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Protesters Seek Equity As Development Threatens Slum

Posted by: Nate Berg

1 September 2007 - 9:00am

With developers readying to move in on the centrally-located Mumbai slum of Dharavi, residents are organizing protests to try to ensure that displaced residents are adequately compensated.

"Dharavi's residents are up in arms."

"In the middle of Dharavi's squalid maze, hundreds of men, women, and children have gathered despite Mumbai's monsoon rains to wage a war for their survival."

"People of all faiths - Hindu, Muslim, Christian - have come together to protest against the development of their homes."

"Raju Khode, their leader, insists he is not against development. He simply wants it to happen on the slum dwellers' terms."

"The government has offered the slum dwellers who can prove they've lived in Dharavi from before 1995 a place in the new development."

"They'll be given housing in the slum while it's being developed. The government estimates 57,000 families who live in the slum now will be rehoused in the new development under this scheme."

"But the majority of Dharavi's residents - who don't have the papers to prove they lived in Dharavi before 1995 - face losing their homes and their livelihoods."

Full Story: Mumbai slum dwellers fight development plan
Source: BBC, August 31, 2007
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“
I argue that the vocabulary of planning and the concepts necessary to participate in local government and planning issues need to be taught to students in K-12.
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