Paani Ka Jugaad: Water Management
Tweet Water Management The many ways in which the city’s poor ‘ arrange ‘ for their daily water needs Water Management If you would like to be notified the next time I make a post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for Email alerts. Many thanks for reading....
Read MoreDebit Card Model For Conservation
Tweet Article originally published in Sep 2011 issue of GOVERNANCE NOW magazine The monsoon brings in its wake a primeval expression of joy as the first showers bring welcome rain, followed by sporadic outbreaks of seasonal diseases, mudslides and water-logging, and finally panic as the season reaches its peaks with a deluge of water in some areas. With 1,200 mm annual rainfall,Indiais one of the wettest countries in the world. Yet, it is a largely water stressed nation with no plan in place to manage its water wealth. Why have things come to such a pass? We are living in an age...
Read MoreWhen I learnt to practice what I preach…
Tweet Last week all of us went for our family vacation to our village in Himachal Pradesh – a village called Chachian in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. My father – in- law, now 76 years old, lives there alone.The village is beautiful – and our home – even more so. Our home – a small cottage on the mountain slope, is on the fringe of a forest of pines through which you can see the snow capped mountains. All sorts of animals, birds and insects stroll in at all times – scorpions, large spiders, chameleons, moths of a hundred types, beautiful birds,...
Read MoreMy dearest Chulbuli Pandey – a letter to the Yamuna river in flood
Tweet My dearest Chulbuli Pandey, Aah! Yamuna meri jaan – kya dabangg cheez ho tum ! Ekdum se aisa jhatka de diya, ki sab ko hilaa kar rakh diya! Kyun chhamiya – itna gussa kis baat ka ?? Like Shahrukh ‘Don’ Khan’s ‘Junglee Billi’ - in one fit of anger you’ve demolished all delusions we had about being your masters! We thought we’d tamed you – we Zero sized you, by damming you up; weighed down your frail body by dumping all our kachra in you – and sat happily in our ivory towers thinking – bhookhi billi kya panja maregi?? Your long time,...
Read MoreThe Annual Monsoon Mess – Can we do something to prevent this?
Tweet Dear Jal Rakshaks Indians down the ages have celebrated the first showers of the Monsoon rain. It brought with it the promise of a bountiful yield, joy and prosperity all around. It has been a major source of inspiration for Indian folklore and creative arts. Even today, it has the power to make or break governments and economic indices in India. From time immemorial, the monsoon has been coming every year - and yet it always seems to catch us unprepared. Infact, it seems that planning for the monsoon excess was better in the ancient times than it is now! Today,...
Read MoreDid you read the newspaper today?
Tweet There were 2 articles that caught my attention—one was the shutting down of water supply from UP to Delhi by 10,000 protesters in Ghaziabad to force the government to accept their demand for reservation ( Complete Story ) The other was a ‘Water Donation’ drive by residents of different localities in NOIDA and Delhi. ( Pg 8, Delhi Times TOI June 14, 2010 ). Residents ‘donated’ atleast one litre of water each which was collected in a mini-tanker and distributed in nearby slums. The first was a bolt of thunder—to jerk us out of our complacence. A rude assertion of...
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