THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Diagram sourced from this website at ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-Schematic-of-a-traditional-water-supply-dhunge-dhara-or-hiti-in-the-Kathmandu-Valley_fig1_277652904 Full article: Traditional Knowledge of Rainwater Harvesting Compared to Five Modern Case Studies ~~~ My article "Drought and Flood" was published in the Annapurna Express on July 27, 2019. Read it below. ~~~ South Asia goes through periodic droughts and floods in the same year. Why hasn’t it occurred to us that this is a paradox? How can a continent reeling from water shortage suddenly be inundated with an overabundance of rain, which leads to annual floods? Often, this phenomena is happening in contiguous areas only a few kilometers apart. I was consulting for the World Bank between 2008-2010, and I remember the then director of World Bank in Nepal, Susan Goldmark, saying that South Asia would never get out of this drought and flood cycle till it managed its monsoon—st...

Annapurna Express, July 12, 2019 June 11 th is the date for the arrival of the monsoon in Nepal. This year, there was no sign of rain on the 11 th . The days ticked by as we looked at the skies, increasingly anxious about the oppressive feeling in the air. A cyclone predicted to hit the coast of Gujarat moved away to the ocean, and was blamed for sucking rain away from the mainland. Noone—meteorologists, climate change specialists, Indian scientific community, NASA-- seemed to know why the monsoon was delayed. As the drought worsened, maps started to appear on Twitter, showing how far the monsoon should have moved across the subcontinent by late June. Most Indian states which should have received rain had seen weak rainfall or none at all. The briefest shower I have ever seen in Kathmandu washed away the dust on the leaves of my curry tree plant on June 17th. The rain lasted five minutes. On Asar 15 th , we saw photographs of people planting rice in what looked like well-irrig...

   The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides to society, last week released a report stating one million species are at risk of extinction. They estimate there are 5.5 million species of insects, of which 10% are threatened (500,000 species). In addition, 2.5 million species are animals and plants but not insects, of which 25% are threatened. This 25% figure is estimated from IUCN Red List assessments (500,000 species.) Whatever the numbers, which will surely be hotly debated amongst conservationists, biologists and industrialists for years to come, it is clear from numerous studies that the volume of animal and plant life all over the planet is declining in alarming numbers. Humans are the main culprits. Their industrial agricultural practices which tolerates only monoculture and aerial applications of toxic he...

Annapurna Express, May 17, 2019 Harvard has asked Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., law professor at the Harvard Law Department and first African-American dean at the college, to step down from his post. The esteemed Professor announced his intention to defend Harvey Weinstein in January, which led to months of student protests before Harvard finally made the call to ask him to step down. Mr. Weinstein is well-known for not just producing exquisite works of cinema, but also for molesting, sexually harassing, groping and raping over 80 women in the workplace. The numbers probably exceed a 100, since not all women come forward. Twitter was immediately up in arms about this decision, with hundreds of people supporting the lawyer for doing his just duty to defend an unpleasant character. Well-known journalist Glenn Greenwald immediately put out a Tweet in his defense, calling out the “racism”. The fact that over 80 women had faced sexual, mental and psychological trauma for years, ...

Annapurna Express, May 3rd, 2019 The world’s waterways—oceans, rivers, Antartic ice sheets, Arctic polar bear habitats, Alpine mountain lakes, Himalayan mountain glaciers—are inundated with plastic. At first, it was just a garbage problem, something we as humans thought we would be able to deal with technological prowess. We could always rely upon recycling. This thought comforted us with its reassurance. The familiar mantra:  Reduce, reuse, recycle  was chanted at institutional settings and activist ones. The power of this repetition was enough to shield us from our own arrogant, self-destructive scientific certainty. In the past few years, the scale of the plastic threat has become clear. We are now inundated, according to scientific estimates, with 8.3 billion tons of this non-biodegradable material since 1950. That’s one tonne for every living person on earth. Only 6 percent of US plastics was “recycled” (more accurately, shipped to China to be incinerated). T...

Wikikeaks publisher   Julian   Assange   has been taken into custody by the British Police. After almost 7 years in the Ecuadorian Embassy, he was dragged out, looking haggard and magnificent as Tolstoy with a giant white beard. The Ecuadorian Embassy had given him generous refuge till a change of regime brought an end to his asylum status—who knew asylum could be revoked? Maybe the catshit had something to do with it. One of the demands of the Embassy was that   Assange   clean up after his cat. Video footage has also surfaced showing him trying to learn how to skateboard inside the embassy. There can be no doubt  Assange  was probably a nightmare tenant. Kudos to the Ecuadorians for suffering through seven years of a celebrity journalist living in their premises. But now the question arises—what next? First and foremost is the freedom of the press, which all democratic nation-states must uphold.  Assange  was involved in collecting inf...

The syllabus of the  MA in sociology at Delhi University  includes my article Cheli-Beti: Discourses of trafficking, and constructions gender, citizenship and nation in modern Nepal  in its reading list.  Happy to be on the same page as Amartya Sen and Foucault! Course SOC 218: Population and Society  This course takes students through the key concepts, approaches, and debates in the field of population studies. By focusing on basic features of population structure and population dynamics, it will enable students to understand the importance of demography in social life. A key feature of the course is exposure to the critical sociological debates as well as policy related debates is. At the end of the course, students will be conversant with the significance of demography in social life and will have developed a critical orientation to public debates and policies regarding population. 1. Introduction to population studies and classical approaches: a) ...