A fire started, people died, and it didn’t seem to matter

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A fire started late in the morning on Thursday, a few minutes away from our family home in Colaba and Cuffe Parade area. Like most of Mumbai, apartments for the middle class and “up”, jostle for space with swathes of slums. In the picture below, the fine-grained texture of the nearby slums is quite visible beside the apartment buildings in their sea of trees.
The few mainstream media outlets that did bother to cover this story, made passing mention of just one person dying and got the location and name of the slum wrong, placing it several hours north of where it actually is.

While the haves revel in their ostentatious displays of wealth, and the Canada Pension Plan’s decision to find higher returns is celebrated, there is little space in what is the “new India” to acknowledge the silent majority in this city, let alone grieve for their loss.

Read more: http://forbesindia.com/blog/economy-policy/a-fire-started-people-died-and-it-didnt-seem-to-matter-mumbai/

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