Coca-Cola's loss has to be groundwater's win! My latest article published in Big Wire...

Coca-Cola’s loss has to be groundwater’s win!

ByRanjan Panda

Posted on February 25, 2016

On February 10, the San Francisco-based India Resource Center (IRC) sent out a press release saying how multi-national Coca-Cola has stopped operation at its ‘disputed bottling plant’ at Kala Dera in Jaipur of Rajasthan.

It claimed that the deteriorated groundwater conditions forced the plant to close, something the plant never accepts despite most of its plant facing such problems.

Not much to one’s surprise, even before the press release of the IRC could hit the Indian media, a Coca-Cola version of news came up in some news portals.

It was reported that Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, the bottling arm of Coca-Cola India, had suspended manufacturing at three locations – Kala Dera, Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Brynihat (Meghalaya) – in India citing the absence of “long-term economic viability.”

The Hindu carried a PTI story that quoted a company source saying:“…the decision to close down a plant is a business decision taken on the basis of its long-term economic viability and market demands of the products being manufactured at that particular plant. ”

One cannot really make out what the company means in saying this. However, the ground realities pose a picture where one would believe the local voices.

The plant at Kala Dera has been the target of a sustained community-led campaign since 2003 accusing the company of exacerbating water shortages in the area as a result of indiscriminate mining of groundwater for its operations.

In 1998, the area’s groundwater was declared as overexploited – the worst category of groundwater in India, yet Coca-Cola built a new bottling plant in 2000.

Warnings Ignored

Coca-Cola company had got sufficient warnings about the depleting ground water scenario but it continued to operate the plant further depleting it to a dangerous level, according to the community.

Forced by a student-led campaign at the University of Michigan, the company in 2008 paid for an assessment of some of its bottling plants in India, including the one at Kala Dera.

“The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), which conducted the study, recommended that Coca-Cola shut down its plant in Kala Dera because the plant’s operations in this area would continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around,” said the IRC release.

The IRC further informs: “In 2014, Dr. Aneel Karnani from the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business found Coca-Cola’s corporate social responsibility claims around its bottling plant in Kala Dera in India to be lacking merit, and concluded that the company’s extractions of groundwater in the water-stressed area lead to the “tragedy of the commons.”

People who have been opposing the plant in Kala Dera are celebrating the victory. Now it is to be seen whether the company is being punished for drying up the groundwater aquifers of the area.

Government authorities must see to it that the company not only recharges the groundwater but also compensates all the loss created due to this to the local people and farmers. It can shut its business, but certainly cannot escape its larger responsibilities.

Coke full of controversies

In fact, Coca-Cola has been facing local opposition and shutdowns throughout India owing to depletion of water resources, pollution of the local environment and such other reasons.

Troubles for Coca-Cola plants first started a decade and a half ago when people of Plachimada in Kerala won a long battle against the plant that was accused of sucking up all water in the area and spreading pollution.

That plant, the single largest of the company in India, remains shut since 2004. Last year, the Tamil Nadu government cancelled land allocated to its Rs.500 crore investment plan at Perunduri.

The company had already got the land for constructions but could not manage to proceed because it failed to get approvals on the count of the agreement to procure water, clearances for laying a water line and an effluent transfer line, and permission for levelling land.

There was stiff local opposition alleging the company would destroy the groundwater resources of the area.

In 2014, it’s 25 million USD full built plant was shut down in Mehdiganj, Uttar Pradesh. This plant too faced years of protest against excessive extraction of water and pollution of groundwater as well as soil contamination.

The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board had confirmed that the effluents released by the plant contained pollutants beyond permissible limits.

Ordering closure of the plant, the board had asked the company to take suitable measures to recharge the depleting groundwater level by twice the amount they have extracted and to produce permission certificates needed for groundwater use.

The company had also been slapped a fine of Rs.1,26 lakh for having built the plant illegally on a village council land. The same year, a proposed plant in Charba of Uttarakhand was called off due to community opposition.

(Ranjan Panda is an Indian environmentalist, water and climate change expert)

Source: http://bigwire.in/2016/02/25/coca-colas-loss-has-to-be-groundwaters-win/#respond

Unmasking Development: Why the locals oppose mining?

