Environment

With every year in the 21st century getting hotter than the previous, the question arises if Indian cities are geared up to face the severe summers that loom large. Heat waves across the country have turned out to be silent killers. According to one report from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), heat wave casualties are increasing every year and India was worst hit by heat waves in 2015, causing 2300 deaths, making it the fifth highest in world history in terms of number of deaths. But the numbers often go unnoticed. Most of the deaths were concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana,…

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Runners Manifesto A demand from the runners in Bengaluru to the contestants in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Elections 2018 Our Vision General physical and mental well being of citizens Green lung space Reduction in pollution Safe space for commute by walking/cycling Urban commons for community engagement Better standards of liveability. With the right infrastructure for runners, multiple objectives are achieved for the city. The city of runners Bengaluru is not only known as the Silicon Valley of India but is also the running capital of the country. Year long salubrious climate and convergence of various expats has brought the love…

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Where? As the sun  began to descend, the already buzzing Koyambedu market road came alive with more action as hundreds of people assembled at a local hotel for the Sakkadai Thiruvizha, organised by Arappor Iyakkam. The event on April 8th was envisioned as a citizen awareness program to highlight the problem of untreated sewage that is being continuously let out into the city’s water bodies, spelling doom for them as well as for the entire ecosystem. The highlight Officials from Chennai Corporation, PWD and CMWSSB  came together on a single platform to listen to the woes of the people. It…

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The American Society of Naturalists (ASN) conferred its prestigious 2018 Presidential Award to evolutionary biologists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, based in Bangalore, India. The ASN Presidential Award honors an outstanding research article from among all the papers published in the society's journal, The American Naturalist, in the preceding calendar year. This is a prominent scientific journal that publishes research papers in frontier areas of evolutionary biology. This year's award was given to the NCBS team for their research paper in the April 2017 issue of The American Naturalist, probing how…

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Over the past couple of months, there have been some bird counts, in a laudable attempt to document the species of birds found in the outskirts of Bangalore, and elsewhere in Karnataka, and their numbers as well. The first initiative, at Bannerghatta National Park, was started in February 2018, to take place on the second Saturday of each month, and will continue over the entire period of a year, through all the seasons. The data will be collated at the end and presented in a report to give a picture of the bird species and numbers throughout the year. The…

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Once there was a river. Rather, there were many rivers. And then there were none. In the run up to Arappor Iyakkam's Sakkadai Thiruvizha, a citizen awareness program to highlight the problem of sewage being let into Chennai's water bodies, two young photographers -- Raghavan Lokesh and Mohan Kumar Karunakaran -- volunteered to travel along Chennai's rivers, and capture images for our readers. The pictures are heart breaking. Let us take a minute to view, and mull over, what we have done to the lifelines of this city. [Raghavan Lokesh is an entrepreneur and has been volunteering with Arappor Iyakkam…

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So World Water Day is here again and it is time for us all to be reminded of habits that we really must practise the year round! Two questions at the outset: first, can you ever imagine bathing with expensive mineral water, when tap water is available? And second, can you bathe/shower with 5 mugs of water? I am sure the answer to both is no, but hang on to those answers till we revisit them, after we establish that the situation this year is worse than ever before. Yes, it is time to worry! First Cape Town running out…

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Sewerage management has become a Herculean problem in Chennai. Thanks to the inaction by government departments, our sewage reaches our water bodies sans any treatment, either through the storm water drain network or private septic tanks. The hard reality is that the pumping stations are running beyond their capacities, resulting in sewage stagnation in many localities including Adambakkam and Egmore. But how many of us know that grey water recycling can not only address these issues to a large extent but can also cut down on the household monthly water budget? By making use of the water used in the…

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During a question and answer session in Delhi late last year, I was asked this question “Since Diwali, the Delhi government has installed 20 continuous monitoring stations. Despite that, why are the pollution levels still so high?” The simple answer to this is that monitoring is a diagnostic tool to assess levels of air pollution and in itself does not reduce any air pollution. What it does do, is provide a starting point for understanding the air pollution problem and a direction for addressing pollution control options. This however got me thinking. Having worked on air pollution-related research over my entire…

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For more than a year, residents of Vijinanapura have been complaining to the BBMP about illegal dumping of animal waste near Benniganahalli Lake. There are about eight butcher shops in the 1.5 km stretch from Purva Midtown and the KR Puram Railways station. Everyday, feathers, inedible meat, carcasses (and at one time even a dead cow) are burnt near an overlay bridge at 3rd main road. The smoke, residue and stench from this has made life miserable for them. “This happens every morning, where tempo trucks drive up, dump about seven to eight cement bags of animal waste which they…

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