OPINIONS

  Urban air pollution and rising carbon footprints is the scourge of Indian cities. One of the key sources of urban air pollution is vehicular emission. In this context, the Indian government's green initiatives are indeed laudable. They are facing the situation and addressing environmental concerns with new regulations, policies, frameworks, and audacious goals, especially...

The demand for energy is increasing globally, largely due to urbanisation trends and the rapid growth of cities. According to the Energy Statistics Report 2017, the industrial consumption has shot up from 117293 Giga Watt Hour to 423523 Giga Watt Hour in 2016 and has shown a CAGR of 9.47 % . Energy stats...

Change of focus is never an easy transition for a large organisation. Getting people to think differently from what they are used to can be quite a task. If there is also a change of name, the identity crisis becomes stronger. Ask any woman the question “What’s in a name?” when she is getting...

The plight of million orphans of India is a matter of serious concern and calls for concerted action in right earnest. The numerous orphans constitute a stark reality of our country. Who is an orphan? The orphan child sans parent or parents or any close kin to call its own is as significant a person...

Imagine the generic scenario of a farmer in a rustic corner of India. He lives on a small farm in a remote tribal village, has received minimal education, and has no capital except his land, no resources and security, whatsoever. He feels all alone. But so does his neighbour. And all the other million farmers...

It is important to inculcate, recognise and credit a winning culture. Creating a winning culture allows you to develop channels to tap into your employee base for ideas which foster creativity

Climate change is a global problem and all of us as stakeholders need to respond. It has economic, social and environmental impacts.

In the first piece of this three-part series, I introduced the relevance of systems thinking for development and CSR. The second piece talked about how systems thinking can be applied in practice with a range of approaches and methodologies. In this concluding piece, I will reflect on some of the skills-sets desired in a...

During any Olympics, an athlete burrowing deep into the collective conscious is hardly news. But on 14th August 2016, something special was unravelling. The nation was gripped by the performance of an athlete and her story was something else altogether. To begin with, she wasn’t anywhere close to what you would call a household...

In India, a good number of urban lakes are large cesspools. Water channels, lifeline of waterbodies, are largely encroached and converted into open drains carrying sewage water. A multi acre polluted water lake is certainly not a healthy ecosystem as it pollutes air with an unbearable stink, contaminates ground water and its frothing could potentially cause fires. It is time to avert a natural disaster that is looming large. There are four things that could be initiated to minimise sewage inlet to the urban lake bodies.

Armed with plastic buckets and mud pots, a heavily pregnant lady, ‘Aarti Meshram’ along with her nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son trudge nearly two kilometres in the searing Vidarbha heat to join an endless queue of humanity for the ‘elixir of life’ – water being supplied through tankers. While Aarti required complete bed rest considering...

Social innovation is going through a dynamic phase in India and ‘Design Thinking’ – a new and potent approach to problem solving is creating a buzz amongst innovators. Design thinking is centred on innovating through the eyes of the end user. It encourages in-the-field research that builds empathy for people, which results in deeper...