Comment on Mr. Deewan's blog

Just Read Mr. Neeraj Deewan's blog. There were a lot of comments and some people said we identify these problems but do not know the solution. I started commenting on the possible solutions. My comment grew a little long and I am now posting that as post.

Great Article Mr. Deewan. As far as my support goes. We at Virginia Tech (http://www.vt.edu/) are very soon planning to bring a proposal under US-India AKI (Agriculture Knowledge Initiative). The main thrust of proposal from my department would be on water quantity and water quality. I was not involved in this project earlier, but I am trying to go head and get involved and start some root work in this field. I hope this work might improve some things.

I am not sure if this project will be approved or not but I guess this must be a start. On the other hand, I visited the website of Ministry of Water Resources in India, and I will go ahead and make some sense out of whatever is out there. I will try and make some of my inputs available to the government as well, provided they care for it (but I 'll still try).

I hope something will improve.

We can do lots of things at our individual level, and the most important are to teach us and our kids importance of water and observe it as well. Writing and commenting on such thought provoking artical while drinking bottled water and throwing the plastic bottle in trash wouldn't make much of a sense. Some of us are pretty passionate and knowledgeable in our field and feel the sense of conservation. Lets collect some worthwhile stuff on somebody's blog, may be next issue on Nirantar, and talk to a nearby school and give a talk on conservation (water, plastic, energy, anything). We can prepare the strict format of workshop in that blog itself.

We do not want to feel uncool doing these things (consevsation, energy) in our community. But you can disseminate these feelings in your society. Organize a meeting, a small meeting of interested people in your community (5, 10 or 15 or whatever), give the organization some cool name, just meet twice a month to talk about these issues, and you may come up with some localized solutions of lots of problems. This organization can further disseminate these knowledge in local schools or communities.

We organize Durga Pooja, Saraswati Pooja and lots of things. Organize a debate competition, a poster competition, or poem competition on these topics during these occasions. Let people see these events and you can take these opportunities to proliferate these ideas. I can bet one thing, there are loads of people in your community having the same feeling but they are afraid to start something because they always look for some leader (our inherent trait of waiting for Ram and Krishna to kill demons) to start.

We have a lot of power and we can do lots of things. Just think about it.

Anurag

Comments:

Anonymous said...

Anurag,

I genuinely appreciate your view point.

While I was in India, I tried organizing free “Disaster Management Courses” for primary school kids. To make the whole boring thing little interesting; we prepared animated Power Point presentations with colourful cartoons, caricatures, interactive quiz on disasters and give away prizes…..we managed to rope in a Multi National Bank to sponsor event.

It was an absolutely FREE course and we also planned to give away a small printed booklet on "What to do when disaster strikes", a free gift from sponsoring bank and a ‘certificate of attendance’ – just to make the kids feel special.

It was so depressing and frustrating that none of the schools allowed us to conduct these courses within their premises, on the reasons that we were not qualified enough to conduct such courses. Government run schools wanted us to take approval from “Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA)” – we could never meet him simply because ... its a long story!!!

"We have a lot of power and we can do lots of things. Just think about it." Sometimes it pains me so much!!

You wrote a beautiful post in a beautiful language, you are also gifted with another beautiful language "Hindi". Why don’t you write in Hindi, its not difficult at all.

11/15/2006 11:55 PM

Pratik said...

I do agree with what Mr. Anurag Srivastava said. But I think we should take steps on individual levels and your suggestions can prove to be a starting point.

11/16/2006 9:51 AM

hemanshow said...

You are correct Anurag. Each one of able educated person will have to do his part and let our work do the talk.
I am trying similar things with my friends in my home-town in Rajasthan. Check out http://www.kalakari.com/kyari