From darkness to light

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Two unrelated news reports emerged this week. The Obama administration deployed its first-ever trade mission to India. The delegation was here to discuss business opportunities in the field of solar energy. The second one in The Guardian newspaper, quoted climate scientists as saying that "it's over" - that the years in which more than two degrees of global warming could have been prevented have passed. On current trajectories, the article said, "We'll be lucky to get away with four degrees." Now juxtapose these two reports with the more widely covered Earth Hour, the WWF's effort to get people across the world to switch off all lights for an hour between 8:30 and 9:30 PM on the March 28 to show solidarity for the planet. The UN Secretary-General is calling this, "the largest demonstration of public concern on climate change." Getting a....

Crisis in a Cold Desert?

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The first thing you'd probably hear, if you told people that you went to Ladakh are exclamations of awe & envy. A reaction that's not unwarranted. This would definitely qualify as one of the 100 places to visit before you die. Looking back I was lucky, though it certainly didn't feel that way when we were there. We flew into the capital Leh in May, two months before the tourist season kicked in, in time to experience the remnants of one of the harshest winters the region had witnessed in 20 years. The biting cold, the sudden hailstorms, and the relentless wind - we were ill-equipped from the start. Many passes were still closed & supplies in stores were over a year old. Once out of Leh, we survived on biscuits, soup, and condiments that had outlived their expiry date. Breathing is laboured there and that's....

Car.... Becar?

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My camera assistant, on the first day of the AutoExpo asked me "yeh jo ek laakh ke gaadi aayi hai, woh petrol ya deisel may launch hui hai?" (he was early by a day). Just the day before, our office librarian quizzed me about "the car". He said he was seriously looking at purchasing one and hoping to cut his petrol bill by half! (Never mind that he already owns a set of wheels). On our way back from a shoot, our cab driver painstakingly laid out the logic: many people in villages and small towns buy the Bullet, that's around 80 thousand rupees a bike, surely they'd want to buy Tata's 1 lakh car? Three stray conversations, and I realise that as d-day draws near just about everyone - not just scoop-crazed journalists - is waiting for the actual launch of this 'miracle' vehicle. Ever since....

No Commitments please, we're Indian!

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One of our policy roadmaps, and indeed a lot of international pressure on India in the coming days, will revolve around our course of action on climate change. Climate change; that word & its doomsday implications that still draw skeptical guffaws in our newsroom. Going green may sound hip but its not easy to sit everyone down and explain that global surface temperatures are infact rising at unparalleled levels, must faster than they did in the previous inter-glacial period. That the total carbon in the atmosphere 650 thousand years ago was under 300 parts per million, today its crossed 380, & that's not exactly nature going through its usual cycle. That rising fuel prices, water scarcity, farmer suicides, cyclones in Bangladesh, floods in Bihar, and wildfires in California are really part of a larger pattern that are likely to become more frequent & more dire, wreaking havoc on millions....

Not Child's Play

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They're bright, awesomely nifty, some of their workmanship is outstanding­-all smooth edges- colourful hooks, door stoppers, complex building blocks that you can make a space station with. Toys today are amazing. We once ran a business feature show called The power of an Idea & we bought toy props for corporates to get them to think out of the box. And the things we unearthed- soap bubbles that don't burst, sponge animals that come out of dissolving capsules, complex water guns and what have you. It really is the best time to be young! Most times I go past the windows wishing it were 15 years ago. So when we did pick up toys for our Special Investigation, it was another chance to see how consumerism had had its way in the organized toys industry. (Must say it wasn't easy seeing all them being cut up and ashed in....

Crime & Punishment

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Sin & retribution, a concept as old as the greeks themselves. So how many dogs' lives does it take to make up for the death of 2 humans: 20? 50? a 1000?! Reports say over 200 dogs in Bangalore have been 'culled' (scientific term meant to explain the gross tilt that we've created in the ecological balance, that we then set about 'correcting' by systmatically exterminating animal polulations). Today scores of pariahs in bangalore are paying for the deeds of a few feral cousins, victims of the un-sanitary conditions we created in the first place. And thats one part of the picture .. snakes in multi-storey buildings, the monkey 'menace' in Shastri Bhavan, two leopards brutally beaten up for straying into human habitation. I wont go into specifics of culling, over-population, the depleting forest cover, or the latest canine witch hunt..that's better argued by....

Retail derailed - but can you stop the money trail?

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Even as the government is pussyfooting on FDI in retail, global retail giants seem to have taken the wind out of the debate by moving ahead and charting their India entry- policy encumbrances notwithstanding! For starters, the government's placatory gesture in 2005 of permitting 51% FDI in same-brand stores came a little late- considering most of the big guns were already here (read: McDs, Nike, Marks & Spencer) through the franchisee route naturally. Market gurus for the longest time were skeptical about Wal-Mart's immediate plans for India. Why would the world's largest company settle for a mere 46% stake in its India venture (if and when that happened!) The buzz on the street was that the company would possibly enter only after a government assurance of hiking that FDI limit to over 70%. But the behemoth didn't exactly wait on the whims and reservations of the Indian government.....