(A mobile pic: Ranjan K Panda)

An interesting scene was visible today, in front of the Collector's office in Odisha's Sambalpur district.  Hundreds of tribal villagers from two Gram Panchayats of Rengali Block, who have been protecting a natural forest of 73 acres since several decades, were staging a protest against the district administration's conspiracy to destroy that forest.  By side of this demonstration there was another group of protesters, ex-employees of the Bhusan Power and Steel Ltd. company located in the same Block, who were staging a protest against the Chairman and Managing Director of the said company.  This image unmasks the real face of development.  See how.

Rengali block is one of the heavily industrialised areas of the state. Several mining and industrial houses have been allowed to loot the mineral resources, forest resources, water and the local people in the name of development here.  One of the strongest arguments given for this loot by the industries and the government authorities is that these factories and mines create jobs and employment for the local people among others.  

The tribals oppose these industries because they not only fail to keep all their promises, but also destroy their life and livelihood sustaining resources forever. The Bhusan company has done exactly that.  It has chopped off thousands of hectares of forests, displaced lakhs of people, polluted the local area, killed several water bodies and destroyed the nearby streams/rivulets/rivers.  It also heavily pollutes the Hirakud reservoir.  All this in the name of employment generation and development.

However, the ex-employees of Bhusan company say they have been thrown away for no reason, citing funny explanations.  Many locals have actually been provided with wage labour jobs under private contractors and not by the Company itself.  And these jobs are completely at the mercy of private contractors who not only pay less but don't provide any job security or other facilities whatsoever.  The forests at least provided them food and woods when needed.  Now they have neither the forests nor the jobs! 

The tribals protesting to protect the Chirgun Dungri forests are at the first stage of war against development.  A private mining contractor is illegally mining quartz from their forests by getting a no objection certificate from the local Sarpanch in fallacious ways, they allege.  They have been complaining against this to the forest department and District Collector.  No one listens.  

They know mining kills forests and destroys their livelihood forever but the mining companies ultimately profit, along with them the politicians and bureaucrats get some benefits.  They are now preparing for their second stage of war, which begins with today's demonstration in front of the Sambalpur District Collector. 

I got a chance to address to the demonstrating tribals and I told that the demonstrators under the tent besides are fighting the burning example of the real outcome of Development.  Some of them must have protested against the land acquisition by Bhusan company at the first instance for sure, as the first stage of protest.  Then while some would have continued with the protest, some would have agreed to the promises.  Some would have then received jobs participating thereby in the Development Process.  

Now, the ones who have lost jobs are again at war with Development.  They burn the effigies of Bhusan company owners in front of Sambalpur's Collector office with a demand to return back to the Development process as because they have nothing to fall back upon, anymore.  Their lands are gone, forests vanished and ability to live with local resources is perhaps also lost.

However, the tribals protesting against mining in a lush green forests are, in my opinion, talking about the real Development: that is sustainable, that does not displace, that does not pollute and that does not cause global warning.  

Good that both the demonstartions were going on side by side.  At least the people with conscience would realize the real face of Development.  For those, who are sold out to interest of the greedy capital, nothing proves an eye opener!

I wish the Chirgun Dungri Jungle Suraksha Mancha all success!!

 - Ranjan Panda

What’s common between bureaucrats salaries, business persons tea and farmer suicides in India?

What’s common between bureaucrats salaries, business persons tea and farmer suicides in India?

RANJAN PANDA on 11/20/2015 at 11:54 am

IN THE EARLY 1990S, WHEN THE NEW ECONOMIC POLICY OF REFORMS WAS INTRODUCED IN INDIA, THE TRICKLE DOWN THEORY WAS MORE AGGRESSIVELY PROPAGATED. WHO HAVE ACTUALLY GAINED RICHES AND WHO HAVE BEEN MARGINALIZED?

This morning I woke up to few very interesting news.

News 1: Seventh Pay Commission for 23.55 per cent hike in pay of Central Government employees.

News 2: Tomato price skyrocket to Rs 60 (0.90 USD), other veggies on the rise.

News 3: Nita Ambani, wife of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, starts her day with a cup of tea that is worth Rs 3 lakh (4,500 USD).

News 4: Odisha’s Chief Minister announces a package of Rs 35000 crore (7.35 million USD) in response to growing farmer suicides and distress.

News 5: 55 year old debt ridden sharecropper killed self in Ganjam district of Odisha, India.

All these seem to be different news but in reality they are not. Spare a few minutes and you would realize they are all inter-connected.  Let’s discuss one by one and then see the interconnection.

