Environment - Practice before you preach!

It’s a shame that we talk and blubber around asking other countries to reduce green house gas emissions and to be environmentally friendly when we as a nation are doing nothing in those grounds. Yes, we can plant a few trees, while chop three hundred more trees! Government’s plan to ‘plant a tree for every tree that’s cut’ is just jotted down in a piece of paper while no action is been taken on it.

The roads in the capital are full of garbage.. Chewing gums, suparis, killi... what not? No one is given advice or there is no media campaign to make our roads cleaner.. I had a talk with my friend about it and his reply was ‘Come on.. If I finish eating a supari, I had to keep it in my pocket until I go back home. There is not a single bin on the road..’

He might have a valid point, but still... is it that huge burden for us to carry it back to our home and throw it in the bin. These tiny habits could lead us to a cleaner, tidy and environmental place.

Habits such as to use a recycled bag for shopping instead of getting those plastic bags for each item we buy, to switch of lights and fans or A/C when we leave homes, to use recycled items, to buy our own local produced vegetables and fruits could be minor, but would yield to a greater positive impact on the environment.

The other thing everyone would notice is the amount of vehicles that are in the Maldives. Even though the taxes on motor bikes and cars are doubled the original price, everyone gets away with it by importing as a second hand car or bike.

All guys and girls would follow on the rule ‘to be a great guy or a girl, you need to have a motor bike or to have the latest mobile phone’. But on the reality we as a nation are contributing to the emission of green house gases.

Why can’t we walk or use a bicycle? It’s just a square kilometre.

Yes it’s true... Maldives might be wiped out from the maps of the world in the near future and we have to make the bigger emitters aware of the situation. But for sure, we have to straighten our habits and our life culture as well... Which we never do, so first let us practice it before we preach!

Photo by www.hrclean.org

Vacation!

Again, I just could not meet up with my promises of writing in my blog regularly...

Anyways I was back in Maldives for the SAFF Championship. Guess what? I finished my exams on 2^nd of June, flew on the same day and landed in Male’ International Airport on 3^rd June at 1420hrs. Got back home at 1500hrs and dumped my entire luggage at home and went straight to the stadium with my camera kit! It was the same story throughout my so called - VACATION. But who cares, I just did what I loved, sports photography and witnessed the best football tournament in the history of the Maldives!

The support for the national team was just overwhelming. With each goal that was scored, I wanted to jump, but was forced to calm myself, since I had the responsibility of catching the wonderful moment through my lens!

The euphoria of winning the tournament in the capital was just overwhelming. I was in the lorry with the players and they just could not imagine it, neither I could!. The republican square was painted in red and the long 4 hour journey through out the capital was just ecstatic.

I witnessed Portsmouth Football Club’s FA Cup win and the team’s march throughout the city and they were greeted with the whole city and I mentioned in maldivesoccer.com that BBC football pundit Alen Hansen mentioned ‘for Portsmouth, the knowledge that you've just won the FA Cup is simply one of the best feelings you can experience’.

But for Maldives, it would be the best feeling that would be treasured for our life time.

I got 14 days vacation of which I spent 5 days in Sri Lanka and then spent one whole day in Maldives before I had to fly back to Portsmouth and on the day I flew back, my mom said unhappily ‘Sinan, you could not spend a total of 24 hours with us’. Yes it was true, but then....

You could see some of my shots of the tournament in www.buggeephotos.com

EIA

Folks! Am really sorry for being laid back and the slow posting speed! In fact I have some thoughts of writing, but then it fades away with the political nature of our country! LOL... Hope it makes some sense...

Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) procedures have been paving its way into most of the projects that are running in not only in Maldives, but throughout the world. One thought just stroke into my mind during one of our lectures by Dr. Prem Wattage, a famous econometrician who has done studies in various parts of the world about valuing our resources and quantifying them.

Environmental Impact Assessments that are carried out identifies the threats and the damages that could cause to the environment and highlights how it could be minimised or stopped at some circumstances. The project is mostly given a go, cause of the net benefits we would get in terms of wealth, sometimes just forgetting our future generations. The main reasons are that in normal financial analysis, we ignore the environment and the recovery costs from the damages caused to the environment. Sometimes these are represented in hidden costs or totally ignored. Thus companies are faced with huge dilemmas when the environment surrounding them deteriorates.

It is difficult to assess the values of the environment especially to the Maldives, but there are methodologies that could be used to go around with it. I am not sure whether we know how much our resources are worth economically? Do you?

