environment

In 2010, a 10-yr-old school girl Vipasha Srivastava, wrote a moving letter to the Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court complaining about lack of recreational spaces in the state capital, Shimla. The letter triggered instant action. A Bench led by then Chief Justice Kurian Joseph (who later retired as a Supreme Court Judge) sent notices to the state’s Chief Secretary seeking answers to Vipasha’s questions. The bench termed the issues Vipasha mentioned in her letter as very important since it concerned the healthy, all-round growth of children. The Court also ordered Shimla Municipal Corporation to get funds from the…

As I was on the Outer Ring Road, I saw the welcome sight of a tree being translocated. http:// It was good to see the tree being moved so carefully, with even its chopped branches bound up. http:// I do hope this tree, and several others like it, survive in their new "homes" and help keep our city green. A salute to those who are doing such work. I would like to know, however, what the averages are for the survival of such translocated trees.

Some time ago, I documented a project by this name, where Jaaga and a team of volunteers made a determined attempt to beautify the space under Hebbal flyover. I was told that they'd also painted some other flyovers, such as the one on Richmond Circle. Here is another team, called the Ugly Indian, taking the initiative to beautify the area under other flyovers. The day I attended, we had a motley crowd of people.. from the local bigwigs, to the transgenders, to the police constables on duty... everyone had a say on how the space could be used, and everyone…

On the 17th of August, 2017, I was walking along, musing on the fact that we are now in the eighth decade of our existence of an independent nation. Everywhere there had been an outburst of pride and patriotism. My thoughts broke off abruptly as I saw this: Are we really proud of our country? Do we really love her if, after our display of love, we are willing to make her ugly and dirty with our refuse and discards? Would it not be true patriotism to clean up the country, rather than add to the trash? Patriotism, surely, more…

I do not know which agency thinks that adding concrete structures to every small patch of greenery we have, is "developing" the park. This is in the Mini Forest, in J P Nagar 3rd Phase. The section of the park was looking perfectly all right, when the path was dug up, these concrete platforms getting added, and some kind of construction coming up. Why can we not leave even the tiniest of green patches alone? And where can concerned citizens complain about such unilateral decisions on "development"?

We went on a nature/birding walk to Kalena Agrahara on 15th July, 2017, and skirted the lake at IDBI Bank Layout. I was amazed to see several Nano cars parked, and rusting in the monsoon weather. There must have been about sixty of the cars, parked all around. At a conservative estimate of Rs.2 lakhs per car, that's Rs. 80 lakhs just wasting away. I finally found this banner, saying that these cars apparently belong to this rental initiative: The problem in our country seems to be, not lack of good initiatives, but keeping up with them. I have tried…

I got this photo of a stray dog, with a plastic juice or shake container in its mouth.     We have now conditioned even the animals around us to like processed food, lots of sugar. They have learnt to try and ingest plastic in a bid to get that food. I wonder where we are headed....

I was walking along in Jayanagar 4th T Block, when I noticed these young men selling "fresh honey from the hive, madam, do you want?" I looked down; the broken pieces of the honeycomb were there and pieces of it had been put into containers for the honey to drip down into them. This was, probably, the freshest honey one could get one's hands on. Alas for me, I still had a lot of walking to do. I noticed a few dead bees on the hive and this saddened me until I realized that this was, indeed, a humane way…

We often nail signs to our trees, loop cables over them, and of course, think nothing of choping them off for the flimisiest of reasons, for example if one obstructs a hoarding. But even when the trees are allowed to live, all may not be well. I saw this tree with its leaves all lit up by LED lights. "An unnatural green!" I thought to myself, and decided to click.   At this point, my friend Sarrah Reshamwalla raised a valid point. "Trees carry on photosynthesis in their leaves when exposed to light," she pointed out. "Does this mean that…

All schools have festive occasions when the parents and children celebrate with the school. But at Magic Puddles, a playschool in J P Nagar in Bangalore, the annual mela this year, on the 5th of December, 2016, recycled a lot of stuff that would otherwise end up in waste dumps."This year, we decided to set 'Skills' as the theme," says Nandini Rammohan, of the playschool. "Rather than an activity which the children started just before the mela, we decided that we would teach them some skills throughout the year, and have them teach it to the parents, and instruct them,…