Posted on 04/16/2016 6:58:48 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
KOLKATA, India — When Sonali Mehrotra realized that a hulking overpass would come within arm’s length of her third-floor balcony, she took refuge in black humor, telling relatives to look at the bright side: Instead of lugging suitcases up the stairs when they came to visit, they could toss them into a bedroom as they drove in from the airport.
Anyway, work on the overpass occurred so sporadically — generally, when elections were coming — that a project originally promised in 18 months was unfinished after seven years. At this rate, she joked, the project might not be completed in her natural life.
After Thursday, though, when a 330-foot slab of steel and concrete slammed down on a street coursing with midday traffic, Ms. Mehrotra’s sense of humor was gone. Irritation with the faltering project has turned, for the people who live beneath it, into a sort of focused hatred. On Saturday, as the remains of a 26th victim were cut free of the metal that had crushed him in the collapse, a group of residents marched down the street demanding that the structure be dismantled.
“This thing has made our lives hell for the last nine years,” said Meena Devi Purohit, 55, a five-term member of the municipal council from the area. Opposition to the project predated the start of construction, in 2009.
It is rare for dysfunctional building projects to get much attention in India, in part because people are so accustomed to them. A local newspaper described Kolkata as “the city of unfinished flyovers,” but the phrase could be used for any number of India’s largest cities, littered with projects that were begun with fanfare but then proceeded haltingly, or halted entirely.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What’s wrong with Calcutta? or Bombay? Or Peking?
It must be some kind of psyops where you change the “western” spelling of every thing from the east. Places, names, food, etc.
With most road work crews you have 1 working and 3 watching. In this case though it looks like 1 working and about 30 watching!
Calcutta/Kolkota is run by communist. One work and 10 watch and 20 do protest.
You mean like Mount McKinley?
I think it's an attempt to eradicate the legacy of "colonialism" by changing the British spelling of every name.
Lived in India for a couple years - so here’s the answer to your question. Because Bombay, Madras, etc. are not the real names of these places. They are the British names imposed on them when they controlled their country from around 1600 to 1947.
Why do you think the Americans drive on the opposite side of the street to the Brits? To show our independence and the return to indigenous names is the same for India.
With any luck it landed on some of those clowns who call me pretending to be from ‘Microsoft Support’.
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