Practice & Policy

Sound is what we hear. Noise is a sound that we don’t want to hear. The difference between sound and noise depends upon the listener and the circumstances. Rock music can be a pleasurable sound to one person and an annoying "noise" to another. We are all subjected to some form of loud noises for a considerable amount of time, during the day and night.…

  Public consultation is an important step in the environmental appraisal of projects. Many countries have instituted consultation as a part of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in India has provided guidelines for the conduct of the public hearing and for reporting the outcomes. Public hearing is a complex process. It often has political overtones…

Planners and regulators today are not addressing the impacts of Climate Change (CC) adequately in the future plans. This is not just the case with the developing countries but with the developed countries as well. There are very few examples available where you see CC is reflected in policies, plans and project designs. CC is more talked on the vulnerability. The level of progress in…

In the university education, we are taught engineering designs with first principles. In practice, we rarely attempt to design units applying these principles that we learn from the textbooks. This is probably because we know that there are stark differences between the principle based design and the design we put in practice. Stoke’s law is customarily taught when we teach our students the theory of…

Until recently, measuring air pollution was a task that could be performed only by trained scientists using very sophisticated – expensive equipment. Environmental Sensors are now getting advanced, miniaturized and cheaper, opening up new methods of collecting environmental data. Environmental data capture is no more left to the regulatory agencies today. Its now led by the citizens. Citizen can “sense” the environment using readily available…

During one of the Ministerial Get-togethers, held in the lawns of the Prime Ministers bungalow, the Environment Minister observed that few people were floating around Ministers of Energy, Agriculture etc.   These people looked a bit special. While they looked like “babus”, they were enthusiastic and efficient. That seemed odd. When asked, the Environment Minister was told that these people were the Officers on Special Duty…

My Professor Friend called me on Sunday morning to his house for a breakfast. “Dr Modak, I have something very important to share. I need your feedback” I was more interested to have the Appam that his wife was famous for. Appam is a type of pancake made with fermented rice batter and coconut milk. Hot and fresh Appams with a mild Sambhar and a…

The Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management and Handling Rules in India prescribe waste segregation at the source under Section 4 that describes Duties of Waste Generator. The directions are as follows segregate and store the waste generated in three separate streams namely bio-degradable or wet waste, non bio-degradable or dry waste and domestic hazardous wastes in suitable bins and handover segregated wastes to waste collectors…

Donald Trump After Donald Trump got elected as President of the United States of America, the world started wondering what Earths future will be. Terms like Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability were clearly not in Trumps “dictionary”. In fact he was both acidic and allergic about these terms right through his election campaign and I guess he continues to be. “I would like to dismantle…

Professor called me Sunday morning of last week and asked me to join the high power roundtable on Delhi’s emergency on air pollution. “I will pick you up – the event is at the Habitat Centre” – he said. “But why the roundtable?” I asked– In these round tables, you will simply go round and round and end up with nothing. For years, we have…