Safakadal, a ward in the city's old town, and Chanapora, in the Civil Lines, polled less than 10 votes each in the third phase of the urban local body elections in which 20 municipal wards went to polls Saturday.

The polling, which began at 6 am and ended at 4 pm saw 11 Srinagar Municipal Corporation wards recording less than 100 votes, and at the end of the day only 2,827 of the over 1.53 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the polls that have been boycotted by mainstream political parties such as the National Conference and its arch rival the PDP.&nbsp;

Safakadal, which has a total electorate of 9,062, saw two voters turning out in the first hour of the polling and an addition of one more in the last hour taking the total number of votes polled to three.

There was minor incident of stone pelting in this area and police had to use mild force to disperse the unruly mob, officials said.

Chanapora, which has an electorate of 10,000, had polled only two votes till 1 pm with an addition of only six more votes to end with a tally of eight by the close of polling.

The posh Rajbagh area of the city saw only 19 voters turning up at the polling stations to register their choice of candidate while as nearby Ikhrajpora polled a much higher tally of 149 votes.

The historic Lal Chowk, which has an electoral strength 5,827, saw only 71 voters exercise their franchise during the day.

Daulatabad and Makhdoom Sahib in the old city, which fall in the Khanyar assembly segment represented by National Conference general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar, saw a comparatively 'good' turnout.

Daulatabad registered 596 out of the total 8,431 eligible votes while Makhdoom Sahib -- which houses the revered shrine of Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom --saw 550 of the 6,132 eligible votes getting cast.

As many as 36 voters turned out to cast their votes at Hyderpora ward, where hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani lives.&nbsp;

Safakadal, a ward in the city's old town, and Chanapora, in the Civil Lines, polled less than 10 votes each in the third phase of the urban local body elections in which 20 municipal wards went to polls Saturday.

Safakadal, a ward in the city's old town, and Chanapora, in the Civil Lines, polled less than 10 votes each in the third phase of the urban local body elections in which 20 municipal wards went to polls Saturday. The polling, which began at 6 am and ended at 4 pm saw 11 Srinagar Municipal Corporation wards recording less than 100 votes, and at the end of the day only 2,827 of the over 1.53 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the polls that have been boycotted by mainstream political parties such as the National Conference and its arch rival the PDP. Safakadal, which has a total electorate of 9,062, saw two voters turning out in the first hour of the polling and an addition of one more in the last hour taking the total number of votes polled to three. There was minor incident of stone pelting in this area and police had to use mild force to disperse the unruly mob, officials said. Chanapora, which has an electorate of 10,000, had polled only two votes till 1 pm with an addition of only six more votes to end with a tally of eight by the close of polling. The posh Rajbagh area of the city saw only 19 voters turning up at the polling stations to register their choice of candidate while as nearby Ikhrajpora polled a much higher tally of 149 votes. The historic Lal Chowk, which has an electoral strength 5,827, saw only 71 voters exercise their franchise during the day. Daulatabad and Makhdoom Sahib in the old city, which fall in the Khanyar assembly segment represented by National Conference general secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar, saw a comparatively 'good' turnout. Daulatabad registered 596 out of the total 8,431 eligible votes while Makhdoom Sahib -- which houses the revered shrine of Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom --saw 550 of the 6,132 eligible votes getting cast. As many as 36 voters turned out to cast their votes at Hyderpora ward, where hardline Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani lives.

J&K municipal polls: Safakadal, Chanapora wards record less than 10 votes each in third phase

Eighty-eight candidates have already&nbsp;been declared winners without any opposition in the urban local body elections in&nbsp;Jammu and Kashmir(J&amp;K) in five districts ahead of the third phase of elections on Saturday.&nbsp;

Out of the 110 candidates, eight-eight candidates have won the polls without a contest.&nbsp;No one filed any nomination from 23 wards.

On Saturday, out of the 157 wards in the five&nbsp;districts in the Kashmir Valley, polls will be held in&nbsp;40 wards where 110 candidates will be fighting the elections.

At least 2 lakh 35 thousand voters are expected to exercise their franchise in the third phase of the polls.

The voting for the second phase of the urban local body polls in Jammu and Kashmir took place on Wednesday. The polls received about 80 per cent of voter turnout in Jammu while it was 3.4 per cent came out to vote in Kashmir.&nbsp;

The Valley witnessed a low voter turnout in the first phase of municipal polls which concluded on October 8. The first phase of elections saw 70 per cent voter turnout in Jammu region&nbsp;and 8.2 per cent in the Valley.

The four-phase urban local body elections began on October 8 and will end on October 16.

