I feel good that the absolute backwardness of the farmers notwithstanding, India is one among the few nations that have dedicated a day to farmers!

Farmer’s Day (Kisan Diwas) is observed on the birthday of the former Prime Minister of India, Chowdhary Charan Singh (1902-87). Referred to as the Champion of India’s Peasants, he is one of the few politicians who stood unambiguously for the cause of the farmers. In pre- and post-independence time, he proposed several measures in favour of the farmers; notably, radical land reforms intended for the benefit of the farming community, during his tenure as the revenue minister and chief minister of U.P. He has the distinction of having founded a political party with farmers as the focus — Dalit Mazdoor Kisan Party, later renamed as Lok Dal.

However, the most striking slogan India ever put forward in favour of the farmers was Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, a call by the second Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, stressing that equal importance be given to food security as to border security. Slogans apart, the truth today is that while the efforts in line of budget, benefits and perks for border security are well in place, that of the food producer (annadata) is languishing in papers and files. While India has become food secure as per the statistics, the status of the kisan has become very vulnerable and insecure, to which thousands of farmer suicides in the past three decades of development bear witness.

Agriculture as the Basis of Annual Calendar

It is interesting to note that agricultural cycles are one of the crucial factors that lead to the formulation of a calendar (others being vegetational changes — leafing of trees, migration of birds, and the changes in the sky — sun, moon or stars). The early Roman calendar is said to be indicative of the predominant role agriculture had in determining human activities. It had just ten months, and the rest of the time, a little more or less than two months were considered off — the winter months which did not permit any productive (agricultural) activities.

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On the Origin of Species

The reflection on the universe leads us to its amazing variety and harmony. There have been any number of efforts to find the truth about how it originated, and we have the Big Bang Theory now for almost a century, which at best, is an effort at explaining it and not an established fact. We have versions with metaphysical roots like the Hiranyagarbha (Golden Womb) Theory of Rigveda 10:121 and Purusha Suktam of Rigveda 10:90 or the Golden Egg Theory in several cultures. I am more familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition (Torah and Bible) creation narrative which offers a very interesting story of the origin and diversification of the universe. The narrative apparently tries to establish the proven role of humans as stewards responsible for the upkeep of this diversity with the command to ‘till and keep’. As the planet faces unforeseen cataclysmic events in the form of cyclones, typhoons, tornados, blizzards, torrential floods, unprecedented snow, heat waves, increasing melting of the polar glaciers, and a resultant threat to the planet and its diverse dwellers, we are faced with five-fold challenges:

1. The planet and its dwellers, including humans, require biodiversity to live peacefully on it.  
2. The diversity is to be understood, assessed, appreciated and protected for the benefit of the present generation and for posterity. 
3. While humans have great power to mould and manipulate diverse beings on the planet, after the point of balance is lost, no human technology or effort can withhold the disasters that entail, which would affect humans as well, increasingly without distinction. 
4. Humans have the great potential to protect and recreate, and thus be truly co-creators and saviours with the Creator, to re-establish harmony by restoring biodiversity. 
5. In the context of the all-pervasive and almost unretractable human interface with every aspect of planetary diversity, the great human responsibility is to cautiously and discreetly attend to the diversity of the species and systems, in promoting as well as regulating them, reviewing every step taken in this realm. 

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From the known history of humankind on this planet, what could be observed is that our relationship with Planet Earth had been one of dependence, extraction and exploitation. A few decades ago, it was a standard usage in development discourses and in geography lessons to speak about the ‘exploitation of natural resources’. However, these days, that term is very rarely used in terms of utilising the resources of the planet. Earth Day 2023 comes with a call to ‘invest in our planet’, setting aside the paradigm of extraction and exploitation. 

Earth Day brings to us a fiery tradition of environmental concerns with its origin in the United States of America. January 1969 saw the blowout of an oil well of Union Oil, resulting in a spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, which spread beyond 800 square miles and killed more than 10,000 seabirds, dolphins, seals and sea lions. It triggered initiatives like ‘Get Oil Out’ and the inauguration of an Environmental Rights Day, with a Declaration of Environmental Rights drafted by Rod Nash, a pioneering environment scholar and educator. This declaration, which came out before the concept of sustainability gained acceptance, starts with a mea culpa, accepting human crime linked to the planet, and stresses the need for an ‘ecological consciousness’ comprising of:

1. Acceptance of humans as members of a community of living beings that share the environment,
2. Ethics to concern relationship with all living beings and environment,
3. Individual responsibility towards the environment,
4. The right to private or corporate ownership to be so limited as to preserve the integrity of the environment,
5. The tremendous human power to impact the fragile earth,
6. The need to redefine progress from the angle of long-term quality, rather than immediate quantity.

