Whose lake is it anyway?

Coimbatore, the third largest city of Tamil Nadu is situated on the banks of the river Noyyal and has a network of natural and man-made wetlands interconnected to each other and the river Noyyal dating back to 1200 AD. Some of these are under the authority of the Public Works Department, while 8 lakes that fall under the Coimbatore Corporation limits have recently been leased by the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation from the PWD. Traditionally, these lakes were sources of fresh water for domestic and agricultural use but in recent years due to rapid urbanisation they are being used only by marginalised people living in the vicinity for domestic use, as grazing grounds for subsistence herders, by farmers for irrigation seasonally and also for fishing. They still play a very important role in regulating the water levels in the Noyyal and preventing floods during excess rains in the city apart from underground aquifier recharge. Due to the unregulated and unsustainable extraction of groundwater in the city in recent years, their roles as water-table rechargers is one of the most important today. These wetlands and their drains are also serving as ad-hoc sewage drains (untreated domestic and industrial effluents) resulting in moderate to heavy pollution levels.

Anthropogenic uses apart, these lakes are also used by resident and migratory birds throughout the year. Large congregations (>300 individuals) of Threatened birds like the Spot-billed Pelican and Near Threatened birds like the Painted Stork regularly use these lakes for feeding, breeding, roosting and nesting. A study conducted jointly by researchers from SACON, Bharathiar University and PSG College of Arts and Science from June 2004 to September 2006 reports 116 species of birds using the Singanallur Tank alone.

In a public meeting held on 14th August 2010 at the Coimbatore Collectorate with attendance of the Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation, District Collector of Coimbatore and Commissioner - Coimbatore Corporation, a presentation was made by Scott Wilson India Pvt Ltd and Almondz Global Securities Ltd that proposed privatisation of the eight lakes that fall in the city limits (Narsampathy, Krishnampathy, Selvampathy, Kumaraswamy, Selvachinthamani, Coimbatore big tank, Valankulam and Singanallur) along with a rejuvenation proposal. Also proposed under this Build-Operate-Transfer scheme are construction projects like urban health resorts and spas, food courts, water theme parks, aquarium, planetarium, bird park, etc., in and around the wetlands.

It is questionable in the first place for the Corporation to even consider privatisation of a common public resource that is essential to the livelihood of many marginalised people. It also seems ill-advised to hand over the 'rejuvenation' and maintenance of these wetlands - crucial wildlife habitat and ecologically fragile and valuable areas - to a private corporation with no history of such successful projects without any public or governmental checks and balances. Some of the proposed 'rejuvenation' activities include draining, dredging and desilting of the wetlands to increase water storage capacities. This will destroy the aquatic fauna and flora, disturb the migratory birds and result in the transformation of the wetland from an ecosystem to a sterile water storage tank. Furthermore, the large construction projects proposed will have to rely on huge footfalls to be commercially viable, well beyond the carrying capacity of these wetlands, putting immense pressure on the ecosystem and the biodiversity it harbours and will contribute to irreversible damage, not just in terms of ecology, but even economy as the two are one and the same.

Tanks, Lakes and Wetlands of Coimbatore City

Just a Google map outlining Coimbatore's water bodies: artificial and natural. I used to treat the wetlands of Coimbatore simply as places one had to go to watch water birds. That view has changed and different feelings have emerged since it came to light in a public meeting that our dear city administration is planning to auction off the rights to eight of our lakes to private corporations who will do all they can to sterilise the lakes of all life and then charge the good citizens of Coimbatore (and others who happen to drop by) an entry fee to see the 'beautiful' bird park (just one of the mega construction projects they've proposed) after they've driven away all the natural, wild, migratory and threatened bird life from them (to say nothing of the plants, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, insects, spiders and small mammals). If only I could huff and puff and blow them away.

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Do you like the thing that holds you back?

