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November 17, 2006
A Film Screening and Discussion
on Urban Poverty, Urban Planning, and Housing |
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| Title |
Yamuna Gently Weeps
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| Discussants |
Ratoola Kundu
Ph.D. Student,
UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs
Leon Morenas
Ph.D. Candidate, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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| Location |
Great Cities Institute
412 South Peoria Street, Suite 400
Chicago, IL 60607
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Yamuna Gently Weeps is a moving documentary of the destruction of 40,000
homes of the urban poor in a slum colony called Yamuna Pushta in Delhi, India.
Directed by noted journalist, Ruzbeth N. Bharucha, the movie brings to light
the contentious nature of urban development in a globalizing city. While the urban
planners proclaim the rhetoric of an "inclusive city", the events on the ground suggest
a real estate-driven practice of development that is excluding and marginalizing
the urban poor. These poor constitute almost 40 percent of the city's population,
and their labor, particularly in the informal economy, keeps the city running. The
movie captures the plight of the residents of the erstwhile slum and the contending
views of urban planners, politicians, social and grassroots activists, urban scholars,
bureaucrats, and slum dwellers themselves.
The film screening was followed by a discussion with Ph.D. student Ratoola
Kundu, from UIC's College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, formerly
employed as a research assistant in an NGO (non-governmental organization) in Yamuna
Pushta, and with Ph.D. candidate Leon Morenas, from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, who is researching the process by which
the Master Plan in Delhi excludes the urban poor from the development process.
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