Nisarg Shah....a Green Man

India Investology: Global Challengers 2011

2011-10-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

India Investology: Global Challengers 2011: Earlier this year BCG (Boston Consulting Group) came up with BCG Global Challengers 100 list, rising stars from rapidly developing economies...

Article on Late sitting.....Sir Narayan Murthy

2010-02-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

Very Good Article on Late sitting

Email from the boss

Mail sent by Narayan Murthy to all Infosys staff:

It's half past 8 in the office but the lights are still on...

PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing...

And who's at work? Most of them ??? Take a closer look....

All or most specimens are ??

Something male species of the human race...

Look closer... again all or most of them are bachelors.........

And why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!!!

Any guesses???

Let's ask one of them...

Here's what he says... 'What's there 2 do after going home...Here we get to

surf, AC, phone, food, coffee that is why I am working late...Importantly no

bossssssss!!!!!!!!!!!'

This is the scene in most research centers and software companies and other

off-shore offices.

Bachelors 'Passing-Time' during late hours in the office just bcoz they say

they've nothing else to do...

Now what r the consequences...

'Working' (for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the

institute or company culture.

With bosses more than eager to provide support to those 'working' late in

the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback, (oh,

he's a hard worker... goes home only to change..!!).

They aren't helping things too...

To hell with bosses who don't understand the difference between 'sitting'

late and 'working' late!!!

Very soon, the boss start expecting all employees to put in extra working

hours.

So, My dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when u get married and

start having a family.... office is no longer a priority, family is... and

That's when the problem starts... b'coz u start having commitments at home

too.

For your boss, the earlier 'hardworking' guy suddenly seems to become a

'early leaver' even if u leave an hour after regular time... after doing the

same amount of work.

People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labelled as

work-shirkers...

Girls who thankfully always (its changing nowadays... though) leave on time

are labelled as 'not up to it'. All the while, the bachelors pat their own

backs and carry on 'working' not realizing that they r spoiling the work

culture at their own place and never realize that they would have to regret

at one point of time.

So what's the moral of the story??

* Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!!

* Never put in extra time ' unless really needed '

* Don't stay back unnecessarily and spoil your company work culture which

will in turn cause inconvenience to you and your colleagues.

There are hundred other things to do in the evening..

Learn music...

Learn a foreign language...

Try a sport... TT, cricket.........

Importantly,get a girl friend or boy friend, take him/her around town...

* And for heaven's sake, net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low

(plus, no

fire-walls) and try cooking for a change.

Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad: *'Life's calling, where are you??'*

Please pass on this message to all those colleagues and please do it before

leaving time, don't stay back till midnight to forward this!!!

IT'S A TYPICAL INDIAN MENTALITY THAT WORKING FOR LONG HOURS MEANS VERY HARD

WORKING & 100% COMMITMENT ETC.

PEOPLE WHO REGULARLY SIT LATE IN THE OFFICE DON'T KNOW TO MANAGE THEIR TIME.

SIMPLE !

Regards,

NARAYAN MURTHY.

Entrepreneurship is always social.....

2010-02-27T10:11:00.001-08:00

Over the past decade or so, the term social entrepreneur has become a fashionable way of describing individuals and organizations that, in their attempts at large-scale change, blur the traditional boundaries between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Given the ceaseless appearance of innovations and new institutional forms, we should welcome a new term that allows us to think systematically about a still-emergent field.

One danger, however, is that the use of the modifier social will diminish the contributions of regular entrepreneurs—that is, people who create new companies and then grow them to scale. In the course of doing business as usual, these regular entrepreneurs create thousands of jobs, improve the quality of goods and services available to consumers, and ultimately raise standards of living. Indeed, the intertwined histories of business and health in the United States suggests that all entrepreneurship is social entrepreneurship. The pantheon of model social entrepreneurs should thus include names such as railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, meatpacking magnate Gustavus Swift, and software tycoon Bill Gates.

THE STEW OF POVERTY

People tend to think that advancements in health care, for example, are the achievements of either government or the social sector. More recently, they note how the work of social entrepreneurs is improving population health, particularly in developing countries.

