VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Share this - save our environment and save ourselves Pristine waterfall is treated as a bathroom

To read the article as it appeared in the Times of India, please click on this link Cultural genocide in our hills or read the original word document below Our children speak the language and imbibe the culture that we (and our living room flat TV) pass on to them, the same language and culture that we imbibed from our parents and grandparents. Along with language, each generation passes on knowledge of music, songs, folklore, traditions, religious practices and cuisine generation to generation and are kept alive for posterity. Cultural genocide at our doorstep We take this historical passing on of the cultural baton as a matter of routine. No one really gives it much thought. But imagine if our children were taken away from us at a young age of 8 or 9 and injected into a completely different environment where they get insulated from their parents, elders and their original way of life. If they were removed from the tapestry of their original culture and weaved into an al...

Please click on this link to read about how we met Pinnai Dora. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/How-we-met-Pinnai-Dora/articleshow/47660558.cms Or read it here: It was the winter of 1972. Late that afternoon, on an impulse, four of us decided to jump on our two bikes and head up to Lambasinghi. The road was bad and we arrived at the Lambasinghi ghat foothills only by nightfall. It was too dark and bike lights were lousy those days so we decided to stop for the night. We parked our bikes in a field and fortified with swigs of dark stuff and ensconced in leather jackets and thick jeans, we snuggled into a haystack to spend the night. We slept deeply and early next morning we looked around to discover that we were near a hamlet with a few huts and a tiffin shack. There are certain duties that are to be performed in the morning, therefore we asked for a chambu of water and trundled off into yonder fields to fertilize the soil. Greatly refreshed after ou...

Here is a news item that appeared in today's Times of India newspaper about AP government's bauxite mining lease

The attack on NGOs based on a mysterious report from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) which no one appears to have read, appears to be a case of intimidation sponsored by vested interests! Little bits of the "report" are being leaked into the media implying that NGOs are "anti development" and "anti national". That they get money from abroad with the intention of destroying our country!  This part about foreign funding is a sham because a respected NGOs gets funds legitimately through normal financial channels and provide full data to the government about their sources. In fact the banking formalities for NGOs is much more stringent than those imposed on business houses.  In sharp contrast several dubious corporations and politicians channel vast amounts of money into their coffers by dubious means. Isn't the mining industry getting any foreign funding? How else do you explain companies like "ANRAK" (RAK stands for  Ras Al Khaimah) - a mid...

Hi, Click the link or read the document below. Please leave a comment when you have finished. Brickbats and bouquets are both welcome. Visakhapatnam's cannabis connection The newspapers are full of it. Several times a month there is a story of excise officials seizing Ganja while being transported. The funny thing is that there are always a couple of tribals getting caught and two or three others including the driver conveniently getting away. We city folk know a part of the Ganja story from the media and social context. It is a drug that gives its users a “high”. It is grown in cooler areas in the hills and is smuggled into the cities and sold there for hefty profits. What is Ganja? The Indian word Ganja is known as Cannabis  or Marijuana. It is also referred casually as “grass”, “weed”, “hemp” and so on. It includes three species,   sativa ,   indica and   ruderalis . Now days several hybrids are also cultivated. It is a green leafy plant which grow...