Officials from elephant range states are meeting in Delhi this week in hopes of finding a solution to the growing number of elephant killings in India.

Loss of habitat leading to an increase of conflicts between elephants and humans, combined with the invasion of poachers into government-protected zones, are resulting in an unacceptable increase in elephant deaths in India.

To address this issue, officials from India’s elephant range states are gathering in Delhi this week.

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In a recent international conference on ‘Climate Change: Technology Development & Transfer’ held in Delhi, the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh began his speech by stating that climate friendly and environmentally sound technologies should be viewed as global public goods.

The panel, also chaired by the Maldives President after his country’s recent underwater stunt, called for the Northern countries to do (much) more than just emissions reduction. The statement also comes shortly after media reports suggest India could change its national position on climate change to drop the ‘deal-breaker’ tag put on it by the West.

The BIG question: Will India change its official position ahead of Copenhagen?

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 Picture: Sign at a Delhi Metro Station

The seepage of doubt is such a difficult thing to stop. As I grew more fearless in my shopping and my bills became more respectable, plastic bags mysteriously began to reappear. And my regret grew-why had I not bought the other things earlier for fear of having to lug them unpackaged. Doubt turned to disbelief when the dust laden winds wrapped a dirty, worn out plastic bag around my ankle in one of delhi’s wild wind storm, the ‘andhi’of Delhi that I otherwise miss so much. The gulf of my disappointment only widened, when crossing the Yamuna I saw its coast littered by endless stream of plastic bags- as I had seen in a picture six months back. The sides of Yamuna are lined by plastic bags the same way as the coast of Dubai appears outlined by little lights when seen from the aeroplane.

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Tourism is the world’s largest and most promising industry. The concept of ‘eco-tourism’ is perhaps the most abused, little understood and least explored. Going to the mountains or a National Park and all other forms of natural tourism are often, though not always, marketed as ‘eco-tours’. While Ecotourism can be distinguished from nature tourism by its emphasis on conservation, education, traveler responsibility and active community participation, there is a severe paucity of efforts and attempts in the right direction for conducting such eco-tours.

Now, a youth led organization and an urban think tank in Delhi, India has taken to itself to research and explore ‘urban ecotourism’ as a means to connect the citizens back to their city, and raise awareness about the ‘nature in the city’. Underlying to this initiative is also the understanding that for the first time in human history, a majority of people live in cities or towns and that cities are the future of the world!

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With a population nearly as much as that of Australia, and having more automobiles on its roads than all the other three India metropolitan cities put together adding approx. 1,500 new cars to the road each day, the traffic situation in the city of Delhi is shockingly scary. The situation is fortunately been taken note of by the administration and a push to promote public transport in the city has been there since a long time now.

The city has seen the launch of a state-of-the-art Metro Rail which is now the pride of Delhi and carries lakhs of commuters daily. The city also saw the launch of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system which, owing to several reasons, did not go down well with the public (and/or the media). Now, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and the Delhi Integrated Modal Transport System (DIMTS) have launched a GPS enabled Public Information System (PIS) to not only enable the commuters waiting at the bus stand to find out the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of the bus they are waiting for, but also check the status of buses online!

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Delhi, India is becoming the world’s e-waste capital. Delhi alone generates 50,000 tons of e-waste from recycled and discarded electronic parts. Mumbai and Kolkatta closely follow this lead.

The problem is only partly indigenous; imports into these cities from America add to the burden, with 50-80% of America’s e-waste being exported. California alone exports about 9,000 tons (20 million pounds) to the developing world.

Often, it’s the least desirable and most environmentally harmful materials that are the first to be shipped to other, less affluent countries. No one wants to do deal with them and yet everyone wants to pay the least price to dispose of them.  The economics of e-waste further encourage globalized waste dumping.

Satish Sinha, associate director of environmental NGO Toxic Link, told the Hindustan Times that for US recyclers avoiding the $20 cost of electronics recycling in the US plus raking in up to $15 paid by Indian e-waste importers “means a net gain of $35 for the US recycler.”