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As a child, I hated the rains, though I did brave them. In those times, when an umbrella was a precious possession, I would lose my umbrella and get a scolding for being careless. As a fifth grader, I firmly resolved not to use an umbrella, and managed my time as a school student up to grade ten. I hated the rains because they invariably happened whenever we went on very rare trips or tours.

In 1983, during an unusually long summer, while travelling by train to North India, I was shocked to see coconut palms drooping and their fronds withering in the waterless summer. It was then that I sensed the great blessings of the rains and water.

Water for Life — The Global Scenario

World consciousness collectively responded to the vital significance of water in 1993 with the U.N. observing World Water Day (22 March). The scientific world noticed a missing beat. The normal water cycle involves water in the water bodies, the soil and in the glaciers evaporating or escaping from the trees through transpiration, condensation and then returning to these sources or beneath the earth as ground water. This cycle is disrupted by human interference through ground water extraction, felling of the surface tree cover and construction activities, leading to a rapid run-off and displacement or lowering of ground water level. Further, industrial, agricultural and domestic effluents entering water bodies and ground water have contaminated waters, posing a health hazard.  

The realisation of the urgency behind the issue led to SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) 6 — Safe Water and Sanitation for All. Water is a basic requirement for everyone, affecting all domains of life, including health, hunger, sanitation, gender equality, jobs, agriculture, industry, transportation, weather, disasters, migration and peace! Hence it has been made part of the global development agenda as the sixth development goal for 2030. 

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The last one year saw several nations thought to be leading economies, struggling to match their energy needs and their economic resources. We also witnessed human waywardness as exhibited in Russia’s war on Ukraine, with millions suffering as they were deprived of energy for cooking, for getting water in their homes, for heating in a harsh winter. The cataclysmic blizzard experienced on the east coast of North America in December 2022 deprived people of energy, leading to tremendous hardships for those used to the comfort of reliable energy.

The petroleum-dependent Europe was in great trouble as the Russia-Ukraine war led to curtailments in the shipping of petroleum, leading to a severe economic and energy crisis in several countries. In short, our modern world tends to be severely dependent on fossil fuels, viz., oil, coal and natural gas — almost 80%, with a gradual increase in bio-fuels, nuclear energy and other sources. But there are also silver linings on the horizon. It is reported that 80% of the car purchases in the polar Norway in 2022 were electric, while an international airport in Kochi, Kerala, is fully run on solar power for the past four years.

This energy-economy equation is the product of Anthropocene development, especially, of the last two centuries, substituting human and animal physical energy to turn the economy around. This, in turn, is dependent on solar energy, which reaches them through food as energy stored. Large vessels carrying goods across the continents were moved by wind energy, supplemented by humans rowing them. The minimum needs of cooking and heating across the continents were also met through the energy trapped in plants and put to use in the form of firewood, and that of lighting, through plant-based oils.

The revolution in the energy-economy scenario came about with the discovery of the utility of fossilised fuel, with coal gaining popularity in the 17th century and petroleum in the second half of the 20th century. With the world becoming increasingly mobile with the invention of automobiles and airplanes and with the discovery of electricity for lighting, heating and all sorts of mechanisation, energy became synonymous with economic development. Today, economic development is almost entirely dependent on the availability of energy. Energy sources also have grown over the centuries — from coal, it migrated to petroleum and natural gas in the 20th century, and then to thermal and nuclear reactors for large scale production of electric energy to supply the growing demands of industrial development. 

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My student, Anargh, was a promising table tennis player, and we hoped that he would definitely secure a gold medal at the university level for the college. But unfortunately, one day, just 200 metres away from the college gate, he had a severe scooter accident and was critically injured on his head. He had to fight for his life for many months and miraculously survived. Five years on, Anargh is able to walk but with severe constraints, and is not yet able to speak coherently, nor is he able to pursue his sports.

Why did he have such a severe accident?

