জল সঙ্কট নিয়ে উদ্বেগ প্রকাশ নোবেলজয়ী অর্থনীতিবিদ অভিজিৎ বিনায়ক বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়ের

Oneindia Bengali

জল সঙ্কট নিয়ে উদ্বেগ প্রকাশ নোবেলজয়ীর। কী বললেন অর্থনীতিবিদ অভিজিৎ বিনায়ক বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়? জেনে নিন  ~ED.1~

Transcript

00:00I hope that together, somehow, is undermined.

00:05The fact that that can continue is partly

00:08a result of the fact that we have no public conversation

00:13about the right to water.

00:16I think the fact that water is something that is simply

00:21impossible to live without, and yet some people almost

00:25live without it because, for force,

00:26because they have so little access to it.

00:29And certainly, so little access to clean water,

00:32that you end up with the, I think,

00:37as a society, we haven't yet confronted

00:40the deep inequalities that are in water.

00:44And this is getting worse, because especially

00:49the water, as the water table falls,

00:52we are getting into situations where

00:55some people, ones who are not particularly

00:59connected to urban infrastructure,

01:02will just not have access to it.

01:05So all of that was in my mind, but I

01:10wanted to be able to maybe create

01:15a subject for a public conversation, which

01:18didn't start with hitting people on the head with the facts.

01:24It needed, I felt, a lightness that Sarnath can bring.

01:30That would make the conversation maybe a little bit,

01:35you start from, you throw the facts at people,

01:38but you don't throw it, you hit them on the head with it.

01:42You see them, and maybe that's a way

01:45to get people to understand that these things are not simply

01:49a matter of just asserting that there should

01:57be this or that outcome.

01:58It's a matter of a series of policies.

02:01Water is really policies about the pricing

02:06of agricultural power, policies about the support

02:10of certain agricultural, the prices of certain crops,

02:15but not others.

02:16All of that feeds into the water crisis.

02:19And as does the second of the water wars,

02:23and as does the construction boom, which

02:26is what has been happening in South Asia.

02:30All of these things feed into it in different ways.

02:33And from both sides, in fact, the construction boom

02:36both creates demand for water and creates barriers

02:45to the flow of water, which often creates

02:47water lobbying along with water shortage.

02:50So all of that.

02:51I think where we came out of, I would

02:54say it was not so much impelled by the contemporary concerns

03:00at all.

03:00It was more, I think, Sarnath and I were

03:07with one together before, and I think one thing

03:10that I appreciate in Sarnath is his ability

03:13to take something that potentially heavy and dead

03:19serious and infuse some lightness and life into it.

03:23And I really think that's a great gift.

03:28And I think many of these conversations

03:32that we need to have in India.

03:33Water is absolutely the first and most obvious one,

03:37because it's one where there is vast inequalities

03:40and vast waste.

03:42And lots of water shortage.

03:45And all of that together somehow is

03:49undermined that the fact that that can continue

03:52is partly a result of the fact that we

03:56have no public conversation about the right to water.

04:01I think the fact that water is something that is simply

04:07impossible to live without, and yet some people almost

04:10live without it, perforce, because they have so little

04:13access to it.

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