Yet the experience of the United States demonstrates that business entrepreneurs have done as much—if not more—for American health in the past century and a half as did medicine or public health. In the middle of the 19th century, most of the U.S. population was ridiculously poor by today’s standards. Americans not only had low incomes, but also spent the bulk of their money on life’s basics: food, clothing, and shelter. What they purchased, moreover, was of questionable quality. Because there was no refrigeration or ability to transport foods over long distances, most people subsisted on a kind of stew that, by all accounts, was simple and tasteless. A poor diet meant poor nutrition, which meant poor health.

Clothing was also neither plentiful nor desirable. With little production of new clothing, the average American wore the same clothes over and over again. And they seldom washed these clothes—or themselves—because they lacked indoor plumbing. This was not the only failing of American homes: They were often poorly ventilated, meaning that most people’s lungs labored to breathe air made dirty by cooking and heating fires.

Because of these poor conditions, Americans’ lives were short, and their deaths were usually caused by disease. Yet since 1850, life expectancy for Americans has risen remarkably quickly, from below 50 years to 78 years today. Likewise, annual mortality rates have plummeted, from around 23 deaths per 1,000 people in 1850 to eight in 2009, with infant mortality markedly falling. Meanwhile, infectious diseases have receded as a primary cause of death.

Many factors played a role in these changes, from improvements in sanitation to upticks in education. (The practice of medicine played a noticeably small role here and, in fact, probably did more harm than good for many years.) But one important factor is often overlooked: the increased consumption of higher-quality goods and services. As entrepreneurs invented and distributed these improved goods and services, they deserve considerable credit for the rise in Americans’ health and longevity.

THE ENGINES OF WELL-BEING

One innovation that fueled prosperity, well-being, and further innovation was the American railroad system. The spread of railroads in the 19th century permitted something nearly unprecedented in human history: conquest of the weather. Better movement of people and goods reduced the vulnerability of the population (especially in rural areas, which still dominated the country) to cyclical vagaries. Even in the depths of winter, consumers could purchase food from afar.

The food people ate improved dramatically as well. Long-distance transportation of food required advances in refrigeration and canning. Gustavus Swift pioneered the refrigerated railroad car and built a meatpacking company that was, at one point, among the largest American companies in terms of gross revenue. As a result, consumption of meat, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables increased. No longer were Americans consigned to eating an unappetizing stew.

Railroads also facilitated the rise of large-scale national companies and allowed a geographically disparate country to purchase new and better goods and services. Consider, for example, the contributions to American health and welfare made by just two companies: Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. Their first catalogs were only single sheets of paper, but in short order they grew to include thousands of items. By making products such as iceboxes and better farm tools widely available, these companies empowered Americans to improve their lives.

Similarly, factory production of clothing and its national distribution in new department stores—created by men such as Harry Selfridge, Alexander Stewart, and John Wanamaker—reduced prices and increased access. Economists have estimated that from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, the real value of goods and services available to the average American increased by 700 percent.

The cascade of goods available to everyday consumers continued in the 20th century. The Dallas Federal Reserve has chronicled the steep declines in the amount of work Americans had to perform to afford staples like chicken, eggs, and milk. In 1919, for example, an American had to work 10 hours to afford a basket of 12 food items. By 1997, the work time required to purchase this food basket had fallen to two hours.

The falling costs and increasing quality of food, clothing, and shelter made Americans healthier and more resistant to disease. Accordingly, stature and life expectancy have risen at unprecedented rates from the late 19th century forward.

The lesson of this brief history is not that entrepreneurs can singlehandedly solve all the world’s problems. Public health measures such as establishing regular trash collection and building reliable infrastructures for clean water played vital roles in improving American health, as did scientific research in areas such as vitamins and vaccines. But we would be remiss if we did not count people such as Vanderbilt, Swift, and Wanamaker as social entrepreneurs.

Today, we might also count as social entrepreneurs people such as Bill Gates—in his capacity as Microsoft founder rather than as philanthropist—as well as the late Don Fisher, cofounder of the Gap. Through his dogged pursuit of a vision of personal computing, Gates has revolutionized work and communication across the world. The impact on relationships and quality of life has been considerable. Meanwhile, the Gap has democratized high-quality clothing.

