-
Black And White: Carbon
Since over last few months the Black Carbon issue is being highlighted in the Himalayan region by various international and region agencies, with the viewpoint that it will have adverse impact on the human health, air quality and on various ecosystem functions. It is said that, there is urgent need through various local and international…
-
Missing Links: Innovations In Sanitation Sector in India
As we delve deeper into the story of sanitation promotion over the last 60+ years in India, we hardly see well-developed and sustainable infrastructure on this front. On closely observing processes and progress, one will realize that agencies working in rural sanitation promotion are more fascinated by playing with available data to prepare presentations and…
-
Poor Leadership-Counting Numbers, Still!
Another day for recognizing toilets or boasting ourselves! And by the way, by whom? Are they not in a race to promote, recognize, and prove that their perks are worth the spend, and asking for more? They range from corporations and businesses to NGOs and international agencies! All of them today are vouching for their…
-
Kedarnath Disaster-‘A Scientific & Administrative Failure’
In various reports on the Kedarnath disaster, it is stated that unplanned development in Kedarnath city led to a huge death toll. However, none of the scientific reports, such as those from WIHG (Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, based in Dehradun, India), said that it was also a scientific failure, as they could not inform…
-
Aggravating-Dilemma Of Reconstruction
It has been almost a month and a half since the flood disaster struck Uttarakhand, a mountain state in India. However, instead of working on a collaborative and inclusive approach to reconstruction and rehabilitation, it appears that the state and national governments are not aligned with the local people. The Archeological Survey of India (ASI)…
-
Relief In Uttarakhand-Avoid Old Mindset And Jargons
In this article it is argued that Disaster Management practice in India need to change the old mindset of disaster relief, to include quick planning and actions, using verifiable space data and avoid delay causing detailed assessments in deciding any government run relief package. We need to be cautions against the current jargons such as…
-
Patwari’ Reaches to Disaster Hit Population
Patwari’ Reaches to Disaster Hit Population in Uttarakhand Mountain State of India After almost 20 days, since flash flood disaster hit Kedarnath valley in Uttarakhand, the lowest state level government functionary, responsible for maintaining land, population and other records in revenue villages, could finally reach to the areas assigned to thim. It is supposed that…
-
Undefined Role of Regional And National Agencies In Reducing Disasters
The Himalayan region consists of extremely fragile ecosystem, and source to 10 major Asian river systems, on which over 1.3 billion people rely for sustenance, water, livelihoods and prosperity. A recent flash flood on 16-17 June, affected over 50,000 people in the mountain state of Uttarakhand, while it is estimated that over 5000 people are…
-
Defining ‘Green’ In Energy Sector
‘Green’ norms for ‘Green’ Energy, was the title of a consultation workshop organized recently in Uttarakhand mountains by a Delhi (India) based environment organization. Not able to understand the ‘Green’ norms and energy concept, as our mountains don’t really look ‘Green’! A so called concept that took 20+ years, since Rio 1992, and…
-
Gender Non-Sense
‘Gender’ to ‘gender based approach’ the buzz words, everyday we learn from humanitarian and right based agencies working in India. A real non-sense, which is beyond in practice, when we count their workforce at state and district level. The workforce data shows that they are highly gender insensitive in their day to day functioning.…
-
Inept Leading to Bharat Nirman
It seems that the dynasty ruled mindset will not go from Indian minds so easily. A dynasty ruled country still believes in ‘imported’, to keep the momentum. No vision and plans for development! While there are more definitive plans to divide on ‘secularism’ and ‘communalism’ agenda. Those able to lead, were sidelined by hook or…
-
Water Of Disasters In India
Officially, 22000 people died during various flood, landslide and cyclone related disasters in India during 2001-2010, lost about 10,0000 cattle, damage to 1.5 crore houses, and lost 425 lakh hectares agriculture land. In a year, on an average Indian economic loss is estimated of Rs. 800 crores due to flood, while 35 crore Indian were…
-
Think Eat And Save
Think . Eat . Save : The slogan for 2013’s World Environment Day that is celebrated on 5 June. Save Food Initiative is about ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’ of UN to sustain 7 billion people now (9 billion by 2050), as 3rd of global food production is either wasted or lost, leading to 1 out of…
-
Poorly Researched Height and Sanitation Link Study
I was going through an article published in The Hindu, an Indian national daily, based on the study by a researcher from Princeton University’s, titled ‘The long and short of open defecation‘, that correlates height of Indian children with poor sanitation. I have a few quick reflections on this article of Dean Spears, the researcher…
-
Livelihood Links to Poor Water Quality in India: Alternates
“We had 200 vacancies, but we could not even fill even 50% of the posts,” said Group Captain T K Singha, Chief Public Relations Officer, Ministry Of Defense. “Most of the students failed the basic medical test because of defects in bone structure,” said an officer. “This was not visible by the naked eye, nor…
-
Misleading Facts: Still We Can Celebrate World Toilet Day
Today it’s world toilet day. The monitoring of sanitation facilities globally remained a challenge to the country governments and International agencies. It is sometime said that the cursory assessment reports (e.g. JMP-Joint Monitoring Programme) of the facts about the rural and urban sanitation scenario may lead to pressure on country governments to expedite the process…
-
Decoding Corruption At Next Level
We observe a number of cases and movements towards corruption flourishing in government agencies and corporations, as we are struggling and dealing with them for over 50+ years in India. It’s good that they are now knocked around. At next level our awakened citizens should also be concerned about the corruption flourishing in a number…
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Quests That Change… 