Saturday, November 1, 2014

10 clean cities that make India proud

10 clean cities that make India proud

Last updated on: October 08, 2014 13:46 IST
Chandigarh has emerged as the cleanest city in India as per a study conducted by the ministry of urban development.
 
Dancers perform during the Republic Day celebrations in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh January 26, 2011. India celebrated its 62nd Republic Day on Wednesday.Ajay Verma/Reuters
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationwide ‘Clean India campaign’ or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is very well received by the masses and celebrities alike.
Be it celebrities like actor Aamir Khan, BSF Jawans or the aam junta - most have joined hands to make this mission a success by 2019. However, according to data available with the Ministry of Urban Development, there are ten cities which are very clean and these are:
Chandigarh
State: Chandigarh
The city has emerged as the cleanest city in India as per a study conducted by the ministry of urban development.
In order to keep its ranking and reputation as the greenest and cleanest city in India, the administration of Chandigarh along with The Energy and Resources Institute to working towards environment-friendly including use of natural construction material and lower energy consumption.
Chandigarh is also on the way to become the country's first solar city by 2016.


Image: Temple tank in Shravanabelagola. Photograph: Courtesy, Dinesh Kannambadi/Wikimedia Commons
Mysore
State:Karnataka
In 2008, a citizen group in Mysore started a movement called Let’s do it! campaign to clean up not only the city but the entire country.
The response to this campaign has been huge. The youth in the city are spreading awareness on what each one of them can do individually and collectively to keep Mysore clean.


Image: Vehicles move over a bridge built over the river Tapi at Surat, in Gujarat. Photographs: Amit Dave/Reuters
Surat
State: Gujarat
The diamond city of Gujarat follows high standard of cleanliness at public places. The civic authority in the city is very strict about cleanliness on roads and public places.


Image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching the cleanliness drive for Swacch Bharat Mission from Valmiki Basti, in New Delhi. Photograph: PIB photos
 New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC)
State: Delhi
NDMC has intensified its cleaning operations after the launch of Swach Bharat campaign. Volunteers have even identified highly populated belts where they can spread their cleanliness drive.
NMDC is also keen to clean the backlanes of crowded colonies.



Image: Sports enthusiasts exercising on a clean road in New Delhi. Photograph: Reuters
Delhi Cantt
State: Delhi
Delhi is also considered a clean city due to the presence of various citizen forums that are actively involved in various cleanliness drives across the city.


Image: Mukkombu, a famous tourist spot in Tiruchirappalli. Photograph: Courtesy, Tiruchirappalli Tourism
Tiruchirappalli
State: Tamil Nadu
Tiruchirappalli is a city with amazing tourist spots. The citizens surely know how to keep their city clean. Tourists who have visited the city will tell you about clean habits that each one in the city follows. 



Image:XLRI, Jamshedpur. Photograph: Rediff archives
Jamshedpur
State: Jharkhand
Jamshedpur adheres to a high standard on sanitation and cleanliness.
The steel city is totally sanitised and citizens here believe that healthy living is utmost important and for this purpose they must adapt to cleaner habits.


Image: Mangalore Town Hall. Photograph: Courtesy, Premkudva/Wikimedia Commons
Mangalore
State: Karnataka
In Mangalore, the popular Nirmala Nagara Yojana is a very effective scheme to implement cleanliness in the city.
Volunteers of this scheme arranges for collection of garbage in a segregated manner from every household, the garbage so collected is later classified into different categories which can be used as a landfill material or used for making compost.


Image: Bandstand, Rajkot. Photograph: Courtesy, Jadia Gaurand/Wikimedia Commons.
Rajkot
State: Gujarat
Rajkot is the fastest growing city in the country. The city's civic body, resident forums are actively involved in keeping the city clean.


 
Kanpur
State: Uttar Pradesh
Kanpur is the biggest city in Uttar Pradesh with high industrial growth rate.
The city was not so clean few year ago, but currently, the city had made it to the list of clean cities in the country.
The credit for maintaining cleanliness goes to the local authorities and citizens who follow strict civic rules.

Islamic State: Militants kill 50 from Iraqi Anbar tribe


Islamic State: Militants kill 50 from Iraqi Anbar tribe

A damaged police station is seen in the Anbar province town of Hit on 6 October 2014  
The people who died are believed to have been displaced from the town of Hit, seized by IS
Militants from Islamic State (IS) have killed at least 50 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, officials and tribal leaders say.
The men and women from the Al Bu Nimr tribe are reported to have been lined up and shot in retaliation for resisting the jihadists.
A number of people from the same tribe were also found dead in mass graves earlier this week.
IS militants control large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Meanwhile, AFP news agency quoted the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying that at least 100 IS fighters had been killed in three days of fighting for the strategic Syrian border town of Kobane.
On Friday, some 150 Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters crossed from Turkey to join Syrian Kurds who have been defending the town against IS for six weeks.
The Observatory says that more than 950 people have died in the battle, more than half of them from IS.
Deliberate strategy A local official told the Associated Press news agency that the Sunni Muslim tribesmen and women were killed on Friday in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of the provincial capital Ramadi.
Faleh al-Issawi said many members of the tribe had to flee their homes near the town of Hit last month when it was captured by IS.
The Al Bu Nimr tribe had joined the Shia-dominated government's campaign against IS.
There have been many other such killings, as pressure mounts on the tribes to swing one way or the other.
Analysts say mass killings are also a very deliberate strategy by IS to spread terror in their opponents.
One local official, Sabah Karhout, described the killings in Anbar province as a crime against humanity and called for more international support for Sunni tribes fighting the militants in Anbar.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the killing of Sunni tribesmen in Iraq by Islamic State fighters was the brutal "reality of what we're dealing with" in the conflict.
The US carried out an air drop of food supplies, the first of its kind, to the Al Bu Nimr tribe just a few days ago.
IS has taken over large parts of Anbar province as it expands its territory, currently about one-third of both Iraq and Syria.
The BBC's Jim Muir says the recently-formed Iraqi government is trying to win the Sunni tribes over, seeing them as a key element in the fight against IS, which in turn is trying to deter them from that course.
But Baghdad has not yet succeeded in persuading the bulk of the tribes to turn on IS.
The tribes want guarantees that they will be given a serious degree of devolution for their areas and a real say in national decision-making, our correspondent adds.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29862886