UD ministry officials said they would consider making parking lots, media lounges etc temporary structures.

Environmentalists explain that construction on the river bed is inadvisable as the soil is sandy and has low carrying-capacity, a fault line runs through the area on a north-south axis and the area is prone to periodic floods. Further, covering the banks with impermeable concrete would threaten Delhi's largest groundwater recharge zone, they say. Construction would also lead to the channelling of the river, whereby its meandering course will be restricted by steep embankments. While channelling will make more space available for development and construction of the river banks, it will not do much for the river. "Channelling ensures that the amount of water allowed into the river shall never be increased. Any increase will result in the river flooding its embankments." A major reason why the Yamuna is so polluted is that there is not enough water flowing in the river through the Delhi stretch. Construction on the banks would make the river's rejuvenation close to impossible.