The Economics of Happiness
Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using community funds to take care of migrant […]
Once cast, 5G’s inescapable net will have consequences on everything from the night sky down to the cells of our bodies. With two legal cases against 5G roll-out getting underway in the UK,[1] here are just ten of many reasons why 5G is such a bad idea – and not one of them has anything […]
For more than 150 years, from the rural South to northern cities, Black people have used farming to build self-determined communities and resist oppressive structures that tear them down. Today, agriculture still serves an important role in the lives of Black people, which is why we see urban agriculture projects and programs in Philadelphia, Detroit, […]
Yesterday I went to the post office to mail a package to my daughter overseas. She’s been in the military for years, so I’m familiar with the process. Hauling the big box on my hip, I greeted the post mistress and asked her for a customs form. “Oh, you have to do that online now,” […]
A consequence of the current pandemic is an increase in computer use. Almost everyone’s feeling it: students are doing classes by Zoom, employees are online for team meetings, musicians are performing to their phones, consumers are ordering food, clothes, and a hundred other things to be delivered, television shows recorded in front of live audiences […]
Many of us show our compassion and generosity through acts of adoption. Adopt a tree, adopt a baby giraffe, adopt a schoolchild, etc. For the last two weeks, my partner Audrey and I adopted a lovely four-legged pooch named Annie. Her “person,” a close friend, had to travel to Western Massachusetts to be with her dying mother. I’m not exactly a dog person – […]
The streets of Jayanagar, a residential area in Bengaluru, are strewn with spring flowers. Yellow copper pods, lilac crape myrtles, pink-and-white honges and orange gulmohurs blaze overhead and underfoot; vitality and senescence mirroring each other. The normally hard surfaces – kerb, pavement, road and concrete – are softened by fallen petals and the duff of […]
A week before the announcement of the Janata [public] Curfew slated for March 22, 2020, I spoke with a 43-year-old close relative in her village in Leh, Ladakh, by phone from Delhi. Around that time, the news of rising infections from the novel coronavirus coming in from China, Italy and Iran were ominous. Ladakh had […]
The coronavirus (covid-19) has caused upheaval across the world, deaths of the most vulnerable, closed borders, financial market crashes, curfews and controls on group gatherings, and many more devastating effects. Despite observations that pollution and emissions have reduced, the sudden, un-planned, and chaotic downscaling of social and economic activity due to covid-19 is categorically not […]
The lead article in a recent edition of my hometown newspaper highlighted the efforts of a local teen and a sewing business to create 1,000 masks for area hospitals. While this is a wonderful development, it shouldn’t have come to this. The urgent and growing demand for N95 masks and other medical supplies for treating […]
