Currently, the temperature in India is too hot to mention. Temperatures in many places have gone above 45 degree Celcius. This time there seems to be abnormality in the climate. It has never been so hot in the past years. Moreover this year has brought in worst forms of climate. It started with the Tsunami, now its the hot and unbearable temperature.

When we had gone to Jabalpur recently and returned via the Singrauli, Chopan, Renukoot route (which is the industrial belt of central India), the temperature there was unbearable, and the railway coach had become unbearably hot. An interesting thing that I saw was this time a vagrant bard (those who make money by singing in trains) had twisted the Jai Jagdish Hare, the Hindu devotional song to Jai Amrish Puri, the villain of the Bollywood. Was it a creative twist?, but I would prefer to ascribe such twists to the heat of central India that has brought in non-sense in the heads of the people.

Whether it be central India or the East India, the heat wave is continuing throughout. Darjeeling, the spot to chill out during summers has recently recorded a temperature of 39 degree Celcius, while Asansol was 47.

Not much really to say about such anomalies of temperature, but all these climate change seems to be going in the worse direction. People and decision makers should seriously take the warnings given by environmentalists. It is equally important that to preserve our climate heritage that in some ways we hold as trust for the future generations, we should take the following steps:

1. Conserve water and not waste water
2. Use minimum electricity required, save electricity
3. Use public transport more than the private transport
4. Eat more vegetables and try to minimise the non-veg food
(animal meat consumes more environmental resources)
5. Try to be fit and natural and not take shelter in those artificial ACs
6. Avoid using plastics, and prefer bio-degradable material for such uses.
7. Plant a tree every month - also participate in such community initiatives.

In Jabalpur, in respect of planting of trees there is an innnovative movement that is going on. Every person is encouraged to plant tree on their Birthday. One can always find persons for each day of the year. As a community initiative, this is also developing community and environmental consciousness among the people.

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