Feast for Thought

Too many time-bombs ... it's time to update or upgrade journalists' vocabulary. 1. E-waste  "Illegal trade is driven by the relatively low costs of shipment and the high costs of treatment in the developed countries. Quoting an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, the UNEP report says that exporting e-waste to Asia worked out 10 times cheaper than processing it in within these countries. The Indian subcontinent has turned into an important destination for European waste. This goes beyond e-waste to include household waste, metals, textiles and tires — which are exported to India and Pakistan, says the report “Waste Crimes, Waste Risks: Gaps and Challenges in the Waste Sector.” “There is a significant trade in compressors to Pakistan. These should be depolluted prior to export, but waste operators seeking to avoid expense often omit this step,” the report notes. The vast majority of illegal e-waste ends up in landfills, incinerators, and in ill-equipped r...

In May 2014 a new Government assumed charge at the Centre, in India's national capital Delhi, with a brute majority. A few decades of (dysfunctional) coalition politics had the experts saying that India can no longer see single-party rule, but the voters knew better. In Feb 2015, a new Government assumed charge in India's national capital Delhi, with a clean 'sweep' of 67 of 70 seats. In the years prior to 2014, both the local and central governments were (mis)managed - for long - by a different crowd led by India's GOP, and the bureaucracy can still be seen to be well-tuned in that style of functioning. In all this while, the national capital was galloping towards the position of No 1. Not in Governance. Not in Sustainability. Not in Women's Safety. In pollution, India's national capital, far outperformed every other place in this wide wide world and beyond. Far worse than the visible pollution (vehicle exhaust, factory fumes) is the invisible ki...

In the course of a couple of decades of 'nomadic' travel all over India, we have lived in a fair number states / cities / rural areas. Places as diverse as rural Nashik, NCR Delhi, beautiful Srinagar, busy Bangalore, suburban Coimbatore, unheard-of Misamari have been our homes at different points of time between the early '90s and now. So there has been a fair mix of metro-life, small city-life and living in rural locations. And if anyone were interested in asking us to choose between the three, rural living would win hands down. The common thread that links India's rural areas is a heady combination of Nature-Culture-Agriculture. Nature is still visible at all times of day and night, not obscured by poisonous air, concrete, steel and glass. Rich culture is evident too; traditional practices thrive in homes and fields. And the fields - they speak to you of the bounty that regularly fill and refill India's granaries. To a safely ensconced but empathetic, ...

Mom and i began a (mostly online) journey in Jan 2011. Thanks to MTNL New Delhi, BSNL Kerala and BSNL Assam for enabling this journey. Thanks also to family.

A visit to Guwahati is said to be incomplete without logging your attendance at the   kAmakhyA  temple. Another popular shrine is the   umAnanda   temple on the Brahmaputra.   After avoiding a visit for so long (B has been generous with his graphic descriptions of the temples, their ambience, the surroundings, the hoary history), i finally 'logged' the two places in February. (I say logged also because  we gave the sanctum sanctorums at both the temples a miss).  It truly is blissful to enter a temple without a bag, a phone and the ego. This time the bliss ended there. What is the footprint we left there? Some CO2, and several teardrops. What did we takeaway? No prasAd, no holy forehead markings, only too many unfortunate impressions -  1. Bleating kids and goats awaiting their turn to be sacrificed to appease the deity / please the purohit / satisfy an ego / satiate several tummies as 'prasAd'. Heart-wrenching. Blood could be se...

Please do read what this Delhi resident has to say. The message is simple and direct, and ought to set you thinking, at the least! The Indian Citizen's Burden: Let us Vote for Change :     I write this as a supporter of Aam Aadmi Party. I write this in support of a people

Ahead of the Durga Puja, the Goddess was 'helping' sell everything from luxury lats to trendy accessories, even shampoo. (Do businesses employ symbols of other faiths too, during festival seasons as marketing agents and salespeople... Do they dare?)  Ahead of Durga Puja, also, the Goddess bestowed one form of bounty - copious torrents of the life-giving liquid - water. This time through a cloudburst in India NE. City floods are quite common now, we know, thanks to rampant urbanization and poor solid waste management. Clueless administration demands Central aid, money changes hands from and to clueless Govts, grandiose plans and disaster relief measures get announced (with the media coverage directly proportional to the product of the estimated losses and the promised relief bounty). Floods in rural areas are as devastating too. When vast open fields end up inundated, there are short and long term losses too.  Here is a good account of one of the series of 'ble...