Waste Segregation Thoughts on a Valentine’s Day

It is Valentine’s Day.

As a responsible household member, I was going through the garbage/trash that I was going to throw away out of my home. I already segregate wet and dry waste, so dry waste was my interest. Every day, when I throw out dry waste, my heart bleeds and feels for the Earth which is going to receive this, and I keep thinking how to avoid these from going out.

The majority of them are from the plastic material that comes from the retail stores – Pasta bags, strawberry can, chips packets, milk and oil covers and so on.  And the remaining are the papers, tablets aluminum, paper bags, etc. I dutifully segregate dry waste every day, to see what I throw out – so that I hope that one day, I will be able to figure out how to prevent the ‘incoming’ garbage – from the retail stores, from the online e-commerce portals, from the pharmacy, and so on.

As I think about, retail stores are the major contributors to the waste, and most of it is plastic. The package industry needs a major overhaul and new way of thinking. But, no one seems to address it. The western thinking of ‘protecting’ stuff before delivery to customer has led to using these packaging materials, which end up in the garbage dumps.

As a consumer, I could do a few things to reduce plastic waste:

• Buy in bulk, so that micro-plastics that cannot be filtered from water systems can be avoided
• Buy loose items that are not packaged as far as possible
• Reduce consumption – buy what I need and not what I want

And, as an eternal optimist, I hope that one day, we will invent and start using the replacement for plastic!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Photo by Antoine GIRET on Unsplash

 

Sustaining Earth’s Environment

Several measures are needed to sustain Earth’s environment – reducing carbon emissions, moving to clean energy, etc.

The topics that interest me in this spectrum are 2-fold.

Human population, like it or not, is having a toll on the environment. Even if our needs are pretty simple, just to satisfy our basic needs, compounded by the usage of packaging material (including plastic), and the logistics and supply chain, the effect is going to humongous. Instead of asking people to reduce their needs, or not to go live their life, it would be sensible to refrain from having more babies. Makes sense?

Bio-diversity is an important theme.  The myriad of lifeforms that exist are important for the survival of all lives, including human. We tend to think that they are not important, but every life depends on each other, so its important to support the most basic life forms. These include reforesting (with the right kind of trees for that ecosystem), protecting the corals, protecting the marsh lands, and the mangrove trees that tend to grow where the rivers meet the sea.

I have been fortunate enough to support the fundraising for a few organizations that are working on these areas. I am going to be working with more of these organizations in 2020 and beyond. Funds are important for the sustenance of these projects, and thus my motivation.

I will write in detail about how the human population and biodiversity are getting addressed in different parts of the world in my future blogs.

Wishing you all a very happy new year 2020!

So much for Bangalore suburban trains…

Everybody knows that Bangalore has railway tracks that can connect to the nearby areas along the outer ring road periphery and beyond, and those tracks are under-utilized.  The citizens of Bengaluru have been demanding implementation of sub-urban trains on these tracks to ease the pain of commuters (even Metro infrastructure has proven insufficient because of the crowd) on the roads.  This demand has been there for almost 10 years now!

But South-Western Railways today says that it will take 10 more years to implement the doubling of tracks!  It clearly shows how disconnected the SWR officials are with the demand for sub-urban services.  It looks like they don’t care about the sufferings of the people. One reason or other is being quoted by them – funds, not getting co-operation, not enough land, and so on. But we all know that if there is a will, there is a way.  And SWR does not have exactly that – the will.

This issue has been raised at the Indian Railways level many times, and even the PM had been copied in the tweets. But to no result.

I hope that the necessary push will be given by the Central Government and through the MPs and MLAs to get this done as soon as possible.

 

The Water Problem – Episode 4 – The Heroes

Local people taking the responsibility of water resources in their area in their hands is the pinnacle of effective water management in India.

The town of Moodbidri northeast of Mangalore is a shining example of how they take care of their water sources, and came out of perilous situation that prevailed before. You can read about their story here: https://www.thebetterindia.com/159078/moodbidri-water-revival-karnataka-news-india

Together, as a community, Moodbidri has restored 18 water resources!  They worked on reinstating the old water storage bodies by cleaning them and making them hold pure water!  That’s gold!