Eighty-eight candidates have already been declared winners without any opposition in the urban local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir(J&K) in five districts ahead of the third phase of elections on Saturday.

Eighty-eight candidates have already been declared winners without any opposition in the urban local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir(J&K) in five districts ahead of the third phase of elections on Saturday. Out of the 110 candidates, eight-eight candidates have won the polls without a contest. No one filed any nomination from 23 wards. On Saturday, out of the 157 wards in the five districts in the Kashmir Valley, polls will be held in 40 wards where 110 candidates will be fighting the elections. At least 2 lakh 35 thousand voters are expected to exercise their franchise in the third phase of the polls. The voting for the second phase of the urban local body polls in Jammu and Kashmir took place on Wednesday. The polls received about 80 per cent of voter turnout in Jammu while it was 3.4 per cent came out to vote in Kashmir. The Valley witnessed a low voter turnout in the first phase of municipal polls which concluded on October 8. The first phase of elections saw 70 per cent voter turnout in Jammu region and 8.2 per cent in the Valley. The four-phase urban local body elections began on October 8 and will end on October 16.

J&K urban local body elections: 88 candidates win without contest in third phase to be held on Saturday

The chief minister of India&#39;s Northeastern state of Nagaland,&nbsp;T R Zeliang, has rejected the demand for his government&#39;s resignation following the death of two persons in anti-Urban Local Body poll agitation in Dimapur and appealed to the people to stop violence and not fall prey to rumour mongers.

Curfew remains imposed in the city of Dimapur after clash between police and mob over local body elections.

&quot;Making unreasonable and unconstitutional demands such as asking the entire Cabinet to tender resignation when the ministry has undisputed, unquestionable majority and support of the entire Assembly, is simply unacceptable and non-negotiable,&quot; the chief minister&#39;s office said in a statement.

Violent mobs on Thursday went on a rampage in the state&#39;s capital Kohima to vent their anger against ongoing elections to urban local bodies, vandalising and setting government offices&nbsp;and vehicles on fire, prompting the deployment of five columns of the army to bring the situation under control.

Activists of several tribal groups vandalised the State Election Commission and deputy commissioner&#39;s office and set ablaze the Kohima Municipal Council building.

The Regional Transport office and that of the Excise Department were also set ablaze by violent mobs demanding the resignation of chief minister T R Zeliang and his entire cabinet for going ahead with the ULB polls despite opposition from powerful tribal groups that are against 33 per cent reservation for women in the municipal bodies, sources said.

A curfew came into effect from 9:30 pm on Thursday and would continue till further order, a notification said.

The statement said the MLA of Northern Angami Constituency Neiphrezo Keditsu was forced to tender his resignation as the chairman of Nagaland State Mineral Development Corporation on moral ground as one of the two persons killed in Dimapur happens to be from his own village.

(PTI)

Violent mobs on Thursday went on a rampage in the state's capital Kohima to vent their anger against ongoing elections to urban local bodies

The chief minister of India's Northeastern state of Nagaland, T R Zeliang, has rejected the demand for his government's resignation following the death of two persons in anti-Urban Local Body poll agitation in Dimapur and appealed to the people to stop violence and not fall prey to rumour mongers. Curfew remains imposed in the city of Dimapur after clash between police and mob over local body elections. "Making unreasonable and unconstitutional demands such as asking the entire Cabinet to tender resignation when the ministry has undisputed, unquestionable majority and support of the entire Assembly, is simply unacceptable and non-negotiable," the chief minister's office said in a statement. Violent mobs on Thursday went on a rampage in the state's capital Kohima to vent their anger against ongoing elections to urban local bodies, vandalising and setting government offices and vehicles on fire, prompting the deployment of five columns of the army to bring the situation under control. Activists of several tribal groups vandalised the State Election Commission and deputy commissioner's office and set ablaze the Kohima Municipal Council building. The Regional Transport office and that of the Excise Department were also set ablaze by violent mobs demanding the resignation of chief minister T R Zeliang and his entire cabinet for going ahead with the ULB polls despite opposition from powerful tribal groups that are against 33 per cent reservation for women in the municipal bodies, sources said. A curfew came into effect from 9:30 pm on Thursday and would continue till further order, a notification said. The statement said the MLA of Northern Angami Constituency Neiphrezo Keditsu was forced to tender his resignation as the chairman of Nagaland State Mineral Development Corporation on moral ground as one of the two persons killed in Dimapur happens to be from his own village. (PTI)

India: Nagaland chief minister rejects resignation demand, Army deployed as violence escalates

