March, 2020 Bengaluru 25/03/2020 Day 1 Looking out from the balcony there’s complete absence of the usual noise. The stillness at 6 AM is unusual in the neighbourhood. This is a typical residential area with the usual mix of people, places and performance. I recollect a distant memory - of a morning four days back. … Continue reading Lockdown Diary: Day 1
Working Time and Work-Life Balance – Insights for policy?
ILO published a report on Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World. The chart on average hours of work per week across various geographic regions has been widely circulated in the Indian media. South Asians work the most hours per week with a total of 51.5 hours. East Asians follow closely with 49.4 hours … Continue reading Working Time and Work-Life Balance – Insights for policy?
ChatGPT and Public Policy
ChatGPT will disrupt verbose, dull and formulaic disciplines like public policy. Professions and academic disciplines that thrive on producing text-heavy reports that sound vaguely analytical and insightful might find their work getting easier with ChatGPT. The chatbot, described as a large language model in its current form is ready to take over lower end of … Continue reading ChatGPT and Public Policy
India’s farming and carbon credit market
Meet the farmer with whom India's farming enters carbon credit market (Livemint) profiles a farmer from Punjab with 65 acres of landholding. He grows rice using the direct-seeded rice (DSR) method. The method reduces labour cost because transplanting of saplings as well as puddling is not involved in DSR method. He is saving on irrigation … Continue reading India’s farming and carbon credit market
Roundup 2022
Morning light. Ajangaon, November, 2022. The year was marked by rapid changes month-on-month. Many of these, as I reflect now, will have long term impact personally and how I might spend professional time in the future. Like 2021, this year too went by rather quickly. It helps to have highly active parents who have an … Continue reading Roundup 2022
Notes from the AGRF Summit 2022, Rwanda – 1
In the first week of September, 2022 I traveled to Kigali, Rwanda for the AGRF Summit 2022. It was not too long back that I came across a continent-wide initiative called the Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF). This appeared to be a useful forum to participate and gain a sense of national-level issues, debates and … Continue reading Notes from the AGRF Summit 2022, Rwanda – 1
Thinking about natural resources
Who knew that 2022 would also disrupt our lives like the Covid-19 pandemic did. The world is now bound by the common thread of energy crisis and increasing prices. We searched for universalist ideas. We got these for now. At work, I was asked to suggest a few points to respond to the question - … Continue reading Thinking about natural resources
On tilling vs no-tilling methods of farming – Evidence from research
Waterlogged farm from excessive rainfall. July, 2022 The long absence in writing about the farms has been on account of equipment breakdowns and a season of crop losses due to excessive rainfall in the district. In short, the kharif season of farming this year has been rife with difficulties and losses. But this post is … Continue reading On tilling vs no-tilling methods of farming – Evidence from research
Problem of small holdings in Indian agriculture & Ambedkar
April 2022. In some of Ambedkar’s lesser known writings lies a remarkably detailed paper on ‘small holdings in India and their remedies’. It is a detailed examination of what ails Indian agriculture and how can the identified problems be addressed. Ambedkar asks if the small holdings are also 'compact' holdings? 'Unfortunately they are not. A … Continue reading Problem of small holdings in Indian agriculture & Ambedkar
On labour’s role
It is not just today’s governments and businesses who think that production or economic growth must precede any consideration along the lines of labour welfare. This thought has remained unchanged since independence. Here’s an excerpt from Nehru’s address at the Nagpur session of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC). It was most likely delivered at … Continue reading On labour’s role
Lockdown Diary: Last Entry
Bengaluru 25/04/2022 Covid- 19 and ending the Lockdown Diary When the Covid-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, I began writing notes everyday as a lockdown diary. I wrote continuously for a year and then intermittently thereafter. It went on for 572 days and as cities, travel and workplaces opened up after the second wave, writing … Continue reading Lockdown Diary: Last Entry
Contested Realities 