Author Archive

The likely scenario due to the ongoing environmental crisis is an increase in frequency of the once in a while disaster events. We therefore need to take adaptive actions that are built into infrastructure development. Full story

Dola Banerjee, Bombayala Devi and Deepika Kumari who brought India the Gold in Archery at the Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi Ever since the CWG 2010, and even before that, the media, and through it all of us, are telling and sharing the scandals that revolved around ... Full story

..and stop the corruption, and incompetence and what not. The last of the 'Shera' is at stake. It is no longer difficult to understand why big projects like the ones meant to save the tiger don't really work effectively.... Full story

The most empowering context that we as human beings have created for ourselves as a species is the possibility of language. Creation of words to fit the world that we live in gives us the power to control it and manipulate it. So, while language has a collective, a supra-organic existence, ... Full story

Recently I revisited Oscar Lewis’ thesis of “Culture of Poverty.” Simply stated it tells you that context determines every thing. If you wear rose coloured glasses, everything appears red and if you wear blue coloured glasses every thing appears blue. There has always been a struggle between those who came to a city and ... Full story

Every Monday the formal shops in our locality are closed in Delhi. I love to visit the markets on that day. The small informal traders put up stalls using bamboo sticks and iron bed and wooden platforms or just on a sack on the road and trade for about four to five ... Full story

It is my friend’s birthday today. I picked up the phone and wished him. While talking on the phone, we tried to relive our past of climbing trees and eating green mangoes. Staring out of the window, there it is, a bunch of green mangoes, between the delicate white flowers of Jamun tree, and the ... Full story

An increasingly common sight in cities Bulldozers are furiously scrapping earth from a garden adjoining an artificial lake in Vashi Sector 10 of New Bombay. Or so a recent news item in the Times of India dated 8th April, 2010 read. We immediately reacted by saying that so much ... Full story

In the solutions of today are problems of tomorrow. Take for example the environmental problems of today, before the mid 70’s no one really talked about them. Industrialization and mass production of goods and services was not seen as a problem but a solution to ‘human wants’, a desirable outcome. It was the seminal ... Full story

Trees, pavements, markets, people...everything has been 'uprooted' or 'transplanted' for the CWG 2010 I am in this Monday market in my East Delhi neighbourhood buying vegetables and suddenly all the trader shopkeepers of informal stalls start wrapping up their goods and merchandise on display. I heard a few complains about ‘they’ ... Full story