Indian cities are a study in stark contrast; glass and steel skyscrapers stand next to densely packed informal settlements, hawkers and walkers jostle for space on non-existent pavements while roads are choc a bloc with vehicular traffic. Malls selling global brands have mushroomed next to ramshackle clusters of small manufacturing units, producing and recycling everyday goods. Exclusive gated residential complexes have sprung up in environmentally sensitive areas in clear violation of land use regulations; while shanties built precariously along canals face the constant threat of evictions.&nbsp;

Given the unevenness of urban development, it seems that planning Indian cities is a futile and impossible task. The deep imbrication of formal and informal modes of urbanisation is clearly evident, as is the complicity of the state in bypassing its own planning laws, and the stark and persisting socio-economic inequalities in urban spaces.

Yet, our cities today are at the centre of the processes of globalization, liberalisation, and the accumulation of corporate capital as they generate a large share of the GDP. Therefore, there is an even greater urgency on the part of the government to create competitive world-class cities. 
 
What role will urban planning play in this urban restructuring? What will be the outcome? How has planning evolved over the last hundred years?

City planning has its origins in colonial British rule when it was used as an instrument of territorial control. It divided the city into areas that received infrastructure and those that became dumping grounds for undesirable activities &ndash; from tanneries to units producing illicit alcohol and prostitution &ndash; all couched under the narrative of promoting public health, safety, and hygiene.&nbsp;

Native elites influenced programmes of slum clearance, zoning, improvement schemes, and the location of infrastructures. These decisions were invariably linked to protecting private property or facilitating trade and commerce.&nbsp;

In the post-independence era, urban planning was codified as a long- term, rational and bureaucratic process. It evolved as a top-down, state-directed, value neutral, an expert-driven process that primarily focused on land use zoning in the interest of (an ill-defined) public good.&nbsp;

Planning laws and regulations were framed, technical and teaching institutions were developed, and instruments were borrowed from the West. Much of these grand planning exercises, however, remained on paper due to their procedural rigidity, as well as for the lack of political will. To add to it, there was institutional fragmentation, weak capacities, and absence of granulated data. To add to everything else, there were inadequate finances to implement the plans.

&nbsp;Plans turned into static artefacts; they were divorced from urban realities as well as&nbsp;the dynamic, messy, and unpredictable nature of urbanisation. Planning thus led to the displacement of the poor from the core areas, exacerbating inequality but it also created road networks, housing for different social classes, public parks, and gardens.&nbsp;

For a brief period in the mid-seventies, city planning even attempted unsuccessfully to redistribute private property and channel it into public housing and the provision of urban amenities.&nbsp;

With economic liberalisation, planning has become an instrument to unlock land values. This has entailed a shift from Master Plans to mega-project based planning that is undertaken by special purpose vehicles that bypass elected Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Although tasked with land use and socio-economic planning for cities as part of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992, ULBs lack autonomy to determine the future of their cities as they are circumscribed by the actions of higher levels of government.&nbsp;

There is a pervasive and uncritical faith in technology in future-proofing cities, and yet this fails to grapple with present day problems of citizens. Greenfield cities are being planned without heed to environmental considerations or climate changes. Land pooling has replaced the traditional route of using eminent domain to assemble land. New urban aspirations, urban visions, and imaginations drive contemporary planning processes; South Asian cities such as Singapore and Shanghai bear proof to this process.&nbsp;

City investment plans, bonds, credit rating play an increasingly important role in deciding future development trajectories. However, for the majority of the urban poor inhabitants who are relegated to the city margins, it remains a daily struggle to access the most basic urban services, often mediated by an emerging class of intermediaries such as non-governmental organisations and local self-appointed influential powerbrokers.&nbsp;

Fortunately, resistance to such projects has also grown over the years often stalling megaprojects, or significantly changing, modifying, adjusting or even subverting these plans. Planning is being reconceptualised as an active, democratic and dynamic arena of contestation; a multitude of voices and contradictory interests need to be heard and engaged with in order for planning to be relevant.&nbsp;

New actors are entering, contesting, and reshaping the practice of planning. This includes private planning consultants, middle-class citizen groups, subaltern groups, community activists, parastatals, international financial institutions, and private developers. Thus, a new of politics of planning and theory of planning that are rooted in the particularities of the Global South is fast emerging. It challenges the very objectives, designs, and standards of plans as well as their implementation or not.&nbsp;

It raises pertinent questions about who benefits from these plans, who gets excluded, and who should be held accountable.&nbsp;

