Iceland Set to Help India Use Geothermal EnergyT

The Smart Planet blog has this very interesting story about the tiny nation of Iceland offering India help in developing Geothermal Energy at 340 locations in the country. My old friend the Kodaikanal based artist Eddie Joseph has been a regular visitor to Iceland where he paints and works on the fishing fleets every summer and he and I have had many a conversation in the past about this little country that he loves. I do think that this would be a good area for the Government of India to look at - India has a huge requirement for energy and if geothermal energy can be harnessed at 340 locations in the country, it could be vastly better than sending Indian money overseas to import coal or oil. May this incentive succeed!

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.

Back After a Long Break With Some Hopefully Good News

I have not been blogging for a while - like all bloggers, I did run into a brief blogging-block. Hopefully, this is now past and I can start writing again. In any case, here is some hopefully positive news about an airline that I will never travel on: Air India. Let's hope that the purchase of the Eco Power washing system is the beginning of a chain of positive developments and improvements at Air India. Yes, I am a cynic about India's national airline for reasons that are too long for me to go into over here, but then, if something good occurrs, I am most happy to accept it.

Hope to see you around here regularly in the future!