Biogas gives India energy choice - Asia - Al Jazeera English

Biogas gives India energy choice - Asia - Al Jazeera English

In the 1970s, Biogas plants were a major thrust in India as several governments tried promoting "Gobar Gas" plants as they were called then. ("Gobar" means dung in Hindi.) Dr Mayraj Fahim, a good friend and well-wisher of this blog, sent me this link on Al Jazeera television's website of a new indigenously designed miniature bio-gas plant which connects either to a source of cow waste or human waste as a user desires. Here's wishing that this becomes a much wider trend in a country where waste disposal (and sewage disposal in particular) is as good as non-existent.

A New Hydroponic Cultivation System that could have Huge Benefits for Indian Farmers

As someone who works increasingly with Japanese companies these days, this blogger has started to take a closer look at the clean technologies being developed in that country. This blogger was also deeply interested in (and experimented with) hydroponic cultivation as a student in the days when Moses wore shorts, like many Indians do. This article from The Asahi Shimbun features an intriguing new patented hydroponic cultivation system that is a halfway-house between traditional hydroponics and conventional agriculture. The stress is on the low costs of the system, something that has kept hydroponics in India confined to the state of West Bengal where James Douglas developed the Bengal System of Hydroponics in the 1950s. Debt-ridden to the extent where 60 farmers commit suicide every day, India's farmers cannot usually afford a substantial investment in tanks, lifting equipment etc that traditional hydroponic agriculture requires.

I shall try and get more information on the Okamoto system and post it here, but, in the meantime, visitors are welcome to check this article out. At the very least, I think this would address the annual conflict between my former home state of Tamilnadu in India and the neighboring state of Karnataka. To add icing to the cake, the Chinese have found the system very effective. India needs to look at it carefully too for that precise reason.