Ongoing experiments in democratising planning from the bottom up, particularly by the urban poor and recognizing it as an important public arena for expanding rights to the city hold the key to the relevance of urban planning.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Urbanisation displaced the poor from core areas but it created roads, housing and parks too

Indian cities are a study in stark contrast; glass and steel skyscrapers stand next to densely packed informal settlements, hawkers and walkers jostle for space on non-existent pavements while roads are choc a bloc with vehicular traffic. Malls selling global brands have mushroomed next to ramshackle clusters of small manufacturing units, producing and recycling everyday goods. Exclusive gated residential complexes have sprung up in environmentally sensitive areas in clear violation of land use regulations; while shanties built precariously along canals face the constant threat of evictions. Given the unevenness of urban development, it seems that planning Indian cities is a futile and impossible task. The deep imbrication of formal and informal modes of urbanisation is clearly evident, as is the complicity of the state in bypassing its own planning laws, and the stark and persisting socio-economic inequalities in urban spaces. Yet, our cities today are at the centre of the processes of globalization, liberalisation, and the accumulation of corporate capital as they generate a large share of the GDP. Therefore, there is an even greater urgency on the part of the government to create competitive world-class cities. What role will urban planning play in this urban restructuring? What will be the outcome? How has planning evolved over the last hundred years? City planning has its origins in colonial British rule when it was used as an instrument of territorial control. It divided the city into areas that received infrastructure and those that became dumping grounds for undesirable activities – from tanneries to units producing illicit alcohol and prostitution – all couched under the narrative of promoting public health, safety, and hygiene. Native elites influenced programmes of slum clearance, zoning, improvement schemes, and the location of infrastructures. These decisions were invariably linked to protecting private property or facilitating trade and commerce. In the post-independence era, urban planning was codified as a long- term, rational and bureaucratic process. It evolved as a top-down, state-directed, value neutral, an expert-driven process that primarily focused on land use zoning in the interest of (an ill-defined) public good. Planning laws and regulations were framed, technical and teaching institutions were developed, and instruments were borrowed from the West. Much of these grand planning exercises, however, remained on paper due to their procedural rigidity, as well as for the lack of political will. To add to it, there was institutional fragmentation, weak capacities, and absence of granulated data. To add to everything else, there were inadequate finances to implement the plans. Plans turned into static artefacts; they were divorced from urban realities as well as the dynamic, messy, and unpredictable nature of urbanisation. Planning thus led to the displacement of the poor from the core areas, exacerbating inequality but it also created road networks, housing for different social classes, public parks, and gardens. For a brief period in the mid-seventies, city planning even attempted unsuccessfully to redistribute private property and channel it into public housing and the provision of urban amenities. With economic liberalisation, planning has become an instrument to unlock land values. This has entailed a shift from Master Plans to mega-project based planning that is undertaken by special purpose vehicles that bypass elected Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Although tasked with land use and socio-economic planning for cities as part of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992, ULBs lack autonomy to determine the future of their cities as they are circumscribed by the actions of higher levels of government. There is a pervasive and uncritical faith in technology in future-proofing cities, and yet this fails to grapple with present day problems of citizens. Greenfield cities are being planned without heed to environmental considerations or climate changes. Land pooling has replaced the traditional route of using eminent domain to assemble land. New urban aspirations, urban visions, and imaginations drive contemporary planning processes; South Asian cities such as Singapore and Shanghai bear proof to this process. City investment plans, bonds, credit rating play an increasingly important role in deciding future development trajectories. However, for the majority of the urban poor inhabitants who are relegated to the city margins, it remains a daily struggle to access the most basic urban services, often mediated by an emerging class of intermediaries such as non-governmental organisations and local self-appointed influential powerbrokers. Fortunately, resistance to such projects has also grown over the years often stalling megaprojects, or significantly changing, modifying, adjusting or even subverting these plans. Planning is being reconceptualised as an active, democratic and dynamic arena of contestation; a multitude of voices and contradictory interests need to be heard and engaged with in order for planning to be relevant. New actors are entering, contesting, and reshaping the practice of planning. This includes private planning consultants, middle-class citizen groups, subaltern groups, community activists, parastatals, international financial institutions, and private developers. Thus, a new of politics of planning and theory of planning that are rooted in the particularities of the Global South is fast emerging. It challenges the very objectives, designs, and standards of plans as well as their implementation or not. It raises pertinent questions about who benefits from these plans, who gets excluded, and who should be held accountable. Ongoing experiments in democratising planning from the bottom up, particularly by the urban poor and recognizing it as an important public arena for expanding rights to the city hold the key to the relevance of urban planning.

The politics of planning Indian cities: Contradictions, inequalities and emerging trends