25 years ago- it seems like yesterday: Son remembering his father

March 16, 2015
It is the 25th anniversary of my father passing away. I remember the day in February when I got the phone call that my father was very ill. My manager at ZS, Jaideep Bajaj, was truly a kind soul- he allowed me to leave for India immediately. It was a day of omens- there was a massive snowstorm when my friends Chandra and Ajayan started driving me to O'Hare. We had to abandon driving, and park the car near a train station and take the train to the airport, as the visibility was almost zero. However the flight was canceled, and we had to return, pick up the car and drive back.
I did board the flight the next day, and eventually made it to Hyderabad.My father was quite sick, and he lived for just about a month after my arrival.
I could not understand the pain he was in, and how hard it was for him. Perhaps I was cruel, assuming he was not trying hard enough. Those days remind me of my weaknesses- unable or unwilling  to understand, short of patience, and not being kind.
I do remember the brighter days- dad giving me a beautiful HMT watch when I got into Little Flower Junior College, going to father' office for a cup of coffee when I was in St. Pauls, listening to sports on the radio with him, and playing table tennis. Father had a nice Decolum table made by our maestri- father designed the table himself. The table used to be our lunch and dinner table, and then during the weekends we would put some books as a net and play table tennis. He would allow me to win, even though I was a rather poor player. I remember having lunch in the canteen near SBI with him when I was in Little Flower in Abids. He would help me with my drawings for biology classes- he was a master artist, and would sketch beautifully.

The film that reveals how American ‘experts’ discredit climate scientists | Environment | The Guardian

The film that reveals how American ‘experts’ discredit climate scientists | Environment | The Guardian: "For Naomi Oreskes, professor of scientific history at Harvard, there’s no more vivid illustration of the bitter war between science and politics than Florida’s ban on state employees using terms such as “climate change” and “global warming”. No matter that the low-lying state is critically vulnerable to rises in sea level, or that 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is occurring and human activity is responsible, the state’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, instructed state employees not to discuss it as it is not “a true fact”.


Climate change: why the Guardian is putting threat to Earth front and centre
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In one sense, news of the Florida directive could not have come at a better time – a hard-hitting documentary adaptation of Oreskes’s 2010 book Merchants of Doubt is just hitting US cinemas. In another sense, she says, it is profoundly depressing: the tactics now being used to prevent action over global warming are the same as those used in the past – often to great effect – to obfuscate and stall debates over evolutionary biology, ozone depletion, the dangers of asbestos or tobacco, even dangerous misconceptions about childhood vaccinations and autism.

Scott’s de facto ban is, she tells the Observer, “a grim state of affairs straight out of a George Orwell novel. So breathtaking that you don’t really know how to respond to it.”"



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PM Narendra Modi has cut environmental funding for India: TRFN | The Financial Express

PM Narendra Modi has cut environmental funding for India: TRFN | The Financial Express: "Environmentalists in India have expressed alarm over the new federal budget of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which they say heralds substantial cuts in environmental programmes and fails to address the country’s worsening pollution and vulnerability to climate change.
The budget for the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change for the fiscal year beginning April 1 has been reduced by 25 percent, from 22.6 billion Indian rupees ($360 million) to 16.8 billion rupees ($268 million).
In his budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced an increase in the target for renewable energy generating capacity, to 175,000 megawatts by 2022. But the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will see its funding for the coming year reduced by more than two-thirds, to 3 billion rupees ($48 million).
“There is a disconnect between the budget speech and the allocations,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a research and advocacy organisation based in Delhi."



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Using Terms “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” Banned for Florida DEP Officials - Daily Science Journal

Using Terms “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” Banned for Florida DEP Officials - Daily Science Journal: "According to a report released by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR), the employees of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have been ordered not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in official communications. Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013 stated “We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability.’ That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”

The report revealed that it is an unwritten policy which came into effect after Governor Rick Scott, a global warming skeptic, took office. The state of Florida in the US is highly vulnerable to the effects of global warming which makes such prohibitions for Florida officials noteworthy. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014 wrote “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”

Doug Young, president of the South Florida Audubon Society and a member of the Broward County Climate Change Task Force explained “I told them the biggest problem I have was that there was absolutely no mention of climate change and the affect of climate change on coral reefs. The two young women, really good people, said, ‘We are not allowed to show the words, or show any slides that depicted anything related to climate change.”"



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