DK Kapila The Oracle

  30th was Eerie ! 31st better ! 2025 will be much better ! Dinesh K Kapila (CGM (Retd). NABARD) On 30th December evening I stepped out of the house. The day had been very cold. A cold wind blew in from the hills, the sun was determined not to be seen and the ground was still wet from the recent rains. During the day I had stepped out for a short stroll, hardly any kids were to be seen in the neighbourhood parks. Strange as it was the holiday season and kids just love to be out of the houses, the mom’s would have issued diktats to stay in. Well, I stepped out on the 30th evening and found myself on a deserted road. It’s quite a long stretch and not a soul to be seen. Slightly foggy, the roads and houses seemed lightly draped in a gentle wispy layer, as a car went past with fogged up windows. I was all geared up including wearing my Himachali cap. I normally prefer my beret but this year I realised even after gifting away a few I had a sizeable number of such caps. Plus berets tend ...

  Water. Dr SS Grewal. Mrs Ritu Singal. Water gives life. The Morni Hills in Panchkula District can be dry in summer. Denudation, population pressure and people from the plains building houses there plus of course climate change are all factors. And partly geographical as the plates move. Dr SS Grewal, the accomplished soil scientist, who has devoted a life time to water, water for farming, heads the NGO SPACE, post retirement, pushing 73 pls years, he stays committed. Not only here but in the Arravalis too. More about him later. We had teamed up to take up projects on water conveyance and water storage systems in Morni Hils. Funds were to be sourced from CSR funding. Well we got nowhere !! Then we reduced the size of funding required but still found no takers, some businessmen wanted the two of us to convince a couple of youngsters on their CSR Team who had no clue about such work. Then Mrs Ritu Singal stepped in. She is the Chairperson cum Managing Director Raglan Group and Winne...

 My TMT (Treadmill Test). Dinesh K Kapila This was a few days back. It was not easy. A few of us drove down to Morni Hills for a CSR Funded project. Sad to say even today the small hamlets of Morni Hills, scenic, maximum height around 4500 feet, are connected by stony tracks and cemented pathways plus even narrow winding steep paths. There were a few of us, Dr SS Grewal, Soil Scientist and committed water man, Mrs Ritu Singal, Industrialist and committed to social   causes and her daughter, and me, the retired wandering soul looking for a cause. Then the farmers and animators were there and Hakikat from Mrs Singal’s office.   We reached the nearest somewhat initially steep stony track at village Daman, the taxi driver saw it and figuratively wet his trousers. So we decided to walk it, we requested Mrs Singal to drive down in her large SUV, but she chose to walk down with us.   It was an easy walk though the stones did not make it easy. Then of course we had a w...