Easter trip

Well, it has been long since I wrote anything in my blog! It’s that I was not around in Portsmouth in the past few weeks and have been roaming around in the north of England. Met some interesting people, different characters and with different ideologies. After meeting them, it feels if they were given to run the government they could just run it with their fluent words of criticism. Most of them are anti government and the funny thing I noticed about it is that all of their talks and criticism yields to nothing as they don’t like all the political leaders.

About my trip to the north it was fantastic. There was this instance when the weather changed so dramatically in Liverpool. At one instance it was snowing, then it was cloudy, and then rained and in the next minute it was sunny and the sky was blue! You could just experience the British weather in just five minutes!

The contrast between the north and south is immense. In my opinion the south of England is much much better than the north, not that I am in the south. The north is less developed compared to the south and it is less clean. Some of my friends believe that the government gives higher priority to the south. It could be seen clearly in the BBC coverage of the recent storm in England. The day the storm hit the south of England, reporters brought the live coverage in fierce conditions. Meanwhile, two days later when the storm hit the North of England, there was no live coverage and was heavily criticised by the locals.

Anyways, now am back to studies after the long trip to Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. A special thanks to Afsal, dho and her hubby, aimi and uwa for their hospitality.

Entertainment! 21st century

Just a thought some of my friends shared some days back. Thought I would share it with you guys! The entertainment these days has changed from mere quality to people’s miseries. We laugh, we joke and we entertain ourselves from the miseries of other people.

For example: The American Idol searches for people and show up the most hilarious or the idiotic people to sing even though they know they don’t have a single chance to progress. On the other hand, Big Brother which shows just everything that people do in a closed house and I know some of my friends who sit in front of the Tally just waiting to see what happens next. In this year, one of the guys was doing IT himself and it was shown in newspapers and almost all the media! I just could not imagine how the entertainment has changed from mere talented young professionals to idiotic talents.

But that’s the entertainment of 21^st century and truthfully I do also laugh and joke about the idiotic behaviour shown in some of the programmes!

Valentine

It has been so long since I have posted anything in my blog. It’s just that after the trip to India, things were hectic. I just had a very tight schedule filled up with exams and assignments. After that during the one-week semester break, me and my class mates went to Isle of Wight, London and even went to fishing down the coast of Portsmouth. Even though the classes have resumed, this time I hope to continue to post one post a week. Let’s see how far I go..

During the weekend I went on a trip to London where we just explored different things in there including lives of Londoners, their expressions and the surroundings. The one thing I noticed is how much the whole place has been lived up to Valentines’ day. Everywhere you look at you would see things in red or either discounted for sale for Valentine’s Day. It’s one of the commercial events of a retailer like many other occasions such as Christmas. TV advertisements are full of hearts, shop windows are decorated with red, and even the Maldivian post has decided to post roses to celebrate the lover’s day!

Things evolving it might be wrong, but like many other such cases if your will is to express your feelings to your lover, what’s wrong with it? But for my liking, I would prefer to express my feelings on every day, not on a single day. But it’s just another day like Mother’s day, Father’s day or children’s day! Just a funny thought circulated in my head during a walk along the sea front!

Trip to India: Hindhu food or Muslim food

I just returned from a trip to India. It was a fantastic trip in many ways. A funny incident happened during the flight from Munich to Delhi in Lufthansa and would like to share it with you guys. I got a seat just near the toilets and the cabin crews’ area which made my whole flight miserable as people were roaming around making noises and you could hear the calls for flight attendants throughout the flight. During the 6 hours 45 minutes trip I could not sleep at all. Ok, let’s continue with the story. Just as I boarded the flight, two gentleman came over and asked an Indian cabin crew, apparently on her first flight

“I just changed my seat and I have asked for Hindhu food. Could you arrange it?”

The flight attendant responded calmly “Yes sir, it won’t be a problem. If you have asked for special food it won’t be a problem”

Then one of the guys asked the flight attendant disappointedly.

“No. I did not ask for special food. Even on the flight from Boston to here I ordered for Hindhu food and they just brought me Muslim food”

Confused flight attendant again said “Yes we can serve you Hindhu food. It won’t be a problem. We have vegetarian food”

Again the guy complained “It’s not vegetarian food I’m asking. Can you ask your superior to arrange Hindhu food for me?”

At that moment, the flight captain on the speakers said that they are ready for take-off and the two gentlemen went to their seats meanwhile the confused flight attendant went over to her superior.

An Indian guy sitting next to me, who was also confused asked me “Is there Hindhu food or Muslim food?”

I said “I don’t know!”