Dharavi just beat Taj Mahal as India’s most favourite travel experience. It featured on the top of the ‘Top 10 Experiences’ list and also grabbed the tenth position on ‘Top 10 Travellers’ Choice’. Let’s glimpse into the world of slums.
1) In the 1980s in South Africa, black residents organised the first of its kind to educate the whites. Then the focus went to the slums of London and Manhattan. In Cape Town 300,000 is the estimate. In December 2010 the first international conference on this was held in Bristol. What are we talking about?
2) This became a common term for shacktowns and homeless encampments during the Great Depression. They were constructed of cardboard, tar paper, glass, lumber, tin and whatever other materials people could salvage. They were named after the 31st president of the United States who was held responsible for the economic crisis and its miseries. Identify.
3) This prolific author used the word slum in a similar way in 1840, writing “I mean to take a great, London, back-slum kind walk tonight”. His magnum opus works portrayed the slums in Victorian Britain, particularly in industrial English towns in a picturesque manner. He is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Identify.
4) It is a term for a place that offers very low-cost lodging, providing space to sleep and minimal amenities. They can be dirt-cheap crashpads. Many resemble hostels, with their barracks-like rows of bunks. Others are technically hotels. The rooms are tiny and contain little besides a cheap bed and perhaps a table or a closet, perhaps not even those. What?
5) The Abahlali base Mjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement began in this country in early 2005. It is, in terms of the numbers of people mobilised, the largest organisation of the militant poor. The movement that began with the road blockade grew quickly and now has tens of thousands of supporters from more than 30 settlements. Identify.
