Amaravati

In this phase of neoliberalization, cities are witnessing large-scale transformation under the influence of expanding capital and new technologies. Despite growing inequalities and segregations, there has been renewed interest over the last decade or so in building new cities variously labelled ‘smart’, ‘green’, or ‘integrated’. This chapter attempts to explain how ‘state’ has become more prominent in shaping the conditions for capital accumulation and circulation, especially in leveraging its control over land for certain political interests. Taking ideas from Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and Neil Brenner, the chapter elaborates on rescaling strategies, and the way a capital city has become the critical place where one could see how physical space, political power, and the logic of accumulation play out in the neoliberal context. The purpose in analysing three cities is to explain the underlying forces that have been contribut- ing to the current forms of capitalist urbanization.

Andhra Pradesh Government has found a solution to the troubles of land acquisition in building a new capital city (Amaravati) on 34,690 acres of farm land by using land pooling scheme. Amaravati is the India's first planned capital of a state to build up from scratch in the recent decades. The Government strategy was to make all farmers stakeholders in the new capital, so that they voluntarily "pooled" their land with the city development agency known as Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority shortly known as APCRDA. The land parcels owned by individuals or group of owners are legally consolidated by transfer of ownership rights to the authority, which later transfers the ownership of a part of the developed land back to the landowners. Land owners were also given some social and economic benefits for a certain period for participating in Land Pooling scheme along with the return of part of the developed land. As the land owners contribute their land voluntarily, the whole land pooling process was very smooth. The pooling process mostly did not disrupt the current inhabitants. In this context, an attempt is made in this paper to examine the impact of Land Pooling Scheme on Basic infrastructure in the capital city area (Amaravati) of Andhra Pradesh.

It is not unusual for any two Indian art traditions separated by time and place to share certain details. On the contrary, it is symptomatic of a consistency in style, technique or mode of expression which any living art tradition retains. What is perhaps striking in the present context is this: The style of Ajanta cave paintings is more on par with the plastic tradition of Amaravati than the Ajanta sculptures located in the same site.

This observation is drawn purely on historical grounds of art i.e. the visual data presented by the surviving examples. This has been noticed by the art historians in the past. Except for Sivaramamurti, who attempted to compare the points of similarity in terms of ornaments, hairstyles, architecture details etc. only a cursory interest has been shown in this direction.

The similarity between the two is more global than specific. Amaravati style as a whole, in its fundamental articulation of bodily rhythms, for instance, approximates that of Ajanta. A piecemeal matching would be defeating the purpose.

The present study is conducted to ascertain changes in land use and land cover for the Amaravati capital region, Andhra Pradesh. As an initial step, Government of Andhra Pradesh is extending the study area up to 234 km2 and in future the capital region is going to extend up to 7068 km2 approximately. To demarcate the categories of land use and land cover for 234 km2 area, LANDSAT 7 satellite images are collected for the years 2009 and 2018. Geo-informatics technology is used to categorise land use and land cover and also to detect changes that occurred during the periods. Based on the analysis of the report, waste and urban lands are increased by 27% and 8.23% respectively for the period of 2018 and also noticed that agricultural and fallow lands are decreased by 15.84% and 9.11% respectively for the same period. The present study observed that variation in water bodies is only 0.62%. From the results of this study concluded that most of the vegetation and fallow lands are converting in to the waste land and urban area

After bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh, present Andhra Pradesh state has to build its new capital. Andhra Pradesh Government has found a solution to the troubles of land acquisition in building a new capital city (Amaravati) on 34,690 acres of farm land by using land pooling scheme. Amaravati is the India's first planned capital of the state to build up from scratch in the recent decades. The Government strategy was to make all farmers stakeholders in the new capital, so that they voluntarily "pooled" their land with the city development agency known as Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority shortly known as APCRDA. The land parcels owned by individuals or group of owners are legally consolidated by transfer of ownership rights to the authority, which later transfers the ownership of a part of the developed land back to the landowners. Land owners were also given some social and economic benefits for a certain period for participating in Land Pooling scheme along with the return of part of the developed land. In this context, an attempt is made in this paper to examine the compliance to procedural formalities of land pooling scheme in capital city area (Amaravati) of Andhra Pradesh.