The Dog Problem in Karanataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi

The Dog Problem in Karanataka

The dog census in all wards in Bangalore in 2019 estimated the stray dog population at 3.09 lakh, of which around 54% are neutered. 

It was in 2000 that the city’s civic body launched the birth control programme, touting it as a long-term solution to the stray dog menace. The programme calls for the systematic neutering of strays. Over two decades later, Bruat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike officials said that the civic body is fighting an uphill battle against nature.

“Dogs have two annual breeding cycles, with pregnancy lasting 60-62 days, and they give birth to six to eight puppies per cycle. Of this, half of them are usually female. Within 10 to 12 months, the puppies reach maturity and start reproducing on their own. The rate of reproduction is rapid and the birth control programme can only slowly take effect,” admitted an official.

Rabies in Uttar Pradesh

In a 2005 study, one third of the national rabies deaths were found in Uttar Pradesh (the national number was estimated at 12,700 for furious type of rabies cases, and other studies mentioned a figure of 20,000 for all types of rabies cases in humans in India).

Dog bites affect over 27 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh every year. As per a rough estimate, not less than 100 people are bitten by dogs in each district every day.

The killing of more than a dozen children by feral dogs in Sitapur in back-to-back incidents in 2018, brought the problem to the fore in its worst form.

Dog Bites in Delhi

Over the past six months, the number of dog bites in the Indian capital has increased dramatically. Safdarjung and Ram Manohar Lohia, two referral hospitals for rabies in Delhi, reported 29,698 and 18,183 cases respectively, almost as many as in all of 2022, when there were 51,000 cases. This data is incomplete and does not take into account visits to other facilities or private clinics. 

In 2019, The Delhi government reported an “acute shortage” of rabies vaccines in its government-run hospitals. The Ram Manohar Lohia hospital reported 1,000 patients queuing for vaccines on a particular June day, compared to its usual 200 patients daily. 

In view of the increasing dog bite incidents in the city, Directorate of Education of Delhi has issued a circular directing schools to create awareness about rabies among students.

How Kerala beat back one of the first hotspots in India in Pathanamthitta District

On 8th April, the health ministry recognised the containment efforts in coronavirus hotspots like Pune in Maharashtra and Pathanamthitta in Kerala as best practices adopted by states that were worthy of emulation.

On March 11, Pathanamthitta, a migration hotspot in Southeastern Kerala, became the district with the highest number of cases in the state.

Most of those who were infected had travelled widely across the district before they were diagnosed with the infection, it was later found.

But over nearly two weeks to March 23, the district managed to limit the cases to 10 (from then till April 8th, the number has slowly gone up to 16 - mostly people who returned from abroad or other States).

Through contact tracing, the team was able to track nearly 98% of all primary and secondary contacts, who have been advised home- or hospital-isolation.

An extraordinary video conference

It was 2 am on March 8, the day after the first set of diagnoses, when an extraordinary video conference was held at the collectorate between the collector, the district surveillance officer and the state health secretary. 

There was a reason for the panic: When swabs had been taken from a family of five for diagnosis, no one had expected every one of them to test positive.

“We were so taken aback that most of the team [was] here by 7 am the next morning. There was no time to lose,” said AL Sheeja, the district medical officer in charge of coordinating the efforts at the district level.

By 7 am on March 8, calls were already going out to doctors, medical staff, drivers and vehicles to gather by 8 am at the collectorate so that 10 teams could trace the travel history of the patients. Every contact of the infected family that had returned from Italy was to be traced from the time it landed in India on February 29, to the time of its isolation.

From then on, how the team worked on surveillance, gathering travel history, contact tracing, and ensuring quarantine by providing essential and psychological support offers an insight into how the district managed to control the spread of the virus.

On March 8, the teams went to locations visited by the affected family. “We did two things – got their travel history, and got the field teams to visit every location and check as many CCTV footages as possible to ascertain their primary and secondary contacts,” said Resmi, a Doctor who leads the surveillance team. 

As of April 7, 2,575 persons who came from abroad and 4,583 persons who came from other States are in home quarantine. This is besides 401 primary and secondary contacts of the infected persons in the district.

