Damn the Large Dams

One of my first blogs was on this subject only. Now in the wake of Kaveri issue again raised, am tempted to write another on the same subject with different details.

The point remains the same that we need to seriously assess the serious impact of large dams over the society & country as a whole Vs the benefit it brings. And assess alternatives also. Several water experts over recent decades have damned the large dams. Large dams across India (world) experienced a lot of ill effects to the society, decreasing soil quality, decreasing agriculture yield, decreasing fisheries, bringing riparian states on almost war. Is it really a boon or a bane?

The concept of building these large dams itself is modern & is from British colonial era. It was never there in the ancient past nor in medieval period. And it is wrong to say, it is a modern science & technology evolution & a great gift to mankind. Indians & Chinese have built formidable walls, forts like, Kumbalgod fort, Chitradurga fort & magnificent temples.  Could they have not build a simple 120ft height by 150ft length dam? They have indeed. But not rampantly like modernists. The Great Cholas have built several miles long tank bund which is standing formidable even after a millennium (not decades, not centuries but millenium). It has come to rescue the water guzzling metro, Chennai today. Refer the Ref2 &3 links in end below. But the difference is they built scientifically a tank bund but not a DAM unscientifically across a large river.

So the point is – All that is British OR all that is modern is not really scientific. All that is ancient is not just aesthetics and art. It has science & long, very long, very very long vision for the society, its prosperity & harmony.   

Now the world is seriously debating it. If you google for “decommissioning large dams” there are several scholarly books & articles you get, but most importantly ‘developed’ nations like US & European countries are marking several dams for decommissioning due its hazards outweighing its utilities.

Pity is that in India, government in 2004 commissioned some 100+ major dams in pristine, virgin Northeast region rivers. We are more British than the Brits themselves now. Should we not rather follow our own ancient scientific approach?  

Kaveri River Case Study

Here we’ll take Kaveri as a typical river system for study. It is very typical & our understanding here can be applied across any river system anywhere in the world. The purpose is to understand whether large dams benefit society in long run OR they are futile & unsustainable.

Across Kaveri we have 2 major dams – KRS in Karnataka and Mettur dam in TN. Some details on history, river dispute, tribunal reward, issues, and solutions are given in the Reference links in the end. Almost all of them deduce that the tribunal award is equitable in good monsoon condition. But in a bad monsoon year like 2012, 2016 it is not proven good for Karnataka. So the ‘distress formula’ is not good. The solution is – all Karnataka MP s should put up a united front, call for friendly resolution with TN MP s with central arbitrator. Propose solution to Tribunal and get ‘distress formula’ reformulated. That’s it. But the first step – ‘Karnataka MPs’ putting up a united front is where we fail. If we pass that, then all else will pass.

Now it will be foolish to talk about decommissioning the dams. But is it fully utilized? What it takes to utilize fully. Let’s focus on those answers. For that let’s understand some of the basics. Then it will be easy to understand if it can be utilized fully. If so, what it takes.

Natural River Course: Kaveri runs for about 700+Kms. A river starts from mountains. It gathers waters from several streams along. After long, it hits plains & it widens. Along the route several ‘tributaries’ join it to make it a big river. As it nears the end of its journey, at the mouth of its joining the sea, it divides into ‘distributaries’. These tributaries and distributaries make up the natural river system. The fig1 shows the same.

Tributaries are the wealth of the agriculturists. Distributaries are life line for fisheries.

The socially best and scientific way to sustain good economic life is to build small check dams or tanks along all tributaries. The main river will have primary tributary for which secondary will be there for which tertiary will be there and so on. Our ancient kings used to aid villages build & maintain their own tanks, bunds, Kalyani, Pushkarani, etc., and there used to be beautiful connected tank system too. This would ensure excess water flows to the next lake and then next and so on until it reaches a tributary. This controls flooding also. Since all along 700+Kms of Kaveri running, there are tributaries, it is prudent to implement it in a harmonious way.

Advantages of this system are:

• The tanks would ensure ground water level increase in entire surrounding area, giving equitable ground water to all agriculturists. However no bore well should be allowed. Else it would make unequitable share in favour of the rich
• Social harmony: Small tanks maintenance is in hands of villagers. So they would maintain only their water and not fight for others.
• Decentralized water governance at local level. No fight with central/ state government/ Supreme Court etc., what you get from God through good rain is what you manage with.

