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..…the rain don’t mind was a popular song by Milli Vanilli. That is also a mantra among policy makers, academics, development workers and communities today. Only, instead of the rain, the default scapegoat is climate change, and to judge from the many controversies surrounding it, a great many people do mind. I was lucky enough to carry out a survey on the impact of climate change in the mountain villages of Uttarakhand [1]. And that convinced me like no published article has that climate change is here. Now.
The people of the Bhagirathi and Pindar valleys would laugh if you told them that people are still divided about whether the climate is changing. The rhododendron that once flowered in April can now be seen in February. More important, perhaps, from a sustenance point of view is the effect of these changes on agriculture.
The changes that the villagers experience are many..but the root changes in climate, the initial boulders that cause an avalanche of changes are only two: lessened precipitation and lack of freezing temperatures. These further lead to a decrease in winter crops, decrease in apple productivity, increased pestilience and changes in ecosystem composition. Some villagers have taken heed of the inevitability of this change and started growing tomatoes- previously unknown at those altitudes.
But what can they do about the bewilderment that a changing landscape causes. Villager after villager told me sadly, “himalaya khali ho rahein hain”. Blame it on the rain, its going away soon.
[1] Peoples Science Institute, 2009, Documenting Climate Change in Uttarakhand. Study conducted with assistance from Himmothhan Trust. Available from the Peoples Science Institute, Dehradun.
Chicu lives in Uttarakhand and defines herself as a natural resource manager, traveller, and latent gardener. A civil engineer by training, she works with the People's Science Institute, a non-governmental organization working towards read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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