Author Archives: rajesh
Indian Women Don’t Pee
On any trip through any part of Bangalore, one catches a glimpse of a man relieving himself. It’s normal to have several such sightings. These sightings of this ‘natural’ behaviour are the inspiration for the cartoon printed in ToI, shown on the right. In fact, that is true in all cities in India (except Mumbai [...]
Posted in Home, Rajesh essays, Water Issues Tagged dignity, pee, privacy, sanitary, sanitation, urinating, urine, women 7 Comments
In Praise Of Inefficiency And (Dis)Organization
This essay is about my personality and process, written in 2002. It might explain how the idea of PWX came about, as it was in the period when BPR closed down without having a solution to the challenge of scale after a frenzy of activity including opening an office. I was lucky to not have [...]
Posted in Home, Rajesh essays Tagged disorganization, efficiency, inefficiency, organization Leave a comment
Airing Clean Laundry
While laundry is about water (see other article on Household Water Usage), this essay is about status symbols. Starting by looking at the energy used in drying our clean clothes, i end with the challenge of creating status symbols appropriate for our situation today. Today, in India brands abound and the rich are using more [...]
Terrorism: The Only Alternative?
A challenge to my classmates in ’97: Can we create a society that manages to prevent certain problems? Can we create a system which rewards or at least accepts people who focus on preventing problems. We face a water crisis that is not showing any signs of reducing, and a climate change threat, and an [...]
Change, the Motor Industry, and Water
Motors are used for many purposes today and consume an estimated 40-50% of India’s electricity. Is there a need to become efficient? They also are used heavily for water, starting in Bangalore in 1894 and now used commonly in borewells across the countryside. Does the industry bear any responsibility for declining groundwater levels? A short [...]
Posted in Home, Rajesh essays, Water Issues Tagged bangalore, efficiency, efficient, electric, history, industry, motor, motors, pump, sewage, shortage, supply, theory of change, water 3 Comments
Adapting RWH to rainfall intensity changes due to climate change
Climate change is affecting rainfall intensity. Do rainwater harvesting systems need to adapt as the intensity increases and possibly the gap between rainfalls?
Posted in Home, Peer Water Exchange (PWX), Water Issues Tagged climate change, intensity, pattern, rainfall, rwh Leave a comment
Household Water Usage Guided by Spiritual Traditions
When we use our water to bathe and clean we put stuff (cleaners, solvents, chemicals) in it. Our used water flows into our drains and into other eco-systems where other life-forms see this flow as their incoming supply. Thus what we put in impacts others. We can minimize these impacts if using ahimsa (non-violence) as [...]
Dams and Indian Spiritual Traditions
The Narmada dam has the support of the vast majority of the Jain community in India, but the project violates the major tenets of Jainism. A look at the dam from the perspective of various Jain principles (applies to Hindu and Buddhist and most religious principles too). A shorter version was published in 2001 in [...]
Posted in Home, Rajesh essays, Water Issues Tagged ahimsa, dam, dams, hinduism, jain, jainism, narmada, spiritual, traditions 1 Comment
Heavy email traffic in PWX
The June 2008 application review cycle generated a heavy flood of emails. How can we handle it and how we can change it in the future?
Egypt’s Nile v India’s Ganga: Practicality and Reverence