Limitations of this system are:

• It cannot provide water for large cities like Bangalore, Mysore. They have to manage their own lake systems.
• Large amount of water flows in the Main river to the sea. Modernists term it as waste of water going to join sea. But traditionists argue it enriches the estuary & fishing; and economic water transportation can be encouraged all along 700+kms;

But if villages are made self-sufficient and prosperous, then cities will not become behemoth centralized population crumbling by its own unmanageable weight.

Large Dams System: Here the large flow of water in the main river is envied. A large dam is constructed across. The purpose is to hold and distribute water to arid areas. So large dam system means – Hold large water and create artificial complex distributary system. Scientific way implemented in ancient times is to do small check dams across small tributaries & leave governance to locals. So comparison is quite stark. Few points for comparison given below:

Large Dam System	Connected   Tank System
Large onetime cost; Decades of Time to construct;	Small time; Small cost; Multiple places
Artificial distributary system; Large land acquisition & displacement, rehabilitation	Natural tributary system; No land acquisition; No displacement, no rehabilitation
Desilting is army like operation once in a decade or mostly never	Desilting is every year service by few, creating job for locals & incentive is the silt as fertilizer
Distributary canal maintenance is by State Government	Maintained by locals; By the people, for the people
Area coverage is for max 40-50kms length; And area in that length; About 2000sq Kms;	Area coverage is all along 700+ kms; Lakhs of sq.kms;
Worker is employee for salary	Worker is the beneficiary of canal system
Farmer breaches canal, bribes official. Diversions are done illegally. Locals don’t govern anything. So illegal guy doesn’t fear wrath of locals. Government cannot punish him for his illegal structures, bunds, diversions. So illegal thing is incentivized and not punished leading to social disharmony	Locals govern canals & tanks. Locals admonish illegal guy locally. So farmer is incentivized to be righteous and admonished for being wrong.
Distress time, Rain deficit time: Blame government, supreme court, burn buses; Anger spills violence	Distress time: Stay put & pray for better rains; Equitable impact to all farmers; Consume less;
Encourage large cities; Concentrating large populace in one place & provide piped drinking water; Pumping stations increase carbon footprint. Consumers don’t realize cost of complexity	Encourages decentralization of water management. Encourages villages, towns & cities to feed themselves by their own indigenous systems. Consumers will be aware of water value.

Distribution system is key to success. For KRS there are 3 main canals. Apart from these 3, one overhead canal built is dysfunctional from the day 1 of the water release. One can see the overhead canal on way to Mysore after crossing Srirangapatna.

The 3 canals run for about 40kms. That’s it. But it divides into distributaries at secondary, tertiary levels. Along the way it irrigates the farm land. So total length of these distributaries is about 300+kms.

So for example, KRS dam canals irrigate Mandya district and KR Nagara in Mysore and a bit of southern Hassan. It doesn’t reach Ramanagara, Kanakapura, Bangalore rural, Tumkur etc., The biggest advantage of KRS is it gives drinking water to guzzling cities of Bangalore, Mysore, Mandya.

Few more disadvantages & complexities of this system are:

• Distributary has to reach last mile from central reservoir. So a complex distributary system has to be built & maintained. Crores of Rs go down the drain. For example, Bennehole canal system (Bijapur) no longer exists today, but there is a department with officials drawing salary for maintaining it. There are several such examples.
• Distribution system at secondary & tertiary levels is always in serious problem in almost all canals around the world. You take any status report of any irrigation department any day, this is the case. Water doesn’t reach the last man properly due to various reasons.

Solution?

• Don’t build any more new large dams. It is even suggested by UN since 90’s after disastrous results over several decades in several countries.
• Those built have to give local governance over the distributary canal system. Only dam maintenance should be with the central/state government.

So if you weigh options, you find the large dams are disastrous in the long run. It serves very little for humanity. That is the main reason the Kings in the ancient & medieval times didn’t build these monstrous unscientific crass. Besides the most critical responsibility of the Kings was welfare of the people, their law abiding nature, and their self-governance. So it was detrimental to these social aspects. Hence they didn’t invest on this “Mad Science”.

It will be good if our today’s politicians learn a bit from our ancient kings and their governance. Most importantly they take back any new large dam construction projects. More than environment disaster it is the social harmony which gets affected.

