'Sustainable', 'Vedic' Smart Cities: Unfolding the wisdom of smart cities

Former President Dr APJ Abdul launched a book titled ‘Smart & Human - Building Cities of Wisdom’ on Monday. The book is authored by GRK Reddy, founder and promoter of Swarnabhoomi Academic Institutions, and Srijan Pal Singh, advisor to the institution. The book was launched at a one-day symposium on sustainable smart cities. The symposium was organised by MARG Institute of Design and Architecture, Swarnabhoomi (MIDAS). The first copy of the book was given to the former president. Dr Kalam wished the authors luck and hoped the book would do well.

Aligning with the central government’s vision of building 100 smart cities in the country,the book Smart & Human-Building Cities of Wisdomfeatures the evolution of cities from the start of civilization till present time and the different stages of urbanization the cities have traversed through history. The twelve chapters of the book travels through the various factors which has influenced the growth of the cities, from their historical boundaries to the current geographical limits. Some of the topics coveredin the book are industrialization, the current trends of urbanization, population growth and Green cover.

Through this book, the authors like to emphasize the importance of understanding the futuristic needs of the society and develop a policy framework in sync with those needs and develop a qualitative and quantitative index. The book targets urban population as an audience. It proves to be extremely useful and crucial for policy makers, architects, urban planners, real estate developers, high intense service providers who occupy lot of real estate space. Thisbook narrates different details that are crucial to the vision of buildingsustainable smart cities,

Chief Guest, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam,Former President of India, speaking on the occasion said, “I am very happy that the publication titled Smart & Human – Building Cities of Wisdom by GRK Reddy and Srijan Pal Singh is being released today. I wish them my best.”

About GRK Reddy: Mr. GRK Reddy is a first generation entrepreneur. He promoted MARG Ltd. In 1994. He is the founder and promoter of Swarnabhoomi Academic Institutions (SAI)and CMD,MARG Ltd. He is a Post-Graduate in Commerce and an Honorary from Kellogg School of Management. He is a former Chamber of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Chennai Zone and is also the President-Executive Council of Indo- Australian Chamber of Commerce.

About Srijan Pal Singh: Srijan Pal Singh is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he won a gold medal for the best all-rounder student and was the student council head. He worked in a Naxalism-affected region in Odisha on a project to establish a transparent public distribution system using IT interventions. Srijan has actively travelled across rural India and participated in various international initiatives to study and evolve sustainable development systems.