Would you like to be on a leash, for instance? (BDSM jokes apart!). Isn't it amazing how human society and its norms change the behaviour of animals—dogs especially? Everyone's come across the dog who is overjoyed on seeing its 'owner' reach for the leash: that could only mean it's walky time! The leash, made for the very purpose of restricting freedom of movement, sends a dog into a fit of joy and hard tail-wagging because it means freedom from the restricted environs of its home. But while the dog is free to do what it wants to at home, on the leash its movement is quite restricted and dependent on the person in control of that leash. Yet, it chooses the leash over freedom at home. So do we. Governments, institutions and the society at large, almost always give individuals the leash treatment. One step forward and five back. Some petty allowances here and there in exchange for taking away some really important rights. And we're usually happy and thankful for this.

Come, join the SPBA!

Have you noticed, that ever since the economic liberalisation in the nineties, slowly but surely, public toilets in India have gone from the "Indian" style to western ceramic potty affairs. I think us Indians are great at aping all the bad things from the west and ignoring all the good things they have to offer. Bad thing: Western toilets. Good thing: If you're gonna have western toilets, you might as well have toilet paper. But, no. We just refuse to use toilet paper (spicy food?). Result: The public loos are sloshed floor to ceiling with water and so are the toilet seats as a result of the mug-and-water method. All this water is a dirt magnet with people walking in and out from all sorts of places with all sorts of stuff stuck to their footwear soles. When you really have to go, you're left debating whether to brave holding on or face the dirty loos. A great solution to this paper vs water problem would be a bum gun. Bum guns are the best invention ever in the history of humankind after fire, wheels and running water. Such a simble solution, but no takers. Come, help in the ridding of this social evil by joining the Society for the Propagation of Bum gun Adoption. It's a noble cause, and your karma shall be given positive credits, redeemable not only in your afterlife, but every time you use a public loo.

A bright and shiny winter's day!

The WABA (Wear A BeArd) Foundation

People everywhere keep asking me why I have a beard. My extended family, friends I haven't met since high school and even new acquintances, all wonder about it. The answer is I have a beard because most men naturally have a beard! What's so complicated about that to understand? It's just like hair on your head; it's already there, one doesn't have to do anything for it. Why don't people shave their heads as well, as a corollary? The beard, being a great insulator, also keeps my face warm during winters and cool during the heat. It's also totally eco-friendly because it can be maintained simply with a pair of scissors, without having to use and dispose metal and plastic razors. Also, it makes me look wise beyond my years. (I think!) :-)

Of forest dwellers and such...

The talk about 'alternative development' or 'sustainable development' is quite interesting these days. The NGOs that usually make recommendations to governments about what can be done so that rural communities continue to lead their relatively simpler lifestyles that are directly dependent on the wilderness areas around them as a means of promoting the protection of these wilderness areas through stakeholdership will recommend that funds be donated/allotted and/or legislation be passed to secure that community's way of life, and they will lobby for rights to the community over the forest that they are stakeholders of. The point that they miss completely is that even though current stakeholders might be interested in safeguarding their forests and making sure only sustainable quanta of non-timber forest produce (NTFP) is harvested from them, there's no guarantee that future generations who inherit this stakeholdership will do the same. Another moot point is also that if an ad-hoc village committee is in charge of the forest around their village, it is a possibility that bad management decisions can be made with the best of intentions. Unlike the evolved system of centralised and state-owned forest management, village committies will not have access to research and data to base their decisions on (this is not to say the centre doesn't screw up. They do, and big time at that. But there are certain safeguards and corrections can be made with higher intervention). And even if they do manage to set limits to NTFP harvests in the name of sustainability, it is only so that humans can continue to sustainably harvest material with nary a care for the wildlife inhabiting the forest. (A good example would be honey collection from wild beehives in southern India. Even though there are ancient laws passed on from father to son about what kind of hive to harvest and what kind to leave untouched, most of the extractable honey is collected and sold into the free market with little of it left to bears - whose main diet during the nonfruiting season happens to be honey. Bears are also further affected by collection of deadwood. Deadwood is essential for the existence of termites in a forest. Termites feed on the dead and fallen wood and return organic matter back into the soil. Termites also happen to be another major part of bear diet. No deadwood, no termites, no bears. Only a small example.)