Discussion 1

A retired IAS (Indian Administrative Officer) (the highest government post of the country) just posted on his facebook wall the following:

On joining the IAS in 1966, the salary per month we got was perhaps Rs 520 (8 USD) that included DA (Dearness Allowance).  Seventh Pay Commission recommendation would make our monthly pension Rs 112500 (1700 USD) with effect from 1st January 2016.

In 2007, while conducting a farmers’ perception study, an old farmer from Rengali block in Sambalpur district in Odhisa (from where many farmers have committed suicide since 2009) said to me, “When we got independence, salary of a school teacher as well as that of a post master was Rs 6 (0.10 USD).  That time, in early 1950s, a farmer was able to buy 10 gram of gold by selling two bags of paddy (75 kilograms per bag).  Now, in 2007, the salary of the school teacher is somewhere around Rs 22000 (330 USD) and no farmer can buy 10 gram of gold even by selling 22 bags of paddy.”

Discussion 2

Tomato prices have skyrocketed but the real farmers don’t get benefit of this.  It is the stockists, mostly rich businessmen or aided by them, who benefit out of such price rises.  Let’s take the price of dal (lenthils) as an example.  Dal prices has sucked the common Indians too much already and is believed to be one of the many reasons that saw defeat of the ruling party in the centre BJP in recently concluded Bihar state elections.

A journalist friend just posted in his facebook wall the following, and says these facts can be verified:

M/s Adani had formed a Joint venture with Wilmar company of singapore last year for marketing of food products in india. Adani Wilmar Ltd, is the producer of fortune brand food products in India. The JV company aimed to collect agri produces on large scale from farmers in major pulses producing states. They could not do it as there was a cap on mass collection and storage of food items. Last April, Adani could manage to get that cap on three pulses Arhar, Moong and Urad removed thru a government order. And since then the company started collecting 300 tons of pulses every day @Rs30/kg (0.5 USD). They accumulated more than 100 lakh tons of pulses in their large scale warehouses. Perhaps the entire seasons produce from three states were collected by the company. The result. In the market only Adani Wilmar was having stock. The wholesale and retail prices was decided by them. They sold the pulses @Rs220/Kg (3.5 USD). Which was collected @Rs 30 (0.5 USD).

Through the well planned hoarding, the company made windfall profits up to the tune of lakhs of crores. When the nations attention was on other issues, they were silently looting every Indian.

Adani is considered to be the closest business tycoon to the current Prime Minister of India.  In fact, the PM was seen campaigning during 2014 general elections on a chartered flight given by Adani; then this businessman was seen with the PM during most of his foreign visits after being sworn in; and the PM has taken special drive to provide 1 billion loan from State Bank of India to Adani for an Australian coalmine.

Discussion 3

The cost of a tea is a private affair and we are not supposed to discuss.  However, when it’s Nita Ambani, the issue needs to be discussed.  Ambani, the richest businessman of India, has build his business empires at the cost of Indian farmers.  This is same with other business houses as well.  Successive governments, both state and central, have displaced millions of Indians for these business houses to prosper.  Land, forests and water have been given almost at peanuts to these tycoons.  The result, even as the common Indian’s family economy has been gradually slumping, their income has been growing by hundreds of times.  It is now established that top one per cent of the globe own more than 50 per cent of it’s properties.  The case is similar in India.  The Ambanis and Adanis are among the super rich one per cent in the country who own majority of the country’s resources.  They have obviously grown at the cost of the farmers and common Indians.

Discussion 4

Yesterday, Odisha’s Chief Minister and his party organized a meeting of farmers in Sohela of Bargarh district, considered the rice bowl of the state.  This is in response to the growing distress of farmers and ever increasing suicides.  He has announced a Rs 35000 crore (7.35 million USD) package to assure irrigation, waiver of loan, etc. etc.  This is a routine affair now.  However, the farmers’ distress is increasing by the day.  Effective irrigation coverage is not increasing ever since industries have been given with water from irrigation’s share from Hirakud dam that made Bargarh the rice bowl once.  The super rich like Birla, TATA, and others own these industries here and have been given a free loot of the water and other resources.  In 2007, when 30,000 farmers formed a human chain covering Hirakud dam in protest against diversion of irrigation water to industries, Odisha’s Chief Minister made similar commitments.  But farmers’ distress and suicides have not gone down.  Rather, there has been an increase.

Conclusion

There is one thing common in all the above facts and arguments.