India is facing huge water shortage because of real estate, agriculture, and mindless human reproduction.  Local efforts like this give us hope. We will continue to create awareness about how to take care of ourselves.

If you are inspired by this story, please share it far and wide in your social media circles and talk about it to your contacts through word of mouth.

Love always!

Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash

 

Why natural calamities will have multi-fold effect on India Population

Kerala is reeling under floods. More than 100 people have lost their lives just yesterday. The shutters of all the dams in the state have been opened. Though Kerala gets heavy rains every year, this year, the quantum was too much.

A study showed that the effect of extreme natural conditions on the population will be too much because of two reasons: more and more people moving into low-lying areas because of lack of space, continuing land development because of which drainage paths and canals are being blocked due to which flash floods happen in unexpected land areas.

The root cause is very certain. We have become too much in number. We need to stop the reproduction, otherwise, nature will be nature and it won’t show mercy on anyone.

Adoption, instead of reproduction is a sensible option: http://cara.nic.in

Thanks for reading.

The Water Problem!

I was terribly shocked when on a fine morning this week, I saw the report from NITI Aayog about the impending water problem across India. In summary, it said that many states will run out of ground water by 2030.

This is very serious, and even more serious is the fact that around 30 cities in India will run out of water by 2020 (yes, you read that right; 2 years from now!).

It’s not like ‘Should I care? What can I do?’  It is more like ‘I got to do a thousand things that I can.’

Are you listening?

Alright, so here’s what I did. I picked up a sheet of paper and wrote down all the stuff that I can do. I am giving this here to be a starter or an inspiration for you to think of things that would work and make a difference:

1. Contact Indian organisations that are working in the field of primary and secondary education, as well as Indian organisations that work on public education, and make them create modules and syllabus that can be delivered to students and general public so that they are aware of how important water is and create awareness about the following topics:

• Ground water restoration
• Irrigation management
• On-farm water use
• Drinking water supply
• Devising water policies

2. Strengthening the ways of predicting rains, such that general public can make arrangements to tap rain-water in whatever infrastructure they have wherever they live.

3. Try working with aerial experts to see if any additional data can be gleaned for point no. 2.

4. Creating awareness in colleges, so that the outgoing students can create products and software surrounding the issue. Bonus point: it creates jobs

5. Influencing the governments for implementation policies.

6. Contact on-the-ground organisations in various states to work on implementations in their states.

7. Work with organisations that already have a lot of reachability in remote areas (for example, population control organisations), and convince them to create awareness and educate their audiences.

What ideas do you have?  Feel free to rack your brains – because it’s you and your children who are also going to affected by this. The usual Indian apathy won’t help!

Thanks for listening.

 

 

#India to beat #China in #Population by 2022; Child #Adoption process getting simpler

Life is a mixed bag.

Last week, two significant headlines hit the news. The first is about the estimate that the India Population is going to exceed China by 2022, which is a bad news, as we had expected it to happen by 2028 earlier.  The other is about the child adoption process in India is getting faster, easier and transparent, which is a good news, as more people including NRIs can adopt in a simpler way moving forward.

One is a problem, and other is a potential solution. While some even neglect to think that the child adoption is a potential solution to the population problem (and say that adoption is emotional, the child and parent should connect well, one cannot adopt ANY child, etc, which are all reasonable), many consider it as a viable solution.  Here is an example of a parent who thinks so.

The Central Adoption Resource Agency has created a database of children that are waiting for adoption, and it has linked the adoption agencies to the database.  This way quick access to children to be adopted is available to the agencies.  Potential parents can now register online for them to be considered.  The guidance will be effective by August 2015, is what the post says.

With these updates, the urban folks of India now have a choice.  We have written several blogs before encouraging urban parents to adopt and why.  Several things have changed from the past, and attitude of the young generation is changing too.  With limited resources that India has, population has to be kept under strict check, and adoption is one way out – to give life to an existing child rather than creating another which will add additional burden to the country – burden may be a strong word, but yes, that’s how it is – with population increasing 1.6% in India every year!

• How to adopt a baby in India?
• I’m pretty interested in this topic. I would like to create awareness. How can I help?

Aadhaar, National Population Register and #India #Population

Yesterdays report in The Economic Times says that the Indian Government has decided to link Aadhaar information to National Population Register (NPR).

