This refers to the article, “Global warming at home” (April 5) by Hiranmay Karlekar. What is being painted is not a spectre of gloom but outright doom. This nation and its dispensations have never realised the possibility of this country facing myriad onslaughts of gigantic problems all at once. It is not that these issues have cropped only now. They were always there. The worst part is that we had the opportunity to sort them out one at one point in time but we did not. In our democratic set up, political leadership of majority group is paramount. However, politics of convenience, compromise or confrontation let these opportunities slip our grip. Here now are we with burgeoning population, shortage of food, absence of roof for countless, stinking rivers, drying water taps, large areas of parched lands which wore once luxurious vegetation and now rising temperatures with threat of famine in the northern part, once a granary of abundant food in India.
Obviously, such scenarios are petrifying. Time and again there were warning signs that we have to have a paradigm shift in our developmental narratives, but we blindly followed the paths that led us to dark alleys. Frequent suggestions of a last ditch coordinated action could be valid, but who will bell the cat and who will bring all stake holders to the tableIJ We have always proven ourselves unequal to that task. Now we are already in the election mode. Some patch work solutions will be carried out to showcase the actions of the Government. But all this is too late and too little. We have no options but to wait for the next dispensation in 2019 and hope for a better luck.