Beyond all this talk of sustainability, one also forgets about the people concerned. Do they want to continue with their way of living or do they want healthcare, schools, electricity, food and water security, toilets, pukka roofs that don't need to be replaced every year, insurance, access to the internet and telecommunications, news, information and entertainment? Why should someone who has access to (and is a user of) all this make recommendations that basically dictate the absence of these very things from a community of people who happen to be physically and financially far off from these things? Why not ask them what they'd like first? As long as human communities continue to have access to the 'free' market of the open world (most 'tribals' do, only a few like the Jarawas of the Andamans continue to live disconnected from all but the most primitive technology - one reason why their population hasn't exploded like the rest of the world and they can actually be said to be living 'with' nature), continue to change their environment to raise animals and crops, get diseases and need cures, get bitten by snakes and need antivenin, they cannot be given special permissions and rights to the forests they live in. With the little forest we have remaining, we cannot continue to add infrastructure and services into it. People can adapt to a change in lifestyle but animals and the forest cannot. I sit in a coffee shop as I write this, a place where I can buy the cheapest item on the menu and meet with a dozen of my friends until it's closing time and use the internet for free. I can walk down a few blocks into a multiplex and expose myself to a plethora of cinema from various corners of my country and the world. Why would I not want the 'tribal' people to have access to the same if they chose so?

Ideally, sustainable societies would not have advanced technology such as computers and the internet, because 'jobs' in sustainable societies would be directly linked to the environment. I can only imagine "technological advancement" being made under capitalism because it calls for bigger, better, faster of everything. But considering where we are currently, it'd be imprudent to call for forest-dwelling peoples to "go back to nature" and avoid what the current world has to offer. Today, the right to internet access is equivalent to the right to information. We cannot keep asking them to be where they are and continue their 'sustainable' (but impoverished and meagre) existence. It would be both, impudent and imprudent of us to ask them to go back to using their traditional systems of medicine for the diseases created by contact with the rest of the world. It would be equally imprudent and impudent to ask them to skip the 'modern' education system and stick to their traditional knowledge, for that would leave future populations at a huge disadvantage versus the rest of the world. What would work best in today's scenario is a system that gives the right to forest dwelling communities to keep ownership of their land (governed by strict land use regulations curbing any commercial activity and/or serious landscape modification) while at the same time providing for them residence and services in nearby towns and cities. It is the only way their children will be brought up at minimal disadvantage vis-a-vis children from towns and cities, while at the same time, exposing them to their homeland (the forests) and making sure they never get alienated from it. This, I think, is much better than the system we use today where we give them 'jobs' in the name of NREGS and other trivial jobs with the hospitality/tourism industry which only makes them reliant on an outsider (a capitalistic outsider!) to continue living in their homeland.

Management of the forests, on the other hand, needs to be taken away from the exclusive domain of the Forest Department (Because, seriously, the FD does not consist of conservation biologists or police. The forests need a combination of the two for proper management and protection.) and must be shared by a committee/board consisting of stakeholders (i.e, the people, not corporations), the Forest Department (whose role would be limited to protection) and conservation biologists who would present all management options. No management decisions would be made without hearings, with opinions drawn from peers and public. That would be my ideal forest.

Tallying pollution

When calculating total greenhouse gas emissions of a country, (the majority of which are emitted by industry), the emissions by export oriented industries have to be debited from the emitting country and credited to the countries who are importing these products. Perhaps they should seriously start thinking about the stuff they consume and the quantity in which they do so, these 'developed' nations.

Waiting at the Ramnagar railway station for my train to Delhi. I'm in the waiting lounge, facing the door with my back against one wall that has been decorated with a 12x8-foot print of a tiger. (It's very obvious that Corbett is the reason for Ramnagar's current state of finances.) The tiger has me in its claws and it's hard to escape.

The toilets for men and women are right next to each other with only 'stree' and 'purush' written in Devnagri script on their doors. If I couldn't read Hindi, it'd not be unlikely to find me walking into the women's loo, only to be chased out by overweight sardarnis brandishing sharp stilettos.

Do they want me to register or not?

Was trying to register at Mail.com and this is what I got. Tried refreshing the captcha image but it kept spewing out incorrigible ones like this. I'm sure it's a not very subtle way to say they're not accepting new registrations right now.