Entrepreneurs typically generate a surplus benefit above and beyond the profits they reap, finds the eminent Yale University economist William Nordhaus. Nordhaus has calculated that entrepreneurs capture only about 2 percent of this surplus, with the remainder passed on to society in the form of jobs, wages, and value. By creating so much value that does not accrue to themselves, regular entrepreneurs are also social entrepreneurs.

CALLING ALL ENTREPRENEURS

What might be today’s equivalent of the railroad and its beneficial social impact? Diseases continue to plague most developing countries, so it is understandable that alleviation of them attracts the attention of social sector organizations (although there is considerable debate over whether these organizations are devoting enough attention to the right diseases). Yet it very well could be the case that the most transformative event in the economic trajectory of developing countries is not the spread of vaccines, but the spread of cell phones.

Cell phones cannot cure diseases, but they can spur the development of new business models, new companies, new technologies, and, thus, economic growth. Among businesses, cell phones also facilitate the scaling up of networks, firms, and innovations. They allow people to dream big, rather than focusing only on staying afloat. Several studies in the past few years have found that a 10 percent increase in cell phone penetration in developing countries would increase the annual growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly 1 percentage point. If that does not sound like much, consider that a country growing by 2 percent per year would double its per capita income in 36 years. If its growth rate rose to 3 percent, income would double in 24 years. At 4 percent per year, wealth per person would double in only 18 years. The economic multiplier effect of cell phones is enormous.

Such growth would in turn improve health and nutrition by allowing people to consume better goods and services. As Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, has observed, “income is the best medicine.”

This is not to say that public health and vaccination are unimportant in developing countries—far from it. But in the coming decades, it will be regular entrepreneurs—those who start and grow companies—who will be lauded for their role in improving society. Specific individuals and firms stand behind the technological innovations that make growth possible. Entrepreneurs, it turns out, are good for your health.

CV of Manmohan Singh....the most qualified Prime Minister in the World

2010-02-23T22:03:00.000-08:00

CURRICULUM VITAE

DR. MANMOHAN SINGH

PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

ACADEMIC RECORD

1962 D. Phil., Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Topic: India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth. [Published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964]

1957 Economic Tripos [First Class honours], University of Cambridge

1954 M.A. Economics, Panjab University – First Class with first position in the University

1952 B.A. Economics(Hons.), Panjab University – Second Class with first position in the University

1950 Intermediate Panjab University – First Class with first position in the University

1948 Matriculation, Panjab University – First class

PRIZES AND AWARDS

2000 Conferred Annasaheb Chirmule Award by the W.LG. alias Annasaheb Chirmule Trust setup by United Western Bank Limited, Satara, Maharashtra

1999 Received H.H. Kanchi Sri Paramacharya Award for Excellence from Shri R. Venkataraman, former President of India and Patron, The Centenarian Trust

1999 Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences,New Delhi.

1997 Conferred Lokmanya Tilak Award by the Tilak Smarak Trust, Pune

1997 Received Justice K.S. Hegde Foundation Award for the year 1996

1997 Awarded Nikkei Asia prize for Regional Growth by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun Inc. (NIKKEI), publisher of Japan’s leading business daily

1996 Honorary Professor, Delhi School of Economics,University of Delhi, Delhi

1995 Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award of the Indian Science Congress Association for 1994-95

1994 Asiamoney Award, Finance Minister of the Year

1994 Elected Distinguished Fellow, London School of Economics, Centre for Asia Economy, Politics and Society

1994 Elected Honorary Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K.

1994 Honorary Fellow, All India Management Association

1993 Euromoney Award, Finance Minister of the year

1993 Asiamoney Award, Finance Minister of the Year

1987 Padma Vibhushan Award by the President of India

1986 National Fellow, national Institute of Education, N.C.E.R.T.

1985 Elected President, Indian economic Association

1982 Elected Honorary Fellow, st. John’s College, Cambridge,

1982 Elected Honorary Fellow, Indian Institute of bankers

1976 Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

1957 Elected Wrenbury Scholar, University of Cambridge, U.K.

1955 Awarded Wright’s Prize for distinguished performance, & St. John’s college, Cambridge, U.K.

1956 Awarded Adam Smith Prize, University of Cambridge, U.K.

1954 Uttar Chand Kapur Medal, Panjab university, for standing first in M.A.(Economics), panjab University, Chandigarh

1952 University Medal for standing First in B.A. Hon.(Economics), panjab University, Chandigarh

Recipient of Honorary Degrees of D.Litt. from :