According to the District Medical Officer, all of them will have to remain in quarantine for 28 days.

The Teams at District Level

The district control cell includes multiple teams – surveillance, call centre, psychological support, training and awareness, community-level volunteers, media monitoring among others.

The district has mobilised a 1,000-strong field team of ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists), junior public health inspectors and nurses, to ensure widespread awareness about the disease and provide ground support. This is in addition to the surveillance team of 450 led by Dr. Resmi.

The field staff go from home to home, seeking travel details. These home surveillance squads make more than 2,300 home visits in a day, as per data from March 25.

Testing asymptomatic cases

On 7th Apr, two persons in Kerala, who earlier did not exhibit symptoms of the Covid-19 infection, tested positive for coronavirus in Pathanamthitta district. Out of the two cases, one is a 60-year-old man who recently travelled from Dubai to the district, while the other is a 19-year-old student who travelled from Delhi in March.

The 60-year-old man who tested positive was quarantined between March 19 and April 6. He had flown back from Sharjah to Thiruvananthapuram on March 19 and then travelled to Pathanamthitta by road. He was asymptomatic but was still tested as he had returned from a country with a number of Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, the college student, who recently travelled to Pathanamthitta, had also completed her mandatory 14-day quarantine at home. The student boarded a train from Delhi to Ernakulam on March 15 and reached her home on March 17. She was asymptomatic all this while. However, she was tested for the coronavirus after Delhi emerged as an infection hotspot.

The authorities in the district have started to test people with a history of travelling to high-risk zones, or those who fall in the vulnerable category even if they may be asymptomatic, Pathanamthitta District Medical Officer AN Sheeja said.

It was reported on 8th Apr that a home-quarantined youth who came from Dubai on March 21st, tested positive. With that, the number of cases rises to 16 in Pathanamthitta.

Air Conditioners and the Summer Heat

A report has estimated that there is at least 40 per cent difference between summer and winter afternoon peak and 60 per cent difference in the summer and winter evening peak in cities like Delhi because of electricity demand from ACs.

Delhi’s peak demand has doubled in last 10 years, growing faster than the population of the city. This reflects wider use of AC as primary cooling device in place of desert cooler and fans.

Air conditioners consume 6-10 times the electricity of coolers.

Peak power deficit in India stood at 0.8 per cent and the overall energy deficit remained 0.6 per cent in 2018-19. We may soon be a power surplus nation after a long journey to get there. But in so doing we have been sharply increasing our carbon emissions over the years.

Room air conditioners must be responsible for almost a third of the electricity consumed by homes and offices in 2014-15 as reported by the Central Electricity Authority.

Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) is calculated as the rated capacity of the system (how much does it cool) divided by its rated total power input. So a 1.5 ton ac which has cooling capacity of 5000 w and uses 1500 w as power input has an EER of 3.3 (5000 divided by 1500).

A minimum EER of 2.7 is allowed in india, given star rating 1. That would be equivalent to a cooling capacity of 4000 w with a power input of 1500 w.

India’s 5 star EER rating starts at 3.3+. Japan’s is double and even china uses ACs rated at 6 EER.

The advert released on 23 March 2015 by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) showed that the models of Samsung, Godrej, Panasonic, O General, Whirlpool, IFB and Videocon had failed the compliance test. Their 3 star and 4 star Room Air Conditioners (RAC) models could not qualify for even 1 star rating. No reports on compliance have been made public by BEE since the publishing of advert in March 2015.

Tests done recently found that even the highest rated energy efficient AC in our country will perform at two-third efficiency as the outside temperature reaches 50 c. Power consumption will go up by 28 percent while cooling capacity comes down by 20 per.

In fact, Energy efficiency drops by 2.5 per cent for every degree rise in external ambient temperature above 35 degree C. And power consumption rises by 2 per for every degree rise over 35 c. Ability of the ac to remove heat from the room drops by 1.3 per for every degree rise above 35 c.