Reference:

Ref1: http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/tank-irrigation-karnataka-historical-survey

Ref2: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/a-chola-gift-to-chennai/article7089318.ece

Ref3: Grand Anicut – The world’s oldest functioning dam - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallanai_Dam

Ref4: https://www.internationalrivers.org/dam-decommissioning

Ref5: KRS & its canals details from karanataka govt site: http://waterresources.kar.nic.in/salient_features_krs.htm

Ref6: Very detailed analysis on whole Kaveri Issue, Tribunal award its history etc., https://kiranasis.blogspot.in/2012/10/kaveri-river-water-sharing-what-are.html?showComment=1474124186149#c6163037838018736733

Kaveri River Basin.PNG	Tribunal award
Bangalore Connected Lake system (Which is now dysfunctional)	Rough interventions to control water flows on proportional system
Field inlet from a lined tertiary canal	A partitioning structure along a secondary canal exhibiting few problems. Left and front offtake have been gated after NWMP but gates are blocked open (spindle is twisted) - Right offtake is not gated – Left offtake is temporary closed with vegetation

Large Vs The Small

India had a glorious past. A walk through our heritage sites, temples, forts will evidence that. The rich literary heritage, classical, colloquial also indicate the freedom the society had, how it executed its freedom with much grace & responsibility. India’s geography, its valleys, forests, the Himalayas, the Vindhyas, the Sahyadris, the Nilgiris are unique for such a large country. These give raise to mineral rich perineal & seasonal rivers. The population is generously developed with so much rich fertility of the land. And it also coexisted with equally thick animal and plant population. The bio diversity of India is one of the best and unique in the world.

With so much natural richness India today is stooped in poverty. Rural migration to urban areas is steadily increasing. More than half the population is living in unhygienic conditions. The child deaths due to malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria, cholera are indications of our poverty. Even the child trade, child labor is rampant despite legislations against it. These are not one off incidents rather regularly occurring that it is no longer news items for new papers. That means it is systemic in nature. Even if it is one off incidents in some good states & areas the root cause is the systemic failure and not by fluke.

That means with so much rich geological diversity for life to thrive have we created a system of failure for a large population? Is this poverty due to nature fury or is it all man made? Has all that rich biodiversity been privatized by the rich? Or is it all polluted? Has it all become unhygienic, unlivable? Why are the rural population driven to cities to live in slums?

The answer lies in the Large Versus the Small. In the glorious past, India had a large number of smaller kingdoms. They were completely self-reliant and independent. The population was well spread across the geography in villages. And these villages were also almost completely self-reliant and self-governed. The basic needs of food, water, shelter & clothing was taken care of by the population of a single village however small it was. All of them hard worked for their living & still had time to create great assets for India in the form of literature, art, sculpture, artecrafts, great monuments etc., They stand tall even today in a large number of villages across India.

But modern civilization assets have a life of not more than 100 years. Be it any factory, city sky scrapers, large dams, fast moving cars, high flying Airplanes. Factories will last as long as they can suck the raw materials around. Cars and Airplanes ply for not more than a decade or 2. Every cement building, edifice, dams have its life. And they all serve only the rich and few medium classes. For the poor nothing of these luxuries is available. The rulers of the country argue and believe deeply that these are the harbinger of progress, wealth, upliftment of the downtrodden. And they are able to sell that dream to all people very well. The learned people, middleclass like us also believe that this is indeed the Holy Grail. The poor and the downtrodden aspire for it.  

The funniest argument is that these will provide the daily bread, clean water, and clothing for all across India. But the hard truth is that, exactly these modern luxuries are the reason and root cause of pushing India into poverty.

But where lies the answer? The answer lies in Gram Swarajya. Every grama has to become swavalambi (self-reliant). Today the government is in the business of promising distribution of grains & water to all. The government should GIVE less and enable people to produce & live by themselves. Government should only protect their harmonious living. But government today snatches their land & water to promise them to give them clean water and food. What an irony.

Public Distribution System (PDS): Concentration of Grains for distribution to the poor

The PDS aims to serve entire India. This is one very very large system. The Punjab wheat has to come to Karnataka Villages, Andhra rice needs to go to Rajasthan villages. So it is a very complex mesh of procurement, transportation, storage & distribution of grains across India. There are a dozen central departments and a dozen state departments involved in this entire complex system. The government itself admits to about 25% pilferage in this system.

Almost none of the quality grains reach the final intended beneficiary. The best quality will be replaced by the rejected worst quality on the way. At many stages they get into private mills, malls, and food processing units, industries at pittance managed by the mighty and powerful. The intended grain for the poor finally ends up in McDonalds burgers or Star hotel plates.

