Photo by Ray Bilcliff on Pexels.com Many of the seeds of the our tangled thicket of a water crisis originate in colonial times - a penchant for growing crops unsuited to local climes, a centralized control-and-command approach to irrigation and water supply, and a certain disdain for traditional water technologies that 'get' India's water. We've …
Continue reading India@75: Tracing the colonial hand in evolving water tapestry
Image source: Pic by Neil Palmer (CIAT). Burning of rice residues in SE Punjab, India, prior to the wheat season. Wikimedia Commons A version of this article first appeared on Firstpost on Nov 10, 2019. Policy – follower not leader Policy is a manifestation of astute follower-ship, a balancing act, an act of judgement of …
Continue reading Why are we not solving the pollution crisis?
(A version of this piece first appeared in Firstpost on Apr 09, 2019) Last time we saw how the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) defanged the dam as a geopolitical source of advantage. But the more relevant question to ask is – will securing the Indus secure India’s water future? To answer that question, we need …
Continue reading Provision vs Management – the Eternal choice of the Indus Waters
How the British Raj created a 'tap' that could be turned off. How they undermined local resilience in favour of large-scale non-local intervention. How they increased the vulnerability of the land. And, of course, the Russians.
(A version of this article appeared in Firstpost: http://www.firstpost.com/living/delhi-routinely-tops-global-air-pollution-rankings-how-we-can-seek-more-effective-solutions-4179921.html The prestigious medical journal, The Lancet recently reported that air pollution is associated with 6.5 million deaths annually, and as the Lancet rather poetically puts it, is a “killer indifferent to political agendas and that cannot be contained by borders”. Don’t we know it? Because pollution is …
Continue reading Delhi Air Pollution – How is the way we think about it so so wrong?
Climaction 