1. He did not wear a helmet.

2. He was over speeding and lost his balance.

I, too, was a victim of a scooter accident on my return from a long trip to Trivandrum. But I did not sustain any serious head injury as I was wearing my helmet and I had worn it fittingly well. 

In the last one decade of guiding an educational institution, I had the bitter experience of witnessing the death of eleven of my students. Six out of them were victims of road accidents, almost all of them avoidable had the victims taken adequate precautions. 

Global statistics reveal that every 23 seconds someone loses their life on the road! As per the W.H.O. website, Death on the Roads, of the 1.36 million who lost their lives on the road this year, 4 lakh were car users, 3.12 lakh were pedestrians, 3.8 lakh were motorcyclists and 40,000 were cyclists. Initiated by Brigette Chaudhry, the founder of Road Peace, in 1993, the U.N. dedicates the third Sunday of November to remember road traffic victims worldwide.

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‘It is not wise to play fools with Mother Nature’ is an old saying, increasingly found true against the human foolishness in the quest for profit, proliferating pollution that threatens all forms of life. Leading among the ugly industrial disasters is the Bhopal Gas Tragedy (BGT) of 2nd and 3rd December 1984. It dwarfed other tragedies to become the mother of all industrial disasters, affecting around 7,00,000 citizens, killing more than 8,000 directly, injuring over 38,500 partially, and disabling 3900 severely and permanently.

1969 saw the establishment of the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory in Bhopal, in response to India’s quest to feed its hungry millions through its green revolution mantra of promoting chemical fertilizers to increase productivity and pesticides to check pests. UCIL produced ‘carbaryl’ which was considered a breakthrough in the pesticide industry with its effectiveness on insects. It was both harmful and beneficial to crops and it had been classified as a likely carcinogen for humans. Among the various methods of manufacturing it, the least expensive one involved the use of an intermediary, Methyl Isocyanate (MIC), a highly noxious gas. What turned out to be the villain in the hazard was MIC, with laxity in safety measures serving as its accomplice. It was revealed that this trans-world company did not employ the required preventive maintenance to ensure safety in spite of repeated warnings in this regard; apparently, the government machinery supposed to be playing the watchdog role, had gone slumbering.

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World Hello Day is celebrated every year on 21 November, an occasion for anyone in the world to contribute to the process of creating peace with a simple “hello”.

“Hello” is among the most commonly-used (English) words in the world thanks to the telephone, the great inventor Edison having used it on receiving his first telephone call, though Graham Bell himself is said to have used “ahoy” throughout. It is found to be a relative newcomer into the English lexicon just around the early 1800s. Its precursor could have been “hail”, as found addressing the emperors (Hail Caesar – Shakespeare), which could have meant health (hale, health, whole), and might have had versions like “hollo”, “hallo”, “halloa” when shouted out amidst the din of crowds. Today, “hello” is a word easily addressable to anyone to greet, to catch attention of, to check on, if you are there. 

World Hello Day was born out of the initiative of Michael McCormack, a student of Harvard, and his brother Brian, who sought an idea for a better world, with the bitter three-year Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel in the background ending in October 1973. While their fellow students busied themselves with academic tasks, the McCormacks dreamt of a peaceful world through personal communication. They spent all their savings posting letters to world leaders — not to be disappointed, they received endorsements from 15 within a year, and in due course, from 31 Nobel laureates and over 100 leading authors. Hats off to the well-meaning McCormacks who challenged us to step out of our boxes to extend peace!

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9 /11 has become a household date, even a term, for the whole world — even for those who were not born in 2001. I was in New York when this tragedy that drastically changed human relations across the world took place. It was an epoch-making day of violence on innocent thousands, which has divided human history pre and post-9/11. But almost three centuries before that, in 1730 AD, on the very same day, India witnessed the very violent demise of 363 innocent people. But those were not accidental deaths, but rather deaths that they courageously embraced as the price paid for keeping their fellow beings alive! In honour of them, September 11 was declared as National Forest Martyrs’ Day in 2013. 

The Thar Desert in Rajasthan has very scanty and erratic rainfall (maximum annual precipitation of 500 mm). The scrubby and rare vegetation here has some saving grace like the evergreen Khejri (Prosopis cineraria), the state tree of Rajasthan, revered as shami from Vedic times. It is considered a kalpa vriksha of the desert, with several uses for humans (shade, edible pods, nitrogen-fixing, soil-binding, fuel, cattle fodder), and as a habitat for several animal, bird and insect species.

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