[Reader-list] [Announcements] The Image of the City

[Mitoo Das]

The *Delhi Urban Platform* invites you for its Opening session:

*The Image of the City*

*CSDS library
29 Rajpur Road
Civil Lines

19th February 2010
4:00 P.M.

Ravi Sundaram
Narayani Gupta
Amita Baviskar
AGK Menon
Awadhendra Sharan
Gautam Bhan*

The inaugural event of the *Delhi Urban Platform* is an open discussion 
on the city of Delhi, and possible future conversations.

The Delhi Platform is a networked constellation of events and 
discussions on various themes  that affect the city of Delhi. The 
Platform is a collaborative process involving diverse institutions and 
individuals, who have a stake in the futures of the city. The Platform 
was begun as a response to the lack of a critical public discussion on 
Delhi's urbanity and urban life.

Tracing its history back almost a millennia, standing on the ruins of 
older and new empires, Delhi's urban heritage is unmatched in the 
subcontinent. Yet Delhi's 20th century has been one where the city has  
increasingly lost its urban imagination. This is a process that some 
trace back to the defeat of 1857, the slow marginalization of the Old 
city and ultimately, the trauma of Partition in 1947.  Delhi often 
appeares as a curious paradox -  a historic city, but without a 
consciousness of itself, without an identity.

In the last decade, however, Delhi's residents have become acutely aware 
of the crises of the city's urbanism. Urban debates are now the flesh of 
Delhi's life, the headlines to our morning coffee. We have witnessed 
public quarrels over infrastructure, pollution, speeding buses, 
displacement of the poor, heritage, sealing, the list goes on... An 
urban discourse has emerged, as witnessed in rapid interest in reporting 
on the city in papers and media, and scores of online platforms on 
Delhi. This public debate is raw, confused, provocative, often 
half-baked - but it is here to stay. The coming Commonwealth Games has 
put   spotlight on all the city's problems, critical engagement with our 
present is more urgent than ever.

Delhi deserves better. It is important to create new sites of critical, 
independent urban discourse -- that can provide open platforms on all 
themes affecting the city. The Delhi Platform is thus intended as an 
open forum that travels to different parts of the city in the coming 
months, leading up to the Commonwealth Games and beyond the event. The 
platform is a collaboration between different institutions  and 
individuals interested in Delhi's urbanism. The platforms will involve 
people from all walks of life: scholars, practitioners, activists, 
writers, artists, ordinary citizens in a critical conversation about 
Delhi's urban futures.

The Platform website is under construction, and will be live by the end 
of this week. Visit: www.delhiurbanplatform.org

The *Delhi Urban Platform* is on *Facebook* at
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=304722899371&ref=mf

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