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.

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!

50% suffer kidney ailments | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-04-21

50% suffer kidney ailments | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-04-21

One more extreme horror from Andhra Pradesh that has implications far beyond the farmers and their families who are suffering from kidney ailments due to an overuse of pesticides. I wonder if those who eat this rice well beyond Andhra's borders are aware of what they are consuming as well? Or, if there are studies that show how many people are infected with these dangerous pesticides as consumers in the end? Thanks to the Deccan Chronicle for highlighting this fact in India. Under normal circumstances, the first that any Indian would have heard about this would have been when some Wessetrn country decided to ban Sona Masuri or some other type of rice grown in Andhra from sale and importation.

In India, the law allows "permissible quantities" of rat shit to be included in rice that is sold for human consumption. My guess is that the Food Ministry (whose head seems more interested in furthering his daughter's political career and in running the cricket board than in ensuring that food in India is safe) simply doesn't care about this slow poisoning of the Indian population.

Shame on you, Government of India! The Indian people deserve better!

Forbes: Over the Next 7 Years, 50% of India's Coal Will come from Overseas

This is an article that offers both promise as well as some major cautions: Forbes magazine takes a close look at the fact that 50% of India's coal is going to be imported about 7 years from now. On the most basic level, this means $ 40 billion a year lost in foreign exchange because of this terrible addiction. Look a little beyond that, and it means much worse - not only is this money going up, quite literally, in smoke, this also means that the air is going to be polluted with sulfur and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide at the very least, water drawn to cool the coal based powerplants will also be contaminated and when this water is released into the sea or into the river system, some of the contaminants will return to contaminate the soil in the country. A frightening state of affairs to say the very least.

I am not sure what can be done - motivated "experts" like the stupid N N Sachitanand whom I have talked about here, have been touting nonsense about some renewable energy technologies which are being successfully used elsewhere. India has a huge coastline which makes offshore wind a very real and viable possibility. The country is bathed in sunlight and this is, fortunately, an area where the government is doing something - the 13th Plan is looking hard at addressing the deficiency in installed solar capacity. As the country grows to be more prosperous, it is going to require more power. Hopefully, India will wean itself from its coal addiction asap. This is a direction that is not going to end in a comfortable journey, wherever it takes the country.

Let's ROB Video

The video explains the motivation that brings youngsters out every weekend in Chennai to clean the beaches up. Yes, this is the same group about whom I can't write enough: Let's ROB.

If you're in Chennai, please try and volunteer when you can. If you're not, then please let your friends in Chennai know about this group.
Thanks!

Let's ROB on NDTV HIndu News

YouTube - ndtvhindu's Channel

The other group that I follow, Let's ROB, has also found itself in the news in India with one of their young volunteers interviewed along with other young people who have been working as environmental activists in Chennai. I think this is a wonderful acknowledgment of the hard work being put in by people with both their hearts and minds in the right place. Now, if only this spirit could be conveyed to the powers that be, this very blog may not have a reason to criticize some of what goes wrong in India. Perhaps, the older folk (this blogger included among them) need to look at the younger people with more trust and confidence.