Through various circumstances, I ended up writing an article for the Hindustan Times, Mumbai edition. Op-ed no less ! It appeared on September 14th Friday.
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=14_09_2007_013_001&typ=0&pub=264
It was a lot of fun getting together the material for the article, though it was scary. I talked to a bunch of people in the course of doing it. Also I kinda cheated in writing it as if I was a Mumbaikar. But hey, I can live with that. Overall I think the article was somewhat unremarkable and didn't show a lot of insight, but given the constraints, not bad.
This is quite a big deal for me. Since I like reading and writing, I have always nursed a hankering to write in public. Its great to be able to fulfil that.
The online supplement to the article is at :
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/mumbairwh/
6 comments:
its a nice enough article. the parts where you are more 'editorial' are nicer. the parts with all those numbers are drier. but i guess that is essential if you want to enlighten a less-informed audience.
I congratulate you on the article about water harvesting and conservation which is useful to the society. It is a proud moment to see your article published in a national newspaper like Hindustan Times. Hope this trend continues!
The above comment was made by G.N. Naidu :-)
kudos my man.
and thanks for clarifying op-ed for me.
Some how, this skipped my attention. This is excellent news.
I am disappointed that you didnt spice it up and that you did not indulge in name calling. These days, I prefer to play the fear card to get the message across.
I would much have preferred the same message with stuff like "idiot mumbaikers should develop a palatte for saline water from the oceans if they dont want to participate in rain water harvesting." This sentence has contempt, plays the fear card and drives home the solution and does a better job than "The water crisis is real, and rainwater harvesting is an essential component of the solution"
On a more serious note, I heard that one of the problems behind rain water harvesting schemes in Chennai was that, people dont seem to see the benefit of their harvesting directly coming back to them - by this I mean that harvesting has increased the water table but not necessarily in their own backyard. So my water harvesting directly need not help my but helps me indirectly, because net supply has gone up. Is this true? If so, is legislation the way to go. I think you need to write a follow up article describing (a) what is the source of the resistance to harvesting and ( b ) what should be done to implement the solution (legislation/incentives.)
May be this time, you will adopt my inflammatory style of writing.
Arvind
Good article!
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