Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 21 Sairaben Ahmed (name changed) glances furtively at the hosepipe snaking across the floor of the kitchen as she chops vegetables. In her ‘one room, kitchen, toilet’ tenement in Maqdum Nagar in Vatva, she is waiting for the evening supply of water. However, she is not the only person in Maqdum [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, December 4: The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is providing a platform to entrepreneurs to market and sell their traditional delicacies, which are made using organic ingredients. Dilip Patel is one such person who has been in the business of manufacturing pure jaggery, without using chemicals or acid, for the last [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, November 5 THE firecrackers have already started lighting up the night sky and a mildly pungent smell of exploding crackers hangs still in the air in anticipation of Diwali. In addition to wishing everyone a happy and prosperous Diwali, some residential societies across the city are urging people to celebrate the festival [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Thousands of fish have been swept up the shores of Gujarat in recent years. The incidents have become more common in the last few months. Here’s a quick recap at the latest incident of fish deaths along the shores of Nirmal Gujarat. September 2005: Lakhs of fish die after immersion of Ganapati idols [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Fatehgarh (Rapar, Kutch), September 17:Fatehgarh village in Rapar taluka in Kutch district is on a fast-track to an environmental disaster. The frantic mining in the clay belt of Fatehgarh and adjoining villages in Rapar, has spelt disaster not just for land but also the livelihood in this region. The agricultural productivity of the [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, August 28: Until 2004, Kanuben Katesia, of the remote Gundala village in Rajkot district, earned Rs 50 a day as an agricultural labourer on others’ farms. On her own 2 acres of land, she grew cotton, a water-intensive crop, completely unsuited to the drought-prone arid zone in South Gujarat. The meagre savings [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, August 24: THE crusading environmental activist from the city, Mahesh Pandya, is back from ‘Cut the Carbon’ march being held in the United Kingdom. Kicked off on July 14, the march will culminate in London on October 2 after covering 1,000 miles across the UK. The march aims to highlight the devastating [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, July 28: TULSI Ram (15) unscrews a stabilizer and removes the battery, the circuit board from its plastic casing. His brother, Gehri Lal (12), uses hammer, chisel, his bare hands and teeth to disassemble clumps of copper wiring from a brass frame. Tulsi and Gehri are kabadiwallahs, who disassemble electrical goods and sell them [...]
Pulkit Vasudha Ahmedabad, July 24: The past five years have seen good rains in the state but not good enough in terms of groundwater replenishment. The rate at which groundwater is being replenished is much slower than the rate at which water is being consumed in most parts of the state. The latest report, which [...]