Tests found that on average, ACs in india deliver only 77 per of their stated cooling capacity even at 35 c ambient temperature. This further decreases by 11 per when the temp climbs to 50 c.

The EER is calculated at about 27 c internal temperature. If the ac is set to achieve a lower temperature inside, then there is a further 2 per drop in EER for every degree of lower temp.

Thus in both situations – when the ambient temperature outside is 35 C but internal temperature that the AC has to achieve has been set at 20 C, the efficiency of the appliance drops by over a third.  And it drops by a third even when the ambient temperature outside is 50 C and the internal temperature to be achieved is 27 C.

Average drop in cooling capacity was measured at 20 per cent when the thermostats setting was lowered from the standard 27 degree C to 20 degree C.

Overall, in both situations – when the ambient temperature outside is 35 C but internal temperature that the AC has to achieve has been set at 20 C, there is a drop in cooling capacity to 70 %. There is a similar drop in cooling when the ambient temperature outside is 50 C and internal temperature to be achieved is 27 C.

There was also a 5% drop in efficiency with 55 % humidity. This is expected to be higher if 90 % humidity were applied.

Dense urban areas and highly commercial areas in Delhi have urban heat island effect with temperatures in these areas higher by 8-11 C compared with the city’s ambient temperature at the time.

For instance average ambient temperature conditions in Delhi in months of April, May and June is about 38 degree C but micro-climate of Connaught Place, central business district in Delhi, during same time would be 46-48 degree C. Also RACs themselves contribute to the heat island by warming up the immediate environment outside.

Tests in Tokyo indicate that raising the air conditioner’s thermostat from 26 C to 28 C and using an electric fan can reduce electricity consumption by up to 22 percent. After the Fukushima disaster when Japan faced major power crisis, Japanese government mandated that all ACs in the country should not run at temperature setting lower than 28 C. It introduced Bush Shirt rule to relax dress code in work place to encourage comfortable clothing.

A Tale of Two MPs

MP Ramesh Bidhuri has been re-nominated for a BJP ticket from South Delhi while MP Dr. Udit Raj was denied re-nomination from North-West Delhi. I heard several speeches by both to gauge what sorts of issues each had focused on.

While Bidhuri raised the issue of water for Delhi, irregular colonies etc. I found his speeches full of repetitive thanks to Modi and various ministers. The substantive points he raised on those issues were usually old hat. He also spent a lot of time showing the opposition down.

Udit Raj, though, is an intellectual - his breadth of interests is far wider and the points he raised were novel. They ranged from SC/ST atrocities to LIC debentures, and malpractices in the BIS. I would say he is a man to watch.

What interests me is BJP's criteria for re-nomination. This is not a party that rewards talent and the entrepreneurial spirit, which Raj shows in plenty. BJP rewards yes-men & the usual goonda-political mix that Bidhuri displays in plenty. So much for Modi's leadership !

This great website lets you track MPs and MLAs – what Qs did they ask in the Lok Sabha / State Assembly. What debates did they participate in ? 

Once some topic of the debate interests me I look up the net on what that MP had to say. For example, Bidhuri spoke on making laws to permit those with 100 sq yards plots in Delhi, to keep milch cattle ! He may think he knows his constituency but his sense of what Delhi needs, belongs to the middle ages !

I decided to re-visit the Capetown water story as it has made people think..

But many of us know only that Capetown city faced a day when there would be no more water in its taps. But not much of the story before and after.. Here is that story, with many lessons for the rest of the cities across the world.. 

In 2007, South Africa's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry predicted that the growing demand on the Western Cape Water Supply System would exceed supply if water conservation and demand management measures were not implemented. Before the crisis, Capetown, a city of 4 million (around one-fourth that of Delhi) consumed 1200 million litres a day. Per capita per day consumption was 135 litres.

An El Nino-triggered drought in 2015 hit agricultural production and economic growth throughout South Africa. Cape Town was particularly hard hit, and lack of good subsequent rains around the city made its water shortage worse. The burden of making sure Day Zero did not happen rested largely on household's ability to cut down on water usage. 

