traffic
November 6th, 2008
There are many reasons traffic is so bad in India. I’d say amazingly, infrastructure is not the predominant reason. One of the vendors we are looking at is located in Noida, Uttar Pradesh – just over the river from us – so we had a longer commute through a mildly more rural area, today. We happened to be driving back from a meeting this afternoon when the cows (sheep and goats!!!!) were coming home.
Just like everything in India, the cow situation is complicated. According to the natives, it is illegal to keep cows in Delhi, but you can see from my video, they are quite prevalent, roaming the city in small packs and sometimes alone. Why isn’t the law enforced? Aside from transportation and dairy, cow patties are a major source of fuel for the backwards classes. These cows are their livelihood. Take the cows away from those who have them and you’ve basically written them a death wish. There are similar struggles with child labor and education. Although school is compulsory for children under 16, I’ve seen many children roaming the streets, selling wares, and some even digging ditches at all hours of the day, when they should have been in school. Send them to school and they’ll likely go hungry. Keep them on the streets, selling, and they are stuck on the streets for the rest of their lives. I appreciate these are all problems we solved in the United States a hundred years ago, but our population was much smaller and our economy more established.