- Panjab University, Chandigarh

- Guru Nanak University, Amritsar

- Delhi University, delhi

- Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupathi

- University of Bologna, Italy

- University of Mysore, Mysore

- Chaudhary charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (D.Sc)

- Kurukshetra University

- Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, patiala (D.Sc)

- Nagarjuna University, Nagarjunanagar

- Osmania University, Hyderabad

- University of Roorkee, Roorkee (Doctor of Social Sciences)

- Doctor of Laws by the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

- Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University (formerly Agra University) - Doctor Letters degree

- Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (Deemed University) D.Sc. (Honoris Causa)

- Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur

WORK EXPERIENCE AND POSITIONS HELD

May 22, 2004 – till date: Prime Minister of India

March 21, 1998 – May 22,2004: Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha (Council of States) Parliament of India

June, 2001: Re-elected as member of Rajya Sabha for a Term of six years

August 1, 1996 - Dec 4, 1997: Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, Rajya Sabha

June 21, 1991- May 15, 1996: Finance Minister of India

June, 1995: Re-elected Member of Rajya Sabha for a term of six years

September, 1991: Elected Member of Rajya Sabha

March 1991-June 1991: Chairman, University Grants Commission

Dec 1990 – March 1991: Advisor to Prime Minister of India on Economic Affairs

August 1987 – Nov 1990: Secretary General and Commissioner, South Commission

Jan 1985- July 1987: Dy. Chairman, Planning Commission of India

Sept 1982 – Jan 1985: Governor, Reserve Bank of India

April 1980 – Sept 1982: Member-Secretary, Planning Commission, India

Nov.1976 – April 1980: Secretary, Ministry of Finance

Dept. of Economic Affairs,

Government of India

Member [Finance], Atomic Energy

Commission, Govt. of India

Member[Finance], Space Commission, Govt. of India

1972 – 1976: Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, India

1971 – 1972: Economic Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India

1969 – 1971: Professor of International Trade, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India

1966 – 1969: UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat, New York

Chief, Financing for Trade Section

1966 : Economic Affairs Officer

1957 – 1965 : Panjab University, Chandigarh

1963-65 : Professor of Economics

1959-63 : Reader in Economics

1957-59:Senior Lecturer in economics

OTHER ASSIGNMENTS

Leader of the Indian delegation to the Commonwealth

Heads of Government Meeting, Cyprus (1993)

Leader of the Indian delegation to the Human Rights World Conference, Vienna (1993)

Governor of India on the Board of Governors of the IMF and the International Bank of Reconstruction & Development (1991-95)

Appointed by Prime Minister of India as Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime minister (1983-84)

Chairman, India Committee of the Indo-japan ;Joint Study Committee (1980-83)

- Leader, Indian Delegation to :

Indo-Soviet Monitoring Group Meeting (1982)

Indo-Soviet Joint Planning Group Meeting (1980- 82)

Aid India Consortium Meetings (1977-79)

- Member Indian Delegation to :

South-South Consultation, New Delhi (1982)

Cancun Summit on North-South Issues (1981)

Aid-India Consortium Meetings, Paris (1973-79)

Annual Meetings of IMF, IBRD & Commonwealth Finance Ministers (1972-79)

Third Session of UNCTAD, Santiago (April-May 1972)

Meetings of UNCTAD Trade & Development Board, Geneva (May 1971 – July 1972)

Ministerial Meeting of Group of 77, Lima (Oct.1971)

- Deputy for India on IMF Committee of Twenty on International Monetary Reform (1972 – 74)

- Associate, Meetings of IMF Interim Committee and Joint Fund-Bank Development Committee (1976-80, 1982-85)

