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| A woman in Pratapgarh draws water from a common well. Standing on a rickety ledge made of branches, she said it was a \’necessary risk\’ she had to take to fill water. \”Right now it is ok Didi, in the monsoons there is moss on the wood, which makes it slippery.\” Hydro-hazardscapes indeed. |
Report: A study by the Centre for Policy and Research (CPR, India) makes a case for state-level climate change planning as a relevant entry for sustainable development process. Now we hope the people in-charge read it!
Video: Satyamev Jayate, an Indian television talk show that highlights social issues in India ranging from female infanticide and untouchability, to unsustainable pesticide use and growing water scarcity, is back for a second season. Anchored by Aamir Khan (one of Bollywood\’s bigwigs), it was wildly successful and provided a welcome break from the regressive and mind-numbing soaps that are the mainstay of Indian television. In the summer of 2012, brimming with the stories I heard during my fieldwork, I had applauded the show. Sitting with my 85-year old grandfather, in a village deeply divided along caste, class and gender, Satyamev Jayate provided us a platform to discuss social norms, agricultural transformations, and India\’s changing aspirations. Last Sunday\’s episode tackled waste management and discussed some innovative and contextual methods that challenged adoption of \’foreign and therefore superior\’ technologies like incinerators. It struck me how a lot of such initiatives are in South India. I particularly liked how some speakers mentioned the need for a discursive shift that treats \’waste\’ as a resource. If one internalises that a banana peel has a certain value, it will no longer be thrown away as \’garbage\’.
chandnisingh.info 