PDS also pushes for large production of same thing in an area. That is called mono culture. That is if Punjab is rich in wheat production, the government procures only wheat from small farmers & nothing else. So in desire of money they grow only one grain. But for healthy living they need multi grain. So government says I’ll give through PDS procured from elsewhere. The earth also becomes weak with mono culture. The farmer also becomes slave of government procurement of his produce as well as consumer of what government gives. Independence fully lost.

Large land Farming Vs Small land farming

While this is happening in the distribution system, what happens to the society of producers & beneficiaries? Are they getting rich? Not really. The farmers suicide is an indicator. The father of Green Revolution for India M Swaminathan now advocates Small Land holding, Family Farming, multi crop farming, organic farming in this paper: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/12/1970.pdf

The green revolution was launched to curb world hunger. He got recognized and rewarded for his great research enabling the rice & wheat revolution in India during 80’s. Now he is shunning his own propositions. Within his life time he realized that this had detrimental effect and increased poverty and is not sustainable. So he has presented several papers to UN in favour of small land holding and family farming which he says as ‘Ever Green Revolution’. But is government listening and caring? They still push for subsidies to chemical farming, factories, polluting air and river.

The chemical farming will lead small farmers into long term debts. Debts will lead to suicide or giving up their land for big land lords. Then become their slaves.

Big land lords want subsidies in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The chemical factories will lobby with the government for fast and high productivity per acre through chemical farming. Politicians succumb to their lobby money. Politicians are people leaders and they know very well the problem and the solution. But still since they succumb to lobby money, they paint the picture to small farmers to get loan, take subsidy, and assure them that their government will protect them. So the vicious circle starts.

The education about organic farming is slowly but steadily growing. I hope a day comes when people will vote out a politician who promises subsidies and vote to power someone who gives them freedom from subsidies to chemical farming. And hence leading to shut down of these chemical factories.

Large Dams: Concentration of large amount of water for distribution to Arid regions

Here again Government believes in Concentration of Water Wealth of equity distribution to all. It is a myth. Whole lot of movements in India & the world has happened against the large dams. In many cases government has dropped the idea. But still in north east there are more than 100 large dams sanctioned and in various stages of implementation even now. The UPA, NDA are all same when it comes to adopting modern civilization of earth destruction and humanity destruction for the benefit of few.

Typically a large dam submerges very large fertile land, usually forest land. The benefit is for some 5 to 10 times larger area if properly executed in the plains. So cost benefit looks good & stops on paper only. Beyond this only problem, issues, destruction, arise.

Typically the dam construction is first step. But the benefit is realized only after canals, sub canals, sub-sub canals are constructed reaching every acre of the plains that is planned. But rarely that happens. Even in KRS, in one of the ambitious overhead canal they left water recently first time after its construction after so many decades. Funnily they immediately shut it because of leakage. They never attempted to leave water again in that canal. So many kilometers of cement canal, pillars are standing as mute reminder of our failure. While on way to Mysore from Bangalore you can see that overhead canal cross over the highway even today.

Recently, Deve Gowda our beloved former Prime minister was booked for not implementing Benne Hole canal after a very large sum of money was sanctioned and spent when he was PWD minister. But he successfully argued that it was constructed and got out of it. How? Because the canal needs maintenance. So he argued without maintenance mud swept over, bushes, grasses grew. So the canal vanished.

The answer lies again in small tanks construction and maintenance. The ancient system of linked tank (Kere, Kunte, Yeri, Pushkarani, etc.,) system brings up the water table. All the districts in India had linked tank system. Even in the arid plains there used to be tanks. A tank typically used to be life line for surrounding 3-4 villages. And 4-5 linked tanks used to irrigate all agriculture done by those 15-20 villagers. Some of the old & famous surviving tanks have some inscriptions of that day’s king or paleygar who commissioned it. For example, Chitradurga’s Chandravalli tank has Mayura Varma of Kadamba’s inscriptions. That means it served several generations life for almost 1500 years now. Can you compare it with our Benne Hole example!?!

Large Conglomerates: Reducing jobs, eliminating large number of small players; eliminating competition; reducing quality

During last UPA regime due to the concerted efforts of the opposition they shot down the FDI in retail. It is a good thing. We are already under so much poverty by embracing modern ways of things. To top it if we bring in foreign investment also they’ll release us only after sucking out all blood. British rule already taught us before. But we don’t seem to learn from bad experience of recent past nor from good example of ancient times.