- Alternate Governor for India, Board of Governors of IBRD (1976-80)

- Alternate Governor for India, Board of Governors of the IMF (1982-85)

- Alternate Governor for India, Board of Governors, Asian Development Bank, Manila (1976-80)

- Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-80)

- Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976- 80)

- Participated in Commonwealth Prime Ministers Meeting, Kingston (1975)

- Represented Secretary;-General UNCTAD at several inter-governmental meetings including :

Second Session of UNCTAD, 1968

Committee on Invisibles & Financing Related to Trade, Consultant to UNCTAD, ESCAP and Commonwealth Secretariat

- Member, International Organizations :

Appointed as Member by the Secretary-General, United Nations of a Group of Eminent Persons to advise him on Financing for Development (December, 2000) PUBLICATIONS

(i) Author of book “India’s Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth” [Clarendon Press, Oxford University, 1964]

(ii) Have published a large number of articles in economic journals

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

S/o. Shri Gurmukh Singh

Born on 26^thSeptember, 1932

Married in 1958 to Smt. Gursharan Kaur

Have three daughters

'India a better model than China'

2010-02-18T11:54:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK: India's long-term potential may be greater than China's as the communist giant faces a shrinking work force due to its one child policy, according to a leading American business weekly.

"I believe India has a better model than China, and over time will surpass it in growth," Chief Economist William T Wilson of consultancy Keystone Business Intelligence India said.

Also experts point out China's lack of innovation in industry and its tendency to be wasteful while marching on the growth path can prove to be a major drawback in the next couple of decades.

China 's working-age population will peak at 1 billion in 2015 and then shrink steadily. China then will have to provide for a graying population that has limited etirement benefits

By mid-century, India is expected to have 1.6 billion people - and 220 million more workers than China.

"That could be a source for instability, but a great advantage for growth if the government can provide education and opportunity for India's masses," says Business Week online

Painting a rosy picture, it said New Delhi is just now pushing to open its power, telecom, commercial real estate and retail sectors to foreigners which could lure big capital inflows.

"The pace of institutional changes and the industries being liberalised is phenomenal," it quoted Wilson as saying.

For its part China has yet to prove it can go beyond forced-march industrialization. China directs massive investment into public works and factories, a successful formula for rapid growth and job creation.

"But considering its massive manufacturing output, China is surprisingly weak in innovation. A full 57 per cent of exports are from foreign-invested factories, and China underachieves in software," it adds.

"China has a lot of capability," says Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Craig Mundie. "But when you look under the covers, there is not a lot...

What are Carbon Credits??

2010-02-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

In step with the dramatic rise in C0₂emissions and other pollutants in recent years, a variety of new financial markets have emerged, offering businesses key incentives — aside from taxes and other punitive measures — to slow down overall emissions growth and, ideally, global warming itself.

A key feature of these markets is emissions trading, or cap-and-trade schemes, which allow companies to buy or sell “credits” that collectively bind all participating companies to an overall emissions limit. While markets operate for specific pollutants such as greenhouse gases and acid rain, by far the biggest emissions market is for carbon. In 2007, the trade market for C0₂ credits hit $60 billion worldwide — almost double the amount from 2006.allowance, that company can sell the difference — in the form of credits — to other companies that exceed their limits. Another fast-growing voluntary model is carbon offsets. In this global market, a set of middlemen companies, called offset firms, estimate a company’s emissions and then act as brokers by offering opportunities to invest in carbon-reducing projects around the world. Unlike carbon trading, offsetting isn’t yet government regulated in most countries; it’s up to buyers to verify a project’s environmental worth. In theory, for every ton of C0₂emitted, a company can buy certificates attesting that the same amount of greenhouse gas was removed from the atmosphere through renewable energy projects such as tree planting.

Why It Matters Now

Industry watchers say carbon markets will continue to grow at a fast clip — especially in the United States, where Fortune 500 powerhouses such as DuPont, Ford, and IBM are voluntarily capping and trading their emissions. Even though a national cap on carbon emissions doesn’t yet exist in the United States, most consider it inevitable, and legislators are already pushing the issue in Congress.

