The Rise of Angry National

Pratap Bhanu Mehta' above named article in Indian Express of Sunday, the 28th Feb, is as usual deeply scholarly, impartial, and insightful 


One comment, sited below, is incisively spectacular ; 

"quote " Fourth, there is no doubt that we are living under a political dispensation that has a deep sense of victimhood. Its abiding thread is that it was victimised by the ideological complex of Congress's ancien regime. 
This is a complicated story whose various strands need to be unpacked. But it, the essence of this kind of ideology of victimhood, is that it will see the world conspiratorially. Political success has not dented the sense of victimhood. It feels entitled to aggression because it sees itself as a victim. And self-constructed victims have a need to show they are being constantly attacked." Unquote. 

We are in for a decades long churn in our culture and politics.   

Musings on Dust - The Health Hazard of Delhi

Musings On Dust in Delhi

Many studies on Delhi Pollution point to Road Dust or dust per se, as the major culprit.

Swaminathan Ankaleshwaria made an interesting, out-of-box suggestion about finding ways to gainfully use massive quantities of dust, if mechanically swept by equipment expected in operation by April 2016. He recommends finding  ways to convert the dust so collected to sand /aggregates for  use in construction.

Such a solution also has many attendant benefits, like lesser quarrying needs around Delhi.

But that begs a question : where does the dust come from?   

At another level, a senior scientist told the High Court, that geography of Delhi is such that it will have varying dust levels of dust, in different times of the year and climatic conditions. Under some conditions it can be 10 times more than permissible levels.

For Geography, one should read, proximity to the great deserts of Rajasthan – the Thar. There have been numerous studies on ‘desertification’ of Delhi- creeping desert.

Hills of Aravalli are the natural barriers: many have strongly recommended the ‘greening of Aravalli” as a barrier to the dust that floats into Delhi.  There is attendant benefit of cooling the atmosphere and re-charging the ground water of Gurgaon and environs.