Cycling In Delhi

A news worth taking note of in the Hindu about how bicycles are slowly but surely going out of style in China. It surely makes us sit up and think 'what IS development'. Aren't we moving towards more wastage.

Delhi's master plan has several masterly strokes and the flyover is a prominent one amongst them. The long journey across could have been pleasurable had these been made with the cyclists in mind. Bicycles are non-pollutants, do not emit smoke, leave no engine oil residue, are safe – cannot kill anybody – do not depend on petrol. A truly green Delhi should strive to reduce wasteful private transport and promote the use of bicycles. It's so simple.

By Rahul Banerjee, Indore A bald man in his sixties dressed in spotless white and starched khadi and kurta and pyjama riding a bicycle with a ramrod straight back - that was my first glimpse of Bohreji when I came to stay in the moribund Gramodyog Vidyalaya Ashram in Machla village thirteen kilometers from Indore in 1994. I had just come out of the deep jungles of Jhabua advised by my doctor to take time off from grassroots activism to get rid of the malarial parasites that had made my body their home.