India was an agrarian country when it got independence from the British rule, it is still an agrarian country.

Majority of the people depend on farm, farm lands, forests and water for their livelihood and sustenance.  However, while all other sections of the society developed by leaps and bounds, the farmers economy shrunk by thousand of times.

Take for example the IAS officers.  They were appointed to serve the Indians, majority of whom were farmers.  But their salary increased by about 50,000 times.  And we all know what has happened to our politicians/rulers.  Some of them have increased their income by thousands of times just within five years in power.  But the farmers’ economy has tanked by thousand of times.  Majority of them are small and marginal farmers who still depend on the natural resources and supply food to majority of the population.  However, they are still fighting for loan waiver and other sops in order to not commit suicide and stay alive, leave aside living in dignity and as an empowered citizen of the nation.

From the early 1990s, when the new economic policy of reforms was introduced, the trickle down theory was more aggressively propagated and it was said that Indians would soon be rich.  However, all the examples are pointers to who have actually gained riches and who have been marginalized.

Tickle down theory/Credit: Left Wing UK

Well, a small portion of middle class has emerged in this process and have some cash income.  However, the concentration of wealth has gone into the super elite less than one per cent.  Most of these middle class survive on salaries given by these super rich.  The government employees have enjoyed the benefit as well, but the majority of farmers who have diversified into other sectors are still languishing in the unorganized labour market without any income guarantee whatsoever.

In 2007, the same old man of Rengali block who had said given to me an indicator of farmers’ distress by the decreased purchase power of paddy had also suggested a measure to improve the condition of farmers. He had said, “if you want to improve the condition of farmers eliminate the agriculture department.”

The IAS officers, government employees and others who have been serving to improve condition of agriculture and farmers have actually become rich themselves but not the farmers.

Similarly, all others have got rich at the cost of the farmers.

No one would be minding Rs 3 lakh worth tea of Nita Ambani (4500 USD) or Rs 15 lakh (USD 20,000) suit of the PM had the fruits of development percolated down to each farmer of the nation. I have seen how landlords have ended up as labour in factories of Ambanis, Adanis, Birlas, TATAs. While they don’t have basic minimum wages and amenities, Ambanis have built world’s costliest home just for four people to live. And we call it development!!!

Time for supporting a real Indian Farmers and Forest Dwellers economy where the disparity goes down drastically.  It may take time but not impossible.

Source: http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/Trickle-Down-Economics-in-India-Whats-common-between-bureaucrats-salaries-business-persons-tea-and-farmer-suicides

My Chapter on Mahanadi River in the OXFORD Book "Living Rivers, Dying Rivers"

My Chapter on River Mahanadi in Ramaswamy Iyer edited book "Living Rivers, Dying Rivers" published by OXFORD, to be released today by Shri M. Hamid Ansari, Hon'ble Vice President of India!

I will be missing the function at Delhi but feel proud for having got an opportunity to write in a book edited by veteran Prof. Iyer for whom I have lot of regards. Many close friends and people/experts whom I respect have also contributed chapters on other rivers in this book.

On 25th July 2012, I was invited to speak on Mahanadi's plight at India International Centre, New Delhi as part of a dialogue series "Living Rivers, Dying Rivers" that Prof. Iyer initiated. I was then asked by him to contribute this chapter.

I hope this book bring more debates and actions to save our Rivers from their decaying and dying states.

Thanks friends, for your continued support!

Regards,

Ranjan

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Email: ranjanpanda@gmail.com

Of Rivers and River Front Development: My article published on the Sabarmati River Front Development Project!

What if Sabarmati comes to Mahanadi?

Ranjan Panda

Amid the election heat, where personal abuses have virtually taken over real issues, some debate is still going on among a very few people about development.  And when it comes to development, there is an aggressive marketing of the Gujarat Development Model.  The BJP party is busy selling this model of development as a panacea to all woes of the country.  This party’s PM candidate, who is busy selling hundreds of new dreams in each of his hundreds of rallies across the country, has just tried to sell another dream: to make a Sabarmati out of Ganga, if he comes to power.  Experience says that common Indian people are habituated to ignore election promises, dismissing them as gimmicks.  However, the seriousness in which this PM candidate is being projected by BJP – almost by sacrificing the party’s identity to his image – I thought of peeping a bit into what exactly would a Sabarmati Ganga look like.  And mostly importantly, what such a model would mean for our Mahanadi. 

