From Scroll.in (Aug 24, 2021) Was the fear of being overwhelmed by the surging crowd such that their decision to depart was justified? The images of August 16 on the tarmac of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport are by now seared into humanity’s memory, Afghan citizens invading the airport precincts for air evacuation, clinging to
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From Scroll.in (Oct 29, 2020) Traditional ‘low tech’ wisdom is actually ‘high science’ perfected over the millennia by local communities. When the Kosi river floods in Bihar each year, Indian politicians and policy makers always have the same prescription: a high dam upstream in Nepal. But as the two previous parts of this series have
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From Scroll.in (Oct 27, 2020) Will the people impacted by the project be heard through the cacophony of money, careerism, certitude and bombastic populism? In years that the Kosi river floods in Bihar, government officials from Delhi and Patna rush to observe the river’s “wrath” from high-flying helicopters. Inevitably, political leaders, bureaucrats and sections of
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From Scroll.in (Oct 26, 2020) An ‘embankment mafia’ of technocrats, politicians and contractors ensures that alternative measures are not discussed seriously. This year, the monsoon in Nepal was extended by nearly a month and ran into late September. It finally bid farewell with an extended four-day spell of rainfall (jhari) over the Kosi river catchment
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From Scroll.in (Jul 25, 2020) Both Modi and Oli evidently want to deliver Ram rajya to their citizens. This will not come from diverting the attention of the masses to Ram’s birthplace. What could have got into Nepal’s Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, to have to want to claim earlier this month that Lord
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From Scroll.in (19 May, 2020) Kanak Mani Dixit & Tika P Dhakal At a time when Indian and Chinese soldiers have been squabbling at various border points, a sliver of mountain terrain thus far familiar only to Kailash-Manasarovar pilgrims has suddenly come into focus for the media and public in India – the area around
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From Scroll.in (10 October, 2018) I landed in Dhaka on September 24 to try and understand the direction of Bangladesh politics as the country gears up for general elections in December, and to see if I could meet the imprisoned 63-year-old photographer and cultural activist Shahidul Alam. Given the continuing vocal belligerence of Prime Minister
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