It’s not just governments who are demanding emissions compliance — consumers want it, too. The commitment a company makes to curb its pollutant output is an increasingly public aspect of strategy. More and more employees are taking these factors into account when deciding where to work. A recent study from MonsterTRAK found that 80 percent of young professionals want their work to impact the environment in a positive way, and 92 percent prefer to work for an environmentally friendly company.

Why It Matters to You

Let’s say a company can’t afford to modify its operations to reduce C0₂. Purchasing carbon credits or offsets buys it time to figure out how to operate within C0₂ limits. For others, it can be a cost-effective tool to help lower emissions while earning public praise for the effort. Each credit a company buys on the Chicago Climate Exchange — usually for about $2 — means another company will remove the equivalent of one metric ton of carbon.

The Advantages

Companies in different industries face dramatically different costs to lower their emissions. A market-based approach allows companies to take carbon-reducing measures that everyone can afford. “The private sector is better at developing diversified approaches to manage the costs and risks [of reducing emissions],” says Jesse Fahnestock, spokesman at Swedish power company Vattenfall, which is a member of a global Combat Climate Change coalition.

Reducing emissions and lowering energy consumption is usually good for the core business. For example, in 1997 British energy company BP committed to bring its emissions down to 10 percent below 1990 levels. After taking simple steps like tightening valves, changing light bulbs, and improving operations efficiency, BP implemented an internal cap-and-trade scheme and met its emissions goal by the end of 2001 — nine years ahead of schedule. Using the combined C0₂ reduction strategy, BP reported saving about $650 million.

Then there’s the long-term investment angle: Buying into the carbon market boom now suggests significant dividends later on. Carbon credits are relatively cheap now, but their value will likely rise, giving companies another reason to participate.

The Disadvantages

As with any financial market, emissions traders are vulnerable to significant risk and volatility. The EU’s trading scheme (EU-ETS), for instance, issued so many permits between 2005 and 2007 that it flooded the market. Supply soared and carbon prices bottomed out, removing incentives for companies to trade. Enforcement of trading rules can be just as unpredictable, though Fahnestock says the EU is working to correct the problems.

Carbon offsets have their own drawbacks, which reflect a fast-growing and unregulated market. Some offset firms in the United States and abroad have been caught selling offsets for normal operations that do not actually take any additional C0₂out of the atmosphere, such as pumping C0₂ into oil wells to force out the remaining crude. In 2008 the Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association, and the World Economic Forum will work to develop a Voluntary Carbon Standard to verify that offsetting projects are beyond business-as-usual and have lasting environmental value.

The lack of offset regulations has also made marketing problematic. Recently, companies have taken to declaring themselves “carbon neutral.” But until the Federal Trade Commission determines the guidelines for such terms, it’s unclear which companies actually merit the distinction. Already Vail Resorts, the organizers of the Academy Awards, and other organizations have taken heat for touting their investments in carbon offset projects that were not entirely environmentally sound.

Key Players

Bank of America is a leader in carbon-reduction strategies. The bank recently launched a $20 billion, 10-year initiative to finance emission-reduction projects, invest in green technology, and facilitate carbon-credit trading.

BP is among the most well-known companies to implement an internal cap-and-trade system. The company assigned its 150 units an emissions quota and allowed them to buy and sell carbon credits among themselves.

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the mandatory cap-and-trade program for the EU.

The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is a U.S. carbon-trading scheme in which companies make a voluntary but legally binding commitment to meet emissions targets.

Improving Democratic Climate....directly from Narendra Modi...

2010-02-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

Friends,

This is a bridge, rather than a blog, A bridge that connects us through thoughts, through feelings. A bridge that also leads me to actions. While global warming creates negative effects, heart warming creates positive effects. Heart warming does not require any global summit, this bridge would suffice.

Winter is a season to attain good health, whether of self or of democracy. The health of democracy is based on 'vote of all the people'. The bond of rights & duties between the people and government would strengthen if all the people vote in elections, the axis of democracy. The democracy would become more soulful, more complete. Our goal should be to achieve 100 percent voting. Pale voting indicates pale democracy. Such a situation would imbalance the democratic climate.