Sabarmati is the third polluted river of the nation.  If population dependent on it was as big as that were dependent on the Ganges, it would have easily taken the first position in pollution.  Studies by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) as well as that by independent environmental organisations, and even known academicians confirm Sabarmati’s plight.  The CPCB, which studied pollution levels in multiple stations along ‘polluted river stretches’ found out that at various stations the pollution was so high that at most of the places in Sabarmati as well as other rivers of Gujarat such as the Amlakhadi, Mahi and Tapi, the water was not even fit for bathing. 

This was confirmed by a very recent study by a group of academicians who found out, from analysing multiple samples, that in the 163 km stretch of the river from upstream of Gandhinagar city to Vataman near Sabarmati estuary, the river stretch from Ahmedabad-Vasana barriage to Vataman was highly polluted due to perennial waste discharges mainly from municipal drainage and industries.

In fact the CAG has slammed the Govt. of Gujarat and the state pollution control board, in very strong words, for failing to control pollution of water bodies and rivers.  Most of the rivers in the state are polluted by untreated discharge of both chemical and municipal wastes.  What is it then the Gujarat government projecting as a model for Ganga?

It is the much touted Sabarmati Riverfront Development Model that was started way back in 1997.  This model with lot of constructions – mostly on beautification of river side - using funds from the environment ministry, housing and urban development ministry and other such sources is actually a western style ‘development project’ in a very small stretch, that is just 10.5 km of the total 370 km long river.  Urban people of Ahmedabad see this as a great achievement because of the looks.  In reality, has the Sabarmati River benefitted, or in any sense ‘restored’?

A dam about 165 kilometers upstream has already killed the river’s natural flow.  This 10.5 of beautification has been done out of water diverted from Narmada River canal as because this western style restoration – that requires heavy funding and construction – required bringing back the natural flow into the river.  Such restoration works have their inherent dangers. They encroach upon flood plains and treat rivers like canals.  Rivers are ecological entities and not ‘economic commodities’ and the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Model does not respect this, nor is the solution for our ailing rivers.

Mahanadi is in a dying state and there have been many river side constructions here.  Hirakud has already intercepted its natural flow to a large extent and pollution from both industries and municipalities has made the river virtually a dead river. 

What we need is to tackle pollution at the source, free the flood plains and water bodies of the basin from encroachment and work towards low cost, people owned ecological restoration of the rivers.  We certainly don’t need Mahanadi to turn India’s third polluted river. 

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This article of mine was published in May 2014 at the following link.  However, just realized the article is no more online.  So, sharing this on blog today.  

http://www.odishareporter.in/city/rourkela/what-if-sabarmati-comes-to-mahanadi 

Sea Change: Bay of Bengal's Biodiversity is in Danger - My Latest Article on World Oceans Day!

http://www.thequint.com/2015/jun/08/sea-change-bay-of-bengals-biodiversity-is-in-danger

Sea Change: Bay of Bengal’s Biodiversity is in Danger

Ranjan K Panda

Updated: Yesterday, 7:09 pm

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Spotted-deer on the fringe of Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest along Bangladesh’s southwest coast. (Photo: Reuters)

In December 2014, when over 75,000 gallons of oil spilled out of a drowned tanker in the Sunderbans delta, pollution of the Bay of Bengal came under international limelight. The Bay of Bengal, occupying an area of about 2.2 million sq km, is one of the world’s largest marine ecosystems, replete with biological diversity such as coral reefs, estuaries, mangroves, fish spawning and nursery areas.

The Sunderbans, straddling Bangladesh and India, is an UNESCO-designated and protected World Heritage Site. It hosts the world’s largest tidal mangrove forest, hundreds of endangered Bengal tigers, and riverine Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins.

Urbanisation Trend

A fourth of the world’s population lives in countries bordering the Bay, at least half a billion people living in its low littoral are highly vulnerable to sea rise. Experts attribute population growth and climate change as two greatest threats to the Bay, whose health can be rightly considered as the lifeline of Asia’s economic resurgence. On World Oceans Day, I am worried about the trend of urbanisation, and a related unsustainable lifestyle-driven economy.

Representative picture. (Photo courtesy: Facebook page of Ranjan Panda)

Some of the largest and most important rivers that disgorge into the Bay of Bengal are now highly polluted. Among them are the Ganges and its distributaries such as Padma and Hooghly; the Brahmaputra and its distributaries such as Yamuna and Meghna; and rivers such as Irrawaddy, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Kaveri have all recorded alarming rates of pollution.