Restrictions were imposed on 1 June 2017, limiting the usage of water to 100 litres per person per day. By early October 2017, following a low rainfall winter, Cape Town had an estimated five months of storage available before water levels would be depleted. "Water rationing through extreme pressure reduction" was implemented immediately. 

In early 2018, when the dam levels were predicted to decline to critically low levels by April because of lack of rain, the City announced plans for "Day Zero", when the municipal water supply would largely be shut off if a particular lower limit of water storage was reached, potentially making Cape Town the first major city in the world to run out of water.

Through water saving measures, the City reduced its daily water usage by more than half to around 500 million litres per day in March 2018. Residents lived with stringent consumption restrictions through most of 2018, at 50 litres per person per day.

Urban residents were requested not to flush the toilet after urinating, to flush using rainwater or greywater after defecating, and to reduce the length and frequency of showers. In order to conserve water, hand sanitizer was provided in offices and public buildings for use instead of conventional hand-washing. Some cafes began using plastic and paper cups and plates, to reduce dish-washing.

50 litres a day per person is just enough for a 90-second shower, 4 litres of drinking water / tea / coffee, neembu drink, etc., a sink-ful to hand-wash dishes or laundry, one cooked meal, two hand washings, two teeth brushings and one toilet flush. 

In September 2018, with rains having at last arrived and dam levels close to 70%, the city began easing water restrictions to 70 litres per person per day. Dam levels peaked at 76% and in November 2018, restrictions were reduced to 105 litres per person per day, aiming for a 30% saving on normal usage.  

In contrast, average water consumption in Delhi is estimated at 240 liters per capita per day. It is to be remembered that South Africa's per capita GDP is three times that of India as is its per capita water storage capacity. 

The 60% restriction in 2018 of water usage for irrigation by agriculture around Cape Town resulted in the loss of 37,000 jobs in the Western Cape Province and an estimated 50,000 people being pushed below the poverty line due to job losses, inflation and increases in the price of food.

An astonishing 11 months a year of hot days for Kochi..

32 C feels like 40 C with the average annual humidity across india of 65-70 %. This link tells you how the heat days have increased in your city since the 1960s.

Kochi and Mumbai’s 6 months of heat a year in the 1960s (atleast 32 degrees C a day) have increased to 9 and 8 months respectively now. By the 2040s the hot days are set to increase to an astonishing 11 months a year for Kochi and 10 months a year for mumbai.

Chennai and Kolkatta’s 6-7 months of heat a year in the 1960s have increased to 8 months now and will cross 9 months a year in the 2040s.

Pune, Delhi and Bhiwadi’s 6 months of heat a year in the 1960s have increased to 7 months now and will cross 8 months a year in the 2040s.

Bangalore had 3 months of days of atleast 32 C or above in 1962, when I was born. Now those 3 months have increased by 18 days and will become 4.5 months in the 2040s.

A visit to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib..

Approaching the inner sanctorum of the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara in Connaught Place in Delhi on 5th nov with my cousin sister.














The beautiful interiors.. We sat and listened to the raagas for a while.. A friend had told me the entire Guru Granth Sahib is composed in different ragas..

A new gate was being completed on the opposite side to the main entry..
















There was a museum of paintings depicting moments from the gurus' lives..

How Hot Will it Get ?

• Delhi will, in a few years' time, be nearly 4 degrees hotter than it was in the 1940s, and 5.6 degrees C hotter by 2050.

• By 2030, Delhi will get nearly 40% less rain than it does now. 

• For Mumbai, a 1-1.4 degree increase in minimum temperatures and a 10-14% increase in extreme rainfall is projected by 2030. since the region already experiences heavy rainfall, even a  small increase could make a huge difference. Mumbai’s location below high tide level and only 10 to 15 m above sea level makes it more vulnerable. High tides could contribute to making an excess rainfall event into a disastrous one, as it did on 26/7. And rising sea level aggravates the danger.

• By the turn of the century, 80 % of india’s population will experience temperatures that are dangerous or un-liveable. The most intense hazard from extreme future heat waves is concentrated around densely populated agricultural Indo-Gangetic river basins. 

