As the AMRI (Yes beloved Bengali news channels its A.M.R.I not Amri) officials have very conscientiously (not for bail advantages) surrendered to the authorities, people at large can but lament the unnecessary loss of lives...

But can officious bureaucrats rise above ordinary politics…

One of our genteel leaders quoted on national television by way of a laudable feat, that the fire department received a call about the AMRI fire at 4:01 AM and they were at the site by 4:30. Sir an emergency response time of Half an Hour is most definitely not a commendable feature of a government, new or otherwise.

The same gentleman went on to proclaim that a municipal team had visited AMRI and had recommended in its report to rectify the use of a parking lot as a storage space, in September. If I may ask…thereafter? It is appalling sir that what could have unapologetically been an official diktat, with a 15-day deadline and a license revocation penalty, was a mere recommendation.

Our newly appointed CM is not unacquainted with fire emergencies…Her journey to writers had witnessed another gruesome fire incident at The Queen's Mansion on Park Street…She was aware of  the shortcoming …The deficiencies which were flaunted in the garnering of power, could have been rectified on its achievement. 

Information is vital in emergencies…but are LIVE images? In a congested cityscape with barely there roads necessitating one - ways and one PM one - way changeovers, does an omnipresent media scavenging live images hamper the rescue process?

The slightest awareness of the Kolkata traffic circus would convince any discerning person that a parked Nano would hinder the movement of fire engines and ambulances…and we are talking multiple OB vans here…Can't the scrutiny of fading human dignity wait…the comments on apathy be held? Electronic media can easily dispense with the use of live images and breaking news (which in these cases is generally the climbing death toll) and still disperse relevant information.

Urban development is not installing hideous three headed lamps in the TMC pockets of the city…it’s a deliberate scientific process of channelizing resources such that there is inclusive and sustained growth. Let us not have a "city" in a concentrated central nucleus and progressively lesser urban spaces as we move further away from this core.