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A Delhi resident gathers plastic bags from the polluted Yamuna River.

As I read Laurence Wylie, I am reminded of the perennial dilemma of Delhi’s Yamuna River’s. In Village in the Vaucluse, Wylie shows the futility of teaching moral lessons that conflict with regional customs and practices. For instance, children in the narrative are taught to be “the friends and protectors of the little birds.” However, in that region, a favorite food is roasted little birds and a favorite boast is eating 50-60 little birds in one go. Simply put, lessons that contradict local customs are a waste of time.

I find a similar, fundamental contradiction inherent in Delhi’s Yamuna River clean-up. There is no denying that the flourishing river of forty years ago is more like a dirty “nallah,” or sewer, nowadays. That said, I do not subscribe to any of the political mud-slinging that tries to lay blame for this. The deterioration has been a long term, multi-source problem and no one party–political or religious, individual or group, industrial or residential–can be held entirely responsible for it.

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A usual scene from Chandni Chowk: Delhi’s oldest and busiest market

Chandni Chowk (Moonlit Avenue) - a major street in the walled city of Old Delhi, established by the Mughals over three centuries ago, is one of the oldest and busiest markets in all of North India. The region has retained its historical character amidst considerable urban challenges, and the narrow lanes are now almost always choked with congestion.

In the past few weeks, Chandni Chowk featured in the media twice. Once for being declared India’s most polluted residential area and more recently for seeing the launch of solar-powered cycle rickshaws in the capital city. A package to clean the busy Chandni Chowk area has also been declared and solar energy is clearly paving the way for this change!

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Delhiites are once again embroiled in a hot environmental debate–this time over plastic bags. Delhi High Court’s decision to ban plastic bags for all shopping sounds dramatic. However, there is no deadline for implementation. As of now, use of non-biodegradable plastic bags, even large bags and those with a greater than normal thickness of 40 micrometers, continues to be allowed.

The check and balance function of the different arms of the government (judiciary v/s executive) in a federal system is certainly eye-catching. On the one hand, the implementers appear to be skirting around the court-order by seeking deviations (allowing ‘degradable,’ more stringently configured bags); on the other hand, they seem to be abiding by court-order on containing the menace of plastic bags.

Plastic bags have become part and parcel of a Delhiite’s daily life. People reuse each bag numerous times — even after multiple washes. That is also remarkable considering that the bags are often made with very thin material. In the end, in the absence of proper disposal mechanism, the bag appears on the roads of Delhi, littering streets, clogging drains, choking rivers and peeping-out intact when any soil is dug-up.

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Baoli - A centuries old step-well in the heart of Delhi city.

The urbanization process in India in the 20th century led to the formation of large city-centers with very high density of population. The urban sprawl also meant an immense pressure on the natural resources of these city-centers thus also affecting, among others, the quality of life of the urbanite. One of the first resource to get impacted was water - that began to both deplete and deteriorate as rapidly as was the pace of urbanization in the respective urban-centers.

Delhi, the capital of India has obviously been one of the cities to have now turned into a mega-city. Delhi faces regular water crisis that only aggravates in summers and all stakeholders agree on the inadequacy of Delhi’s current water supply.

But Delhi is also one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. It has been the capital of many conquerors who ruled Northern part of present day India from here and has always been a populated center. Water was traditionally harvested in a number of ways to support the population that also comprised large armies; something, the planners of today can and should learn from.

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…or so the media has us all believe.

About two weeks ago, the Government of Delhi, India unveiled the much hyped Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), previously popular here as the High Capacity Bus Corridor (HCBS) and the construction for which had been on for the last few months. The little under 6 Km BRT stretch that is now completed and is being trial run came at the cost of some lives (accidental deaths) and at the reported cost of about 3,000 heritage trees of Delhi. The dedicated bus lanes invited mixed reaction from the public; with the car users complaining about having to spend more time on the road now than before and the bus riders being annoyed with the bus-stands being displaced to the middle of the road. Poor design and lack of coordination between different stake holders further worsened the situation. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, the media has taken on itself to narrate the “failure of BRT story” with much fervour.

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