Posts from — June 2008

As we continued on NH-15 from Rajastan towards Punjab, the sandy terrain slowly started to turn greenish. As we entered Punjab, we understood the reason why it is called the “Granary of India”. Punjab has a strong network of canals and majority of its population is engaged in agriculture. The entire highway was lined up with cultivated fields on both the sides. But major cities such has Bhatinda clearly had the industrial flavour. The abundant water in its canals took me to my school days again - Punjab - the land of five rivers. But in reality, [Read more →]

Delhi - Pratapnagar, Saboli Slum Visit [Read more →]

Visit to various houses and meeting with Nitya Jacob at UN office [Read more →]

When I was talking to my colleague Binayak about my trip to Ladakh, he asked me to visit Tso Moriri lake. I immediately included it in my schedule with full excitement. Already a day’s delay had percolated into our schedule as one of the bikes had developed some serious snag and we had to spend an entire day in Jammu getting it corrected. So instead of 21st May, we headed towards Tso Moriri on 22nd. [Read more →]

Worked on Permits. No GPS Track

Visit to Gandhi Peace Foundation [Read more →]

In Rajasthan we stayed with Farhad Contractor for three days. He had planned a lot of things for us to see. Farhad has been working for the NGO Sambhaav in Rajasthan and Gujarat for 11 years, and knows what is going on in the water sector in these areas very well. When I asked him about what kind of projects Sambhaav is working on, he immediately cuts me off: they do not “work” with “projects” with a beginning and an end, he told me - “you have to live with the people and then create something together with them”. Sambhaav has done a lot of work on revival of traditional water structures such as beris and talaabs. [Read more →]