This was originally published in http://www.moneycontrol.com on 1st January 2023 Art by Manian for Kalki Krishnamurthi's Ponniyin Selvan Have you seen Ponniyin Selvan Part-I? If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a film is worth at least a million. No words could convey how wealthy and mighty the Cholas were as well as …
Continue reading The Wealth Behind Ponniyin Selvan: The Kaveri and the Kallanai
What made water engineering so effective in ancient India - the time of Ponniyin Selvan?
Climate speaks through water. As our climate changes, rising global temperatures are causing more intense storms; untimely and intense rainfall is leading to frequent floods and droughts, causing sea levels to rise and glaciers to melt. We face not only a rapidly careening climate crisis but also a brutal change in our water reality. We HAVE to adapt for the future NOW.
Chennai's floods are like clapping hands: one palm is the changing climate bringing with it intense rainfall (2021 rainfall, the Commissioner told us, was nearly 50% above normal) while the other is our broken relationship with water. A resounding clap requires both palms moving together forcefully. We appear to have already passed certain climate thresholds, …
Continue reading Resetting Our Relationship With Water: Times of India Column
Solution#1: Rejuvenating cascading systems of tanks in one set of interconnected of tanks. What to do and When to do it: Let’s start with the “When”. The best time to embark on this exercise is right after a major drought. At that time, borewells are likely to be dry, and there will be strong popular …
Continue reading What can we do about India’s water crisis – Part 4/5
(A version of this piece appeared in Bloomberg Quint on Dec 02, 2018) Case Study 2: Telangana The politics of building water resilience – a problem of timelines In Telangana, politics is water, and water defines politics, in a connection that stretches back through the sea of history. The Kakatiya dynasty, who ruled Telangana from …
Continue reading What can we do about India’s water crisis – Part 3/5
The Niti Aayog Composite Water Management Index states, “54% of India’s groundwater wells are declining, and 21 major cities are expected to run out of groundwater as soon as 2020, affecting ~100 million people.” While some claim the situation is not quite so dire, such a strong statement from the leading government policy thinktank cannot …
(This first appeared in Firstpost on Aug 08, 2018: https://www.firstpost.com/india/indias-water-crisis-tracing-the-countrys-history-of-water-management-and-crucial-destructive-shifts-in-policy-4895721.html) India's water crisis: Tracing the country's history of water management and crucial, destructive shifts in policy This past week, I, like many parents across the country, was revising history with my son for his test, which happened to be on the kingdom of Mesopotamia. More …
Continue reading India’s Water Crisis. Part 1. How did we get here?
Climaction 