• Extreme heat puts pressure on essential services such as energy, transport, and health. During the 2016 heatwave, India’s hospitals received twice as many patients as usual.

• A heat wave struck the normally hot city of Ahmedabad in May, 2010, and temperatures soared to 48 Celsius. They resulted in a 43 percent increase in mortality, compared to the same period in previous years.

• Since then some governments aided by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, have put in place simple measures. In Ahmedabad, for instance, city-funded vans distribute free water during the hottest months. In the eastern coastal city of Bhubaneswar, parks are kept open in afternoons so outdoor workers can sit in the shade. Some cities that had felled trees for construction projects are busy trying to plant new ones.

• In Ahmedabad, city funds have been used to slather white reflective paint over several thousand tin-roofed shanties, bringing down indoor temperatures. In Hyderabad, a similar effort is being tested. A pilot project by a team of engineers and urban planners covered a handful of tin-roofed shacks with white tarpaulin. It brought down indoor temperatures by at least two degrees, which was enough to make the intolerable tolerable.

• The economic fallout of higher temperatures will be immense since the large majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. The decline in agricultural output will endanger the region’s food security. 

• Heatwaves are an economic drain. They can cut goods and services outputs by more than 20 percent in sectors such as manufacturing and construction.

At the all-India level, an energy shortfall of 5 % is expected by 2030.

By 2050, rising temperatures could sharply diminish the living standards of a third of India's population. 

Is Desalination of Sea-water in Chennai really a Success Story ?

Two 100 MLD desalination plants, one in Minjur and the other in Nemmeli, now contribute close to one-third of Chennai’s total water supply. The first of these started operating in 2010. Owned 75% by infrastructure firm IVRCL, already by 2013 the plant had run into financial trouble. IVRCL is looking to exit the project. 

Rainy day in Chennai / Aadhitharajan / CC-BY-SA 4.0

Most of the average annual rainwater of 1,200-1,300 mm that Chennai receives—more than Bangalore’s 900 mm or Delhi’s 800 mm average—flows into the sea. Leaks and pilferage are the bane of Chennai’s water distribution network. Only 65% of the water from the city’s treatment plants reach consumers while in Germany this is as high as 95%.

Is it appropriate to compare a city like Chennai which receives almost three times as much rain in a year as that of Tel Aviv, Israel ? Professor S. Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies says : “Seawater desalination was conceived as an option for providing potable water in rain-starved countries, like those in the Middle East."

"Where is the need to go in for such an environmentally damaging and costly exercise? It should ideally be the absolute last resort, which in this case is not”, the Professor asks.

Researchers have questioned the need for the state to back desalination projects when recycling of used water can be more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable too. 

The Nemmeli plant inaugurated in February was delayed for years by political bickering and execution hurdles. The plant was to be built at a cost of Rs.1,000 crore to pump out 300 mld of treated sea water. While the cost remained at Rs.1,000 crore, the capacity was whittled down to 100 mld. Two cyclones damaged the plant during construction. 

Back in 2013, a fact-finding team looked into allegations of environment and human rights violations arising out of the construction and operation of the Nemmeli plant. The report recorded villagers’ accusations of the desalination plant eroding the coastline and endangering their livelihoods in addition to turning the groundwater salty.

Dead Sea salt / Tiia Monto / CC-BY-SA 3.0

The brine released by desalination plants settles on the surface of the ocean and disconnects oxygen causing oxygen deficiency in the ocean floor area, which threatens marine life.

There are some species of fish which feed, breed and spend most part of their early life along the coast. If the hypersaline reject is let out close to the coast, the probability of these organisms being affected is rather prominent. In addition, high-pressure motors used to draw in water also brings in marine life forms of varying sizes despite nets placed to avoid relatively larger organisms. Fish, fry and crabs get crushed and killed in the process. Loss of income and marine resources cannot be discounted as fishermen in and around Nemmeli have observed it firsthand.

