July 2006

Sitting on hand-woven reed mats inside a mud hut still cool despite the summer heat, 25-year-old Laknoo Biddika admits to never having heard of The Hague or big-sounding words like “biodiversity”. But he does not underrate what he has to offer the world. “We are 14 village representatives gathered here with a single objective of documenting and promoting our skills and knowledge,” he says.

We are into the seventh consecutive year of drought declared in the Indira Gandhi canal command area in the districts of Bikaner and Jaisalmer of western Rajasthan. In these areas ‘drought’ never really went off the ground. Since last year though, ‘famine relief’ has been on with different agencies and other favourite institutions of local governance acting as nodal agencies for execution of these relief works.

There were fears until June this year that unless there was a miraculous heavy unseasonal rain north India would face a summer of acute discontent. The water situation was reportedly bad even in north Pakistan and was likely to worsen through the wait for the monsoon’s break in late June.
On April 16 while returning from a trip to the mountains I was appalled to see that the level of water in the Ganges at Garhmukteshwar was the lowest I had seen in 20 years. Worshippers were able to stand chest deep in the depleted channels.

There is simply no day you can live out without energy of some form. And the more intense forms of use are the worrisome ones. There are serious concerns across the world on how ACs heat up the rest of the city while it cools your house or office. Here is a primer on smart use.
Buildings use up a lot of energy—to cool, heat and light—and are often described as concrete monsters. Would you agree?

The setting up of Vedanta Alumina Ltd [VAL], has disrupted the lives of thousands of poor tribals in the villages of Orissa: Kapaguda, Belemba, Basantpura, Teriguda, Anandapore, Topoguda, Hudingpadar, Gedugumma. It will also drive the last nail in the landscape of rare and precious flora and fauna of the region. The proposed mining areas is situated on the Niyamgiri reserve forest of Kalahandi [south] forest division and Khamdesi and Niyamgiri proposed Reserve Forest and Jungle block [protected forest] of Rayagada Forest Division.