Large conglomerates are entering simple retail industry. The large conglomerates will have the financial muscle to arm twist the government and banks to sanction large loans. Then they ensure the direct farm to shop delivery of farm products. This will give raise to large farming, contract farming & eliminate small farmers or make them slaves. Then in the procurement & transportation, there a number of small business owners who get eliminated. Then in the distribution it will eliminate the stockists and the small shop owners. The small petty shop owners will be generally all family members involved. And all of them will need to find new jobs or get enslaved. So in this entire process, the job loss will be more than 50% of the jobs originally held. The consumer hopes to get the benefit of those channels removed. But do you really see that? All the profit get pocketed handsomely by the corporate but still show losses in the books somehow for tax avoidance. So government also looses by tax collection at various stages by the small businesses.

So the net effect is whole lot of job loss and hence increasing poverty; Increasing wealth of the wealthy creating a greater divide between the rich and the poor; the government loses tax revenue.

Final Conclusion

So through these examples, it is clear that Small land farming, Small tanks, Small businesses create harmony, independence & interdependence, fosters innovation, sustenance for generations, quality. Most importantly it creates wealth, job sustenance, it eliminates poverty. It creates freedom to live. After all that’s what our forefathers fought freedom for.  Why do we give it away to another set of goons? 

Smart and Clean Cities For India

This article is about the state of our cities and how we can improve. As nation's people what changes we need to adapt to make it happen. There is a bit of sacrifice, there is a bit of service, there is a bit of fighting spirit required from all of us to make it happen.

Filthy Cities of Today

Transportation is the backbone of city. Our cities have become filthy by perennial traffic jams. The average speed has become 10-12KM per hr in the city. Pollution is the order of the day. Noise & Smoke fill the air from dawn to dusk. Excessive production & selling of cars, bikes has certainly made the country rich in money circulation. But it has made the cities ugly. Families buying private motorized transportation feel rich. But are they? Middleclass families have more private vehicles. But that has not made them rich but retained them as middle class only. That has not made them reach their office, schools, market faster. The upper class has got more luxury cars. But that has not made them reach their destiny any early.

There was very less or no slums in yester years. But a city today cannot grow further without the slums contributing to its wealth! Every major city in India has at least 40% living in filthy conditions. How can we boast of progress achieved? They lack clean water, air, sanitation. Where did they come from? They were driven from rural environs where they had at least clean lake, river, hills, forests, desert, plains, to laze, graze and live on god given natural resources.  Money was not a need to live. Why were they driven or opted for slums? Because the government snatched their environment & land and auctioned it off to businesses. For what? For the development. But that development has made our cities neither fast enough nor beautiful. Rural environs and people are also destroyed. Is this what is development?

So much of coal, petroleum, gas, minerals extraction; cars, bikes manufacturing has pushed people to be slaves at pittance losing their land and environment. It makes country rich on paper. Currently Economy is important. People are not. Large dams, coal mining, aluminum, iron, manganese all metal mining at a rapid pace is important for the country. Production of large quantities of cloth, metal, vehicles, phones, and its export are important for the country. Large consumption of milk, cereals, meat, vehicles, metals by few lucky city dwellers is most important for the country. Left out people of this luck are not important. This over production & over consumption brings down hills, creates artificial hills, concrete jungles, sucks up lakes, creates filthy rivers. Large dams have submerged many forests, villages. People still survive. Where will people go? They migrate to city slums. Few lucky get into apartments.

Number of people living in apartments and number living in slums are equal almost. So what development achieved?

The main thing is to imbibe and educate “ಸರ್ವೇ ಜನಾಃ ಸುಖಿನೋಭವಂತು” (Sarvey Janah Sukhino Bhavanthu: Means let all people be happy). It is not correct to say someone has to sacrifice for someone’s development. Those who “have” should control their consumption to leave something for “have nots”.

Smart City Concept

For a smart city, we should have very good public transport. Metro, Bus connectivity should be improved for long distance commute. Metro especially will be safe and fast. But metro doesn’t reach your home and office. The last mile connectivity is the key. Lack of it is one of the main reason for high number of private vehicles on road.  

For last mile connectivity we need to have shuttles. How shuttles should serve the locality?

