My Columns: Without Fear and Favour

Save Ganga and Swami By Deepak Parvatiyar (Published in Indian Observor Post on 4th August 2018) http://indianobserverpost.com/News-Detail.aspx?Article=69&WebUrl=web Decades ago, in 1985, Bollywood’s showman late Raj Kapoor had made a Bollywood blockbuster  Ram Teri Ganga Maili.  In English it means Ram your Ganga is dirty! Though the film was about the physical exploitation of a woman throughout her journey from the hills to the plains, the filmmaker was shrewd enough to make the woman symbolize the Holy Ganga to make it more politically relevant at a time when Rajiv Gandhi had just become the Prime Minister with a landslide victory and also on an election plank of cleaning Ganga! Today both Rajiv and Raj are no more there and the filth has put the Ganga too on ventilator! Today Ganga is breathing poison and this despite the crores that have been pumped into it (at least on papers) to make her clean by removing the toxins from her arterial route ever since

People’s rivers : Going beyond borders and involving people living in a river basin area as a whole, the recently adopted Hyderabad declaration creates a new paradigm for dispute resolution

A dry run in Bundelkhand : Yet again, a region synonymous with hardship and farm distress faces up to the tragedy of farmer suicides

A PIECE FROM HISTORY By Deepak Parvatiyar An analogy is being drawn between the 1996 Shankarsinh Vaghela episode of Gujarat and the present political situation in Karnataka. As a journalist who covered the Gujarat episode then, I do watch the Karnataka scene with interest. Much has already been said about the present Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala and Janata Dal Secular patriarch HD Deve Gowda now. It is being said that Vala has now paid Gowda back in his own coin by denying the Congress-JD(S) combine an opportunity to form the government. I recall in 1996 Vala was the Gujarat BJP president as well as the state finance minister while Gowda was the Prime Minister. Those were the days of political turmoil. Particularly in Gujarat, it was the BJP rebel Shankarsinh Vaghela, who had virtually split the BJP into two camps. His successful first revolt in 1995 had resulted in the ouster of the then Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. He was replaced by BJP's Suresh Mehta. Part of th

VIVA KARNATAKA!!! (A satire on the prevailing political situation in the South  Indian state as on 16th May 2018) Musically speaking: ...Money's never wrong... When the dogs Get their bones Remember they'll be howlin' Money's never wrong🎼🎼🎼 Publicly speaking: Voters are donkeys...🐴🐴 Politically speaking: Legislators are horses...🐎🐎🐎🐎 Constitutionally speaking: Governors are gullible...🙏🙏 Lightly speaking: Democracy is a joke 😂🤣

Poetry and diplomacy combine ambiguity and brevity: Diplomat Abhay Kumar Abhay Kumar speaks about the poetry-diplomacy connect and how poetry is an effective diplomatic tool Deepak Parvatiyar | May 9, 2018 This interview was published in Governance Now magazine https://www.governancenow.com/views/interview/poetry-and-diplomacy-combine-ambiguity-and-brevity-diplomat-abhay-kumar   Photo: Facebook/Abhay Kumar Abhay Kumar is a poet and a diplomat, a 2003 batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, now serving as India’s deputy chief of mission in Brazil. He edited 100 Great Indian Poems, an anthology that was published in February and is being translated into Portuguese. He is also known for the Earth Anthem, which he penned in 2008. It was set to music in 2013 and recorded in eight languages. The Symphonic Orchestra of the National Theatre of Brasilia recently performed the anthem in English and Portuguese. In an interview with Deepak Parvatiyar in Brasilia, Abh

Act or Perish: Message from Brasilia is loud and clear As water crisis looms large across nations, creating water-secure societies is the need of the hour Deepak Parvatiyar | March 30, 2018 This article was published in Governance Now Magazine http://www.governancenow.com/news/regular-story/act-or-perish-message-from-brasilia-is-loud-and-clear Photo courtesy: Twitter/WaterForum8 On the eve of the 8th World Water Forum (WWF), held in March, social media was abuzz with ‘news’ that the Brazilian government had handed over its two large aquifers to private companies – Coca Cola and Nestle. This raised the concerns of water conservationists across the globe and led to signature campaigns on the social media against such a move. There were fears that the move would further hasten the process of commodification of water – an issue that water activists have been concerned about particularly after they labelled the World Water Council (WWC), which organises the WWF eve

SOCIETY FIELD NOTES   SOCIETY People are coming back to the ‘cursed’ village of Ajabgarh thanks to water-conservation efforts Deepak Parvatiyar MARCH 10, 2018 16:00 IST UPDATED:  MARCH 09, 2018 14:06 IST MORE-IN The fear of witchcraft drove residents out of Ajabgarh a century ago. But something is drawing them back A State highway cuts through Ajabgarh village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. On either side of it are homes, plots of land, the odd grazing cow. But there is, oddly, no one in sight. The houses — some of them with carved arches and ornate doors — are locked. Grasses have taken root between the exposed brick, the fields are overgrown with weeds. For close to a century, no one has lived in Ajabgarh, which lies within a fort of the same name, translating into 'strange fort’. Nestled in the Aravallis, Ajabgarh is named after its founder Ajab Singh Rajawat, grand-nephew of Raja Man Singh I, one of Emperor Akbar’s generals. D