This is a very good move. This will not only benefit people who are benefited by the various schemes, it will also bring accountability to the population count, who everyone is, and where they generally live. And this will help in measures related to resource allocation (money and workforce) in implementing government plans and schemes.

It will also help check illegal immigration from Bangladesh. One of the serious issues that we have in the states bordering Bangladesh is that identifying individuals had become difficult for the police and the establishment because of the facial features.   Many Indian citizens who live in the remote areas do not have identity cards like PAN, thus it would be impossible to identify whether a person is an Indian citizen or not. Now, with Aadhaar linking to the NPR, bio-metric information is stored to the master database, so more accountability is brought in.

In addition, it would be great if birth & death registrations become online for quick updates to population count, so that planning become efficient.

Is #Sterilization the solution to #India #Population?

This article was posted in Reuters yesterday, and it talks about how sterilization is the major means of India population control.

It’s really sad to hear that even in the days of Information Technology, social networks, smart phones, cloud, and reach-ability to the masses, to the rural masses in particular through startup apps., these kind of measures are required.

India technology evangelists and entrepreneurs should invest in making awareness creation solutions to not to have babies.  Most of the work will be done mentally, when we plant these ideas of other options available rather than to have babies, and physical measures like sterilization will come down.

If you look at India broadly, 70% is rural and 30% is urban/semi-urban.  Solutions like ‘Make In India’ which are destined to boost the Indian economy, should focus on the rural areas where the unemployment is the most, and generate job opportunities, such that people don’t generate babies for labour.

And the urban folks have the adoption option.  The Ministry of Women and Child Development, India under the able leadership of Mrs. Menaka Gandhi, is streamlining the CARA process and making adoption easy and hassle-free.  If only people can reject the stigma surrounding ‘It’s not MY child!’, things will be a lot better.

So, good work is being done, but we need to invest in data gathering, sharing and awareness creation.  Will the India tech. entrepreneurs take note?

The value of family and life – #India #Population

I write about India Population. And it’s a very unpopular topic.

Sometimes you need the steel heart to read the personal attacks that emanate from people who think that their rights are being violated when asked to consider not to give birth to children.

Here are some of the feedback received from very well known members of the community:

‘You look like you have lived your life well. How can you ask us to not to have babies? I am an unmarried woman in my twenties, and I want to have my family’.

‘Have you ever given birth and raised children?’

The first comment is because they fear the system/government will prohibit having babies.

The second comment is tricky.  If I answer ‘Yes, I have had children’, then they will blast me ‘You advice something for the world, and you do things differently. Hypocrite!’  If I answer ‘No, I have not had children’, then they will blast me ‘See? How will you know the value of having a family? You should never advice!’

Let’s look at it objectively.

The moment your child gets out into the streets of India, they become one in the 2.72 billion people. And the family safety net that you provide is lost.  In the streets, today, people don’t even see each others faces and smile at strangers. They are all driven by their own missions of getting to office and coming back. So, the ‘value’ that you are talking about in your ‘own’ child just vanishes in the society.

More so with these huge numbers of people. As the numbers increase, tolerance to fellow human beings will naturally reduce. All the push-pulls that happen in the public transport, and the politics that happen at the work places will increase as there are more number of people, because, everyone has to take care of their survival.

If you are not objective, and take care of managing the no. of people that this nation can hold (by the way, we are 17.5% of world’s population in 2% of world’s land!), then nature will be cruel.  By nature, I don’t mean just the land, water, air, etc, but also all the life forms including human.

Our nation has been a very tolerant one in general. ‘Please adjust’ has been our mantra. But that will break with a population growth of 1.6% every year, as per the latest reports. People will start being cruel to each other. Like buying illegal software through an IRCTC official and booking 36 tickets at once illegally!

Just take a look around, and see if we really more children. How are we going to educate and give jobs to all these population? What about drinking water, food, space to live? For God’s sake, how about experiencing the pleasantness of life with some space instead of always being jam-packed?

If one really values life and family, they will understand it’s being cruel to everyone to add more. And probably adopt children who have no one to care for.

Someone said ‘There will come a time when the government will start asking to produce babies’. That would be a golden day to live when we are all joyful, and want to make copies of ourselves.

But right now, we are over-crowded and miserable. Let’s stop!