In five years, the number of polluted rivers in India has more than doubled. According to the latest assessment by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the number of polluted rivers has gone up from 121 in 2009 to 275. The number of stretches of these rivers has also doubled from 150 in 2009 to 302. With India’s urban population growth rate outstripping the rural growth rate, the bulk of the pollution load that our rivers receive is from urban centres.

Polluted River Stretches

The CPCB report says that the sewage generated from 650 cities and towns situated along the 302 polluted river stretches has also increased from 38,000 million litres per day (MLD) in 2009 to 62,000 MLD today. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar recently said that effective treatment of sewerage in our cities is about 15 to 17% only. All the waste travels down to the sea.

A heavily polluted Mahanadi. (Photo Courtesy: Facebook page of Ranjan Panda)

My studies of the Mahanadi basin, one of the major river systems that empties into the Bay of Bengal, shows that waste water, including sewerage load discharge of Odisha’s major cities, alone has increased by about 300% over the last two decades.

The UN has warned that land-based sources (such as agricultural run-off, discharge of nutrients and pesticides and untreated sewage including plastic) account for approximately 80% of marine pollution, globally. Our pollution monitoring systems are currently discounting the pollution by industrial and mining affluent.

Fossil Fuel-Driven Growth

However, ground realities show that coal mining and thermal power plants have emerged as the greatest threat to the basin as well as the Bay of Bengal. Even in the Sunderbans, protests against the Rampal power plant plan show how urban lifestyle fuelled by fossil fuel and unsustainable industrial growth-based development is polluting the Bay of Bengal to an irrecoverable extent.

Immersion going on in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo: Reuters)

Assessing the role of pollution by urbanisation alone, researchers from Monash University, Australia, have projected a gloomy future for the Bay of Bengal. Expecting that 50% of the Bay’s adjacent population would be urban by 2050 — in countries like Bangladesh, India and Myanmar — they project a considerable increase in nutrient levels in rivers from sewage and other sources that would lead to harmful algal bloom in coastal waters of about 95 % of the Bay’s total drainage.

Other data, however, suggests the urban feat may be achieved much earlier, by 2035. The doom is coming faster.

Fossil fuel driven growth has another bearing on the Bay of Bengal. The rise in sea surface temperature (SST) is largely driven by global temperature rise due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. According to scientists, rise in SST is a major cause of increased intensity of cyclones that ravage the Bay of Bengal from time to time.

Worrisome also is the fact that mangrove forests, the richest among which are found in this Bay, that act as a natural shield against cyclones are also shrinking fast due to “development.” To save the Bay of Bengal, we certainly need to look the way we are seeking ‘progress.’

(The writer is a water and climate change researcher).

Let’s be the change, not just a shooter

Let’s be the change, not just a shooter

Between the observation and the shot, a photographer’s mind must have travelled many miles.  The picture you see is not merely a creative art but reflection of a character of the photographer thyself.  The purpose of the picture matters in this and a picture has the ability to reflect the relationship one’s heart and mind share between each other.  Photos are thus powerful instruments, camera is just the tool that charges it up.

My words talk about that side of the photography which gives the unheard a voice – be it human, other species or the ecology at large.  I have practiced this kind of a photography all through my life, ever since I caught hold of a camera.  I can hear the voice of the rivers, the water and the mother earth.  My photographs are supposed to reflect this character of mine and manifest in them the many faces of this relationship we share with the ecology that supports our lives.

We all have visited a river.  We have used it as a resource; enjoyed its beauty.  While most may realize the might of a river, a very few can really see the plight of it.  Or else tourists thronging to river sides would not be throwing garbage into it and then expect to enjoy its beauty the next time they come back. 

My message to young photographers is to understand these delicate linkages of life with rivers, with ecology.  If you are a real photographer you have to love and respect your subject.  You have to be a sensitive guy, not just a shooter who takes out the benefit and then flies away.  You have the potential to change this growing challenge that humanity at large faces now.  We are killing the very rivers which gave us civilizations.  Let’s point our cameras at the plight of the rivers and use those to reconnect the society with the mothers of our civilizations.  Let’s be the change, not just a shooter.

(This article was recently written for the inaugural issue of a newsletter published by a young group of photographers who had asked me to contribute as a guest expert.)