Chennai Times

Yesterday morning news papers carried two interesting stories.  1) TATA launching the Land Rover in India (front page HINDU) and 2) If American's stopped using their SUVs, the poorest of the world can all have free electricity (TOI front page last item) Interesting that the day the TATAs are launching this huge mean automobile, we also have this other story. My worry is the number of people I see going to drop their children to school in the morning in SUVs and large vehicles that occpupy the road completely.  I walk my daughter to her school most mornings and am surprised at the speed with which parent's want to dump their children in the school, the large cars of all shapes and sizes with just the kid and one parent zooms past at crazy speed, just to drop the child in the school gate and zoom past faster from there. Why do people use such large vehicles and waste of fuel to just drop a small child in the school? And what does the child get prepared for if it is hurried eac...

I have constantly blogged on the ills of GM Food, some time back maverick film maker Mahesh Bhatt had made a movie on the GM issue in India called, 'Poison in the Platter'. This film is being screened by reStore tomorrow in Chennai. Do go watch this movie and to get to know more about the world (of our food) according to many corporates who want to change our food habits. Following is the invitation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- reStore & The Madras Terrace House invite you to a  screening of "Poison on the Platter" a documentary by  renowned filmmaker & social activist Mahesh Bhatt. The film talks about the adverse impact of Genetically Modified foods on health and environment followed by a talk & discussion with Mr. Jaishankar, Organic Farmer on Wednesday, 17th June at 7 pm at The Madras Terrace House Jaishankar is an IT maverick (worked with CTS for many years) turned organic f...

The 90s Chennai had a lot of environmental activists. 'Poovulagin Nanbargal' had a special place among them. The small group managed a publication house, an environmental news magazine and managed to steer quite a few movements. Among their unique achievements and one I consider significant is translating and publishing, 'One Straw Revolution' of Fukuoka in Tamil with permission from him. I have seen and heard from farmers in remote villages in Tamilnadu as to how had read this book and had been inspired to take organic farming.  Just now got an e-invite that Poovulagu is being revived and re-published by a different generation of activists. Please subscribe to this magazine, activists never can promise to bring out a regular news magazine, and very rarely will, but, are always worth investing on. Please attend the programme and subscribe to this magazine if you are in Chennai; to encourage activism, sincere eco-activists are the most endangered species in India toda...

I work out of Mylapore and love this local festival, gypsies, small traders of many odd trinklets that change the buzzing city into a simple village mall that it once could have been. The life and energy of the people and their participation and percievable joy benumbing the high rise that have come up all around of large prohibitive commercial establishments. This is the ordinary people's festival, most things you can buy cost less than Rs. 10/-, whole lot of free food distribution and amidst all these buzzing activities the 63 nayanmars find their safety and security for their annual serenade. This is Jai Ho Chennai!

The news of a small boy falling from terrace because a pet dog chased him is terrible. There are many questions arising out of these. In 6 months, we have had two cases of fully loaded lorries backing up narrow streets squeezing the life out of two people in the process. Last week there was the case of another weird accident on the road side...is Chennai's careless civic life proving to costly? We are all lacklustre to mutual safety norms till we are knocked down, literally. Can something be done?