chroma thoughts...:)

It had been quite a while since I wanted to meet Jabir Karat, founder of  Green Worms Eco Solutions , a waste management company based in Kozhikode district of Kerala. There needs no introduction to how important responsible waste management is, in the current scenario. So when there was someone working along these lines and dealing with almost all forms of household and commercial dry waste, I took up the opportunity to have a greater understanding of the domain. Here, Jabir Karat talks about being in the business of Waste Management.  What is Green Worms? Green Worms is a social business with the aim to sustainably solve garbage crisis, generate income and create livelihood opportunities. The three principles we operate on are minimizing waste generation, maximizing waste recovery and dignifying people working with waste. We work with hotels and restaurants, apartments, housing colonies, hospitals, residence associations, more than 30 Gram Panchayats, 4 Municipalities,

Altermedia is not the usual bookstore that one often visits. Altermedia is also not one among the organic stores that have sprung up off late. Altermedia is all about alternatives. Alternatives in ideas, solutions, thought streams, food and lifestyle.   A few young minds who met at the 1987 Save the Western Ghats Movement decided to start a book store which would also serve as a publishing house. A space that would aid people to reimagine the importance of nature and environment with the kind of books it had. A space to make available to the people national magazines and weeklies of the kind of 'Economic & Political Weekly', which were otherwise not available in Kerala yet. A space to open up possibilities through conversations and transact conversations to actions.  ' The One-Straw Revolution ' by Masanobu Fukuoka is considered the Bible of farmers and agricultarists, which has been sold millions of copies worldwide, in multiple languages. Thanks

Vimukt Shiksha Yatra was an initiative by the 'Indian Multiversities Alliance', a first of its kind; "envisioned with an intention to inspire ideas, learnings and collaborations towards re-imagining higher education". As an individual who have been studying upon various alternate models of education, I was keenly interested in the Yatra. The 6 day long Yatra started from Mumbai on 25th February and concluded in Nashik on 02nd March. Our first session in Mumbai was hosted by 'Blue Ribbon Movement' (BRM), an organisation operating in Mumbai to empower youth to become leaders of change by challenging gender inequality, connecting communities, building peace and sharing knowledge. The twelve Yatris assembled themselves at Don Bosco High School, Matunga and shared with each other, our objectives behind attending the six day learning journey. We interacted with fellows of 'People's unVersity', an alternate learning programme forwarded by BR

This is the second year I am working with Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) Schools and this journey of working with various stakeholders - headmasters/ headmistress (HM), teachers, parents, community members, resource persons, students - has been quite enterprising. My kind of work as a Gandhi Fellow in standardization and strengthening of school processes requires time and availability of all of these stakeholders in various proportions, a maximum of that being with the HMs and teachers. And thereby, i can't stop to think of the never ending yet ever increasing documentation work the HMs and teachers have been burdened with. With the teachers receiving a new circular almost every day, the time they are forced to invest in Mahiti work is like never before. It started with the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme which was started this academic year (2017-18) to directly transfer the amount incurred for buying uniform and stationary to the students' bank accounts.

“Your’e quite disturbing to be around.”  “You brood a lot”. “You don’t participate”. “You’re not fun”. “This indifferent nature is quite redundant”. These are the other occasional dialogues that come along. Actually I can be a lot more disturbing person to be around, than you imagine to be. When anxiety creeps in, its like going berserk in the inside. One can’t really explain how that is. There’s a surging need to scream out loud. But hush… There are people around. As a matter of fact, I’m saving you guys from experiencing the outlash of it, with that attitude. That’s how I try to keep calm and composed. That’s how I hold myself in. Brooding.  “Did you go to _______________ alone?”  Yes, I go to the movies alone. I go to restaurants alone. I go to lot many other places alone. I do a lot other things alone. Once upon a time I too used to judge myself for this. But later, it came out to be one of my greatest strengths. I believe the capacity to do things alone corresponds to

Violence is a central concept for describing social relationships among humans, a concept loaded with ethical and political significance. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”  Yet, the most common form of violence I observed in context of the schools and communities I work with is Non-verbal violence, commonly termed as verbal abuse, which encompasses a relatively large spectrum of behaviours, including: accusing, undermining, verbal threatening, ordering, trivializing, silencing, blaming, name calling, overtly criticizing and also verbal violence disguised as jokes.  Here, I would like to share the discussion we had within our debrief group on the importance of Education for Peace in the school-comm