As we draw bad fumes into our nostrils, let our suffering lungs issue a call to serious action. Let's fight for all, not just some Indians to breathe and live free.
As a philanthropist, I fund a lot of NGOs.
As ordinary citizens, we don't spend much time reading about and thinking through the creation of new laws or amendments of old ones.
One of the great conundrums in philanthropy globally is that the way wealth creation happens itself often creates the inequities in society.
The Indian elite send their children to expensive private schools, bypassing the public school system. They have their own infrastructure for water, with sumps to store it, pumps to lift it, and fancy filters to de-risk from erratic, polluted government water. Most access private healthcare to bridge the health services deficit.
Once you are wealthy, you are in a nice comfort zone and want to stay there. So I always look in the mirror and ask, is my philanthropy making the world a more just and fair place?
In the ideal world, philanthropy should be redundant or at least it should be at the edges, as innovation or risk capital. But it's far from an ideal world; the wealthy are cornering more and more opportunities and resources from this planet. So, the big challenge for philanthropy is... can it engage with the distribution of wealth itself?
I think those who are already in philanthropy and enjoying it and making a difference have a responsibility to share their stories widely, and to be very transparent about their giving.
India's waste problem is gigantic, and with its economy growing steadily, it will be compounded manifold.
We can be inspired by and renew our ancient culture of sustainable design and living. Why not set standards for producers and importers of all goods and services sold in India?
With India going digital, we have a massive and dangerous e-waste problem.
Climate change has the potential to swallow up all other issues of development.
We must incorporate climate modelling in future plans and investments. Whether it is policies on crop procurement, skilling and job creation, urbanisation or even beach tourism, climate adaptation pathways will have to be imagined.
Climate change is already upon us, and its effects are being felt with increasing intensity.
We often destroy ecology-based livelihoods in the name of employment creation.
For the lakhs living along its banks, the Aghanashini has given people life and livelihoods.
In this great nation of saints and poets, public administrators and ingenious architects, has our national and local imagination shrunk so much that we cannot leave the last major free flowing river of peninsular India alone, for future generations to explore, enjoy and benefit from? Let the Aghanashini flow with Aviral, Nirmal Dhara.
We forget that the main constitutional responsibility of the MLAs and MPs that we vote for is law making, and oversight of the executive to implement those laws. During my husband's 2014 election campaign, I did not hear a single voter mention this aspect of the legislator's role.
Societies have debated the severity of punishment for vile acts over millennia, with complex moral arguments on both sides of the question. But citizens and society should pay more attention to the trend of over-criminalisation of common human failings and frailties.
Is water the next oil? Motives behind the question vary, depending on who asks the question. Those who see water as a future core commodity - therefore as profitable a prospect as oil - pose the question to create the right market conditions for water trade.
