Community knowledge, connection and stewardship of a place go hand-in-hand. Listening and building connection is critical not just for the place but also for a sustainable planet I had never heard of a fasal chakra. Nor a village engineer. Neither about halma, swaraj shala and gram swabhiman diwar. And the most counter-intuitive and rational-defying thing […]
हिमनदी ताल (Himanadī tāla, Nepali; Glacial lake) Greetings! Mountainscapes can be otherworldly – the weather is unpredictable and one never knows what the next bend might lead to: a valley, a stream, a forest or a wall of rocky cliffs. The higher one goes, the more magnificent the mysteries: snowy mountains host glaciers, which give […]
हरित क्रांति (Hindi: Harit Kraanti; Green Revolution) From 10-minute deliveries to social media timelines, food has become a ubiquitous element of our lives. We are able to access food so easily and with so much abundance that most of us fail to realise how much we take it for granted – an average Indian household […]
દુકાળ (Gujarati: Dukāḷa; drought) The month of August has been furiously extreme. Incessant rainfall in the Himalayas had the rivers flowing in spate. Buildings and bridges washed away in water and dozens of landslides morphed local maps. Hydropower dams opened their floodgates, without warning, flooding villages and towns downstream. We have on our hands much […]
गुंतागुंत (Marathi: Guntā guṇṭī; entanglement) It’s been a while… The jumbled forces that move our world and interconnected systems are beginning to unravel our tangled lives. The summer of 2023 has brought heatwaves, wildfires, floods and landslides. After the hottest June on record, July turned out to be the hottest month in at least 120,000 […]
His generous smile went with him everywhere. I recall meeting Shashank Srinivasan the first time. I had reached out to him to learn about Technology for Wildlife Foundation’s efforts in an attempt to explore conservation-related opportunities. I had not expected that the founder of a niche organisation would have time to spare but Shashank was […]
From harvesting to sorting, our crops undergo a lot of change before reaching us as food. A lack of mechanisation at the farm level means much of this work is done manually Farm-to-fork is a marvellous idea. What’s not to like about cultivating one’s own food and having a stable supply of fresh, healthy and […]
Two years is but a blip in the history of our planet. The Rainmatter Foundation is past the two-year mark. That day came and went, and we were unsure if we ought to make an announcement or do something special. “What’s there to celebrate? An entire Himalayan town has been sinking, there’s been only […]
ਅਨਾਜ Anāja; Punjabi (Cereal/grain) Photos: Nandhu Kumar/Unsplash We are passing through a period of transition. As the Southwest monsoon takes leave from the Indian subcontinent, the kharif harvest sets in. The crop, especially rice, is associated with abundance. India is estimated to have produced a record 127.93 million tonnes of rice in 2021-22. That it […]
शहरी पारिस्थितिकी (Shaharee paaristhitikee, Hindi) Urban ecology Rainbow Drive layout in Bangalore was one of the flood-affected areas this August and September. Photo by KP Singh via Citizen Matters Water has been the cornerstone of civilization. Cities have sprawled themselves into existence along river banks and sea coasts for thousands of years. Over time, we’ve […]
برف کا تودہ (Barf ka toda, Urdu) Glacier Photo by Ahmed Radwan/ Unsplash From heatwaves and shrinking rivers to parched fields and monstrous floods, the world witnessed extreme events throughout August. The flooding in Pakistan, compounded by glacial lake outbursts, is yet another reminder of how vulnerable we are in the face of the climate […]
বানপানী (Bānapānī, Assamese) Flood Photo by David Talukdar/Unsplash In the words of the Adi people, it is a river “that flows through our heart,” chronicles Aarti Kumar-Rao in an intimate and enlightening essay (which you can also listen to). The river, one of the longest in the world, changes course and washes away villages in […]
землі (zemli, Ukrainian; land) ‘Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here.’ The context for these words is what makes them particularly poignant and fierce. The words themselves are as much about angst, defiance, courage, resilience, hope, life, death, triumph and beauty […]
Why did the mushroom walk into the bar? To expand its network! Jokes aside, fungi networks are so vital that they are termed the “circulatory system of the planet”. Fungi can colonise, multiply and survive in air, water, dung and even on foam. These microorganisms–neither plants, nor animals–are widely prevalent, and are present in everyday […]
हयों (Garhwali: Hyun; Snow) A huge shout out to the Waste Warriors and Linger teams for this digest’s title. There are dozens of words for snow and snowflakes: Qanik (snow falling; Inuit/Yupik), nysnö (new snow; Norwegian), feefle (snow swirling around a corner; Scots), snjómugga (a small snowfall; Icelandic), kramsnö (snow that can be easily shaped […]
ڀنڀوري (Sindhi: Bhimbhori; Dragonfly) Migrations make for spellbinding stories and compelling heroes. November started with a bird setting the record for the longest recorded flight by a land bird. An Eastern bar-tailed godwit, identified as 4BYWW, journeyed from Alaska to New Zealand, covering a distance of 12,200km, flying for more than eight days straight! Her […]
शरद (Hindi, sharad; Autumn) Salaam. When there’s a nip in the air, when there’s a cold breeze blowing, when some of the birds begin to leave, when the trees switch to a riotous wardrobe and when the leaves desert the branches to kiss the ground… can you resist the seduction of autumn? India is mostly […]
പ്രതീക്ഷ (Malayalam: pratīkṣa; Hope) What might you expect from a story of two men behind prison walls? That perhaps it’s about violence? Is bleak? Even tragic? The Shawshank Redemption is all of that. It is also an account of an unlikely friendship between two people from starkly different maps… a tale that encompasses music, […]
ತಾಪ (Kannada: taapa; heat, fire) August was the month of warnings and wildfires. The IPCC released its “most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system” as part of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The Physical Science Basis is the first of the multi-part AR6. Explore it through the many datasets on this interactive atlas. And […]
धारा (dhaara; stream) Greetings for a new month! Rain is one of the things that sets a dhaara, a stream, in motion. Record rainfall in July triggered streams and rivers to flood many regions across the country. It’s rarely possible to tame the forces of nature. Have a go at this simulation game by the UN […]