In addition to wrecking local livelihoods, the plant has depleted the area’s freshwater sources. During the plant’s construction phase, groundwater was pumped out continuously to sink deep foundations. This resulted in rapid depletion of the available underground sweet water, which eventually got replaced with intruding salt water from the sea. A plant designed to produce fresh water from the sea had, in reality, abetted the conversion of the existing fresh water in the region into unpalatable salty water. Water in handpumps in the area turned saline, forcing the neighbours of this drinking water factory to rely on expensive bottled water.

Carlsbad desalination plant, California
Bovlb / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Structures built into the sea for plant construction triggered rapid sea erosion resulting in the loss of an entire line of community buildings built by the Rotary Club after the 2004 tsunami. 

Inhabitants of the Nemmeli plant's neighbouring villages allege that water let out from the plant has reduced the beach to a thin strip, forcing the sea water to come close to the land where they live.  Villagers sent various petitions to the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, their local MLA and to the Chennai Metro Water. The state government responded to complaints by jailing tens of fishermen. Fishermen were barred access to fishing grounds in the vicinity of the plant's intake pipeline.

The Environmental Assessment Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change noted in Nov 2017 that there was already significant erosion of the shoreline due to the 100 MLD plant commissioned at Nemmeli. 

Dead Grouper Fish / Jbellegaribay
CC-BY-SA 3.0

Even in the Middle East, which dominates the desalination market, there are no proper methods to tackle the brine and reject water. A 2011 study by Pilar Palmolar, Spain, states that extinction of fish larvae has been observed near brine discharges in Ashkelon, a coastal city in the southern district of Israel.

"Our land and livelihoods have been compromised so that people in the city don’t go without water. But we don’t get a drop of drinking water from the plant,” complains Santhosh, a fisherman, whose village is near the Nemmeli plant.

Janakarajan insists that our aim should be to conserve water received during the monsoon months instead of resorting to options like desalination after letting fresh water run wastefully into the sea. “Desalination is extremely unfriendly to the environment, and contributes to coastal ecological degradation, in addition to being ridiculously expensive.”

Chennai Metrowater now proposes to construct another 150 MLD plant at the same location. The project documents falsely describe the beach space as barren land, masking the multiple uses that fisherfolk put these livelihood commons to. Villagers are concerned about pollution, loss of livelihood spaces and erosion. They are worried that erosion will bring the sea closer and expose them to danger. 

Beach FisherMen / Nagafotos / CC-BY-SA 4.0

They know from past experience that MetroWater's assurances of "negligible" impact are baseless, and that the statutory conditions imposed as part of the environmental clearance by the Ministry of Environment will not be followed. They know that the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the State Coastal Zone Management Authority will take no action in the event of violation. They know that they will be terrorised by the police if they voice their fears.

Currently, only 26 per cent of Chennai’s drinking water comes from the two desalination plants, with a total capacity of 200 MLD. To meet the city’s drinking water needs, conserving and protecting lakes and wetlands is a cheaper and environmentally better option than desalination. These wetlands will also save the city from urban floods. An analysis by CSE showed that post the year 2000, Chennai lost 50 per cent of its water bodies due to urbanisation. This resulted in seven major floods in the last 15 years. 

Making Walking Safer in our Cities

·       Delhi accounts for one in every six pedestrian deaths (3) (17 % of all pedestrian deaths) in India while its population is 1 % of India. So the city is so inimical to pedestrians that 17 times more of them are dying here compared to its population.

In 2009, the proportion of pedestrians killed in Mumbai, Delhi and Kota were 79, 47 and 28 per cent respectively (5).

(6)

Excerpted from : (1) Make Walking Safe, by WHO (2) Guidelines from Pedestrians, by Delhi Traffic Police (3) Delhi is the road death capital too, Jun 25, 2013, Times of India (4) Plan to make city roads safer for pedestrians, Subhendu Ray, Hindustan Times  New Delhi, December 15, 2011(5) Talks on pedestrian safety project, Maroosha Muzaffar : New Delhi, Thu Oct 29 2009 (6) Traffic Accidents in India, 2010, Ministry of Road Transport, GoI (7) Road Accidents Study, Manisha Desai