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India needs habitable cities before smart cities

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Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his government’s plans to create 100 smart cities, there is a rise in the clamour by chief ministers to get the tag. From Ajmer to Allahabad and from Salem to Srinagar, the list of contenders grows, even as India gives shape to a plan and an agreement on what constitutes a smart city.

Smart cities feature in Modi’s discussions with world leaders like US President Barrack Obama to Infosys’ chief Vishal Sikka. The union ministries for urban development, information technology and telecom are engaged in getting inputs on best practices around the world on how to fix infrastructure issues. Even though bigger issues like air quality, suspended particulate matter and, above all, the safety of women continue to make headlines, they seem to be low down in the priority list for smart cities.

Air pollution in India’s capital New Delhi, among the worst in the world, is threatening to reduce lifespans of its citizens by three years. And it comes as no surprise that in a global survey, ‘Mercer 2015 Quality of Living Rankings’, which examines the quality of living in over 230 cities around the world, not one Indian city features among the top 135. The Mercer report notes that the rise in population has multiplied the existing problems of Mumbai (152) and Delhi (154), including access to clean water, air pollution and traffic congestion.

Austrian capital Vienna, that prides itself with over half its area under green cover, tops the list of most livable cities in the world. At 25, Singapore is the best in Asia.

Green, clean and safe before smart

Isn’t it time that India took a look at making its existing cities habitable – ones that offer a green, clean and safe living environment to its inhabitants? We need a plan for metros and mini-metros so as to stem population rise, offer a seamless and effective public transport system that discourages commuting in personal vehicles and ultimately leads to acceptable pollution levels.

Over a billion Indians expect uninterrupted clean water and electricity supply, a drainage system that works and a mobile and broadband network system that lets them communicate.

Reports of Delhi Development Authority making a part of the national capital a smart sub-city, in three years, brings up visions of more concrete monstrosities – a la Nehru Place, Bhikaji Cama Place or even a Hudco Place or a Pragati Vihar.

Delhi has a rich heritage that needs to be protected, preserved and should gain World Heritage status even if it means sacrificing additional built-up area in Lutyen’s Delhi. Its citizens want suspended particulate matter in the air to go down, its safety track record on the roads to improve and its women to feel safe through better policing.

A WHO study shows 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India, including the worst-ranked Delhi. India has the highest death rate caused by chronic respiratory diseases in the world. By focussing on just the brick and mortar smart cities, India could well ignore the health consequences of air pollution.

Build an Efficient Public Transport System

Indian cities don’t have the best and the widest roads. Yet India adds over 5,000 cars a day to its city roads adding to pollution, congestion and long commute time to work and back. An efficient transport system in the top 100 cities, with a smart travel card allowing people to move seamlessly between buses, Metros and shuttle services, may be the answer.

We also need to build roads that are pedestrian-friendly and cycle-friendly, just as Vienna and many other European countries have, where differently-abled and the wheelchair borne are not disadvantaged. We need pothole-free levelled sidewalks that help smooth and safe travel for pedestrians before we get smart cities.

Moving jobs to cities where talent exists

To stop migration of the rural population to the metros, India needs to create job opportunities closer to the talent. There are enough towns with population between 200,000 and two million offering access to good education as well as skills. We have examples of IT and BPO firms choosing cities like Jaipur, Indore, Nashik, Mysore and Visakhapatnam over established technology hubs like Delhi’s National Capital Region (NCR), Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai. At a recent Asia BPO Summit 2014-15, Teleperformance India was awarded for its path-defining strategy of moving away from the metros.

What began as a move by the $3.66 billion BPO leader to be closer to the source of talent turned out to be a win-win as it set up operations in Indore and Jaipur eight years ago. Even when these cities follow a six-day routine, the employees spend less time out of home due to a much shorter commute time and get to work fresh compared to their counterparts in metro locations. A six-day schedule rewards customers with higher productivity. To top it all, India’s competitive advantage in the global market gets better.

This presents an opportunity to locate several manufacturing units under the Make in India policy and services businesses in cities and towns that are not bursting at their seams and are, therefore, a better candidate for building smart cities.

India needs more habitable cities that show strong commitment to sustainability before we get the smart cities.

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Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones

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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.

Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.

The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.

Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile

The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.

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The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.

“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.

Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings

Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.

 

CasinoDays India

Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).

Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.

The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.

Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.

Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities

The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.

On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.

Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.

“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.

The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.

 

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