• They should be electric non-polluting or non-motorized vehicles. Something like buggies in golf field. Or maybe something more robust.
• They should keep running in locality covering 1-2 kms radius continuously. It should connect people from near door to nearby main road corner
• High frequency connectivity; But low speed for keeping up safe environment.
• Hop on hop off service to be provided;
• Ease of ticketing, multi-mode payment, seamless smart card integration with metro & bus services

Apart from this, city should encourage and adopt cycling mode of transport. It is all possible and not a fancy story. Most of the European cities have become safe with zero road fatalities by adopting cycling as a chief mode of transport. http://www.copenhagenize.com/

And especially in India it works. Because Indians are civilized, obedient & tolerant by and large.

Owning and driving private motorized vehicles should be made extremely expensive in cities. That much reduction in vehicles will lessen that much burden on earthly extraction of aluminum, iron, petrol, gas. That will retain our beautiful rural environs.

To limit Consumption, Limit Production

Another most important factor is to make private vehicle production prohibitively costly. Because actually it is costly. Since we treated environment & people as cheap commodity, we have reduced the cost of production. We have shown apathy to environment and people, getting environment clearance, giving false assurance to people about job generation, the production goes unbridled. A Factory gets clearance for one million ton ore production but goes on to produce 100 tons. They get clearance for paper, plastic, rubber, vehicle production, many such things only to flout the clearance guidelines, brazenly producing more than approved. River pollution, lake sucking, canal diversion goes on unbridled. When a strict officer occasionally comes and hits at it, people get divided and oppose the closure. Because they feel they lost jobs. But jobs can be generated if they work for themselves and not for someone else as slaves. But that needs a very long education.

One solution is to treat the mineral rich lands as ones belonging to those local villages & not to the government. The current system of auctioning off the mineral rich hills, forests by the government to individuals, companies, foreign companies should be stopped.

So when government identifies that area is mineral rich, then it should educate and enable villages to join together to form cooperative societies. Cooperative society should constitute all sections of people from land owners to landless laborers, tribals etc., And they should be given education, equipment, technology to do the mineral extraction and provide to the industry/ factory.

Who should run the factory? That needs entrepreneur. Highly educated, specialist or a scientist will generally become entrepreneur. But again, if he is all and sole owner, however nice person he is, the power corrupts that person. So government should enable policy to make villages to be stakeholders of the factory. So that the decision process is democratized in favor of people of locality, and not in favor of the productivity.

All these will put delays in production, initiation, clearance. It will limit production too as the stakeholders are the dwellers around the factory. And they take decisions people centric and not productivity based. But that is fine. What is the hurry?

Or like America, we should also outsource all manufacturing, mineral extraction, mining industry to other hapless countries.

Production of military equipment, nations security related, railways production should take priority in getting government clearance and building consensus with the villagers.

Education

If government doesn’t interfere in rural people’s lives, they do live happily. They don’t need government subsidy, food card, PDS, etc., to live. They just need to be left alone. They find their way by utilizing what god has given them. They make indigenous solutions to their life problems. If at all they need anything from the government it is Education & Health care. Even disputes, quarrels, violence breakouts can be quelled within themselves by their own indigenous set up.

Education should teach them about their environment and surroundings:

• To be proud of their surrounding and protect their surroundings. It should teach them that they are the collective owners of their hills, lakes, river, forest etc.,
• Government cannot and should not snatch it from them without their share or consent.
• Government should not auction it off to some individual or a company or a foreign state for exploitation

While we cannot put blanket ban on urban middleclass consumption, we can certainly educate children. Right things taught in early age will mend their brain and will remain a habit through their life for long. For example there are chapters for children today on deforestation, wildlife destruction. The causes for deforestation are taught as cutting trees, poaching, polluting industries etc., But why cutting trees, why industries? That is not taught. The root cause is over consumption, over indulgence on luxury & creating high demand on the environment. The linkage between the consumption based economies to the ecology destruction has to be simplified and educated in young minds. Growing up they themselves will resist their parents in indulgence. And also they become good citizens.

On the one hand controlling consumption, on the other hand, community ownership of our surrounding will be the right recipe for controlled growth and development. Villagers, tribals have to be taught to own their surroundings. They need to be educated from primary levels to involve in decision making process of their area. If factory, mining, dams are coming up they need to be able to question and own that themselves.

Swami Vivekananda says “The national ideals of India are renunciation and service (ತ್ಯಾಗ ಮತ್ತು ಸೇವೆ). Intensify her in those channels and the rest will take care of itself”