But the responsibility to avert such a situation is ours. Hence, the Govt. of Gujarat has passed a bill in the Assembly, providing for compulsory voting in the elections of local self government institutions. This is a revolutionary step in the history of independent India. According to this, the citizens will have to compulsorily vote in the elections of village panchayats, taluka and district panchayats and municipal bodies. If the voter does not wish to vote for any of the candidates, he can do negative voting. Non-voters would be issued a notice from the State Election Commission.

Gujarat has taken a lead in improving the health of Indian democracy. This would make our democracy 'voter oriented' and 'citizen oriented'. Also, it would put an end to futile discussions of drawing room politics. I clearly believe that compulsory voting will become a major motivational force for the youth of the nation. Higher the voting, more the accountability of the government. Ultimately, this would serve as an overall public interest.

Moreover, the bill also provides for 50 percent reservation for women candidates in the elections of local bodies. This step would leverage the process of women's equality and women's empowerment.

It would be my pleasure to read your thoughts and comments on this initiative of improving democratic climate. Like rights & duties, thoughts & actions are also two sides of the same coin.

Let's take a break here, albeit, to think and to act.

Yours,

Narendra Modi and his achievements

2010-02-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Economic and Industrial Achievements............

Cargo handled by ports in Gujarat in last 6 years: 5917 lakh mts (2945 in prev 20 years)
Rs 50967 crores sales tax in last 6 years, (Rs 49611 cr in prev 41 years). No hike in taxes!
Octroi Abolished.
Revenue deficit decreased from 7200 cr in 2003 to 343 cr in 2006.
Employment through industries saw a jump of more than 400% compared to 2002 Oct!
Road development worth Rs 4783 Cr in last 6 years ( Rs 3484 Cr in previous 41 years!)
302 investment proposals to the tune of Rs 1,72,000 crores - 84% of these proposals implemented or are under active implementation process.
Ahmedabad is now a mega city and several world-class projects have been put on the fast track including the Sabarmati Riverfront Development and Bus Rapid Transit System
.
Percentage of man-days lost in Gujarat due to labour strife is just 0.52% - the lowest in the country.

Modi's relentless efforts helped setting up two LNG terminals - one by LNG Petronet at Dahej and another by Shell at Hazira, operations commenced!
The Planning Commission had set a target growth rate of 10.2% for Gujarat compared to average of 8.2% for the country; Gujarat achieved a growth rate of 15% in the 1st yr

Since last 3 years, development expenditure is more than the non-development expenditure in Gujarat, which is an unusual phenomenon

Gujarat ranks No. 1 in The Economic Freedom Index as per the research conducted by The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Modi No.1 Chief Minister, thrice consecutively in five years in
India

Educational Achievements

Number of seats in technical institutions have more than doubled in last 6 years.
Modi deposits each and every gift/souvenir received by him in the government treasury for the cause of girl child education Within a span of 41 years, his 13 predecessors had deposited a meagre amount of
Rs.4.55 lacs, whereas the present Chief Minister has deposited Rs.287.37 lacs in a period of 5 years.
In 2006-07, the dropout rate of girl child has dwindled to 3.68 from 20.81 in 2000-01. Vidyalaxmi bond of Rs. 1000/- given to girl students who take admission to the 1st std and 8th std. The girl receives the amount of bond with interest on completion of std 7th and 10th respectively. This ensures higher retention rate.

11 new universities, 400 new colleges, 1.25 lakh new teachers, 38,000 new schoolrooms.
Campaign for imparting English education.
Fortification of food with folic acid. Due to these and other reforms, the number of children suffering from anemia and night blindness has decreased.
New Fast trak evening court started for solving lakhs of pending cases in various courts. A unique intiative of its kind across india
.

Agricultural achievements.......

The state is now also known for roses, strawberries, organic products and above all bio-diesel.
108% hike in horticulture production in last 5 years
Annual growth average of Agricultural GSDP in last 6 years has been 12.87%,(3.74% in previous 10 years)
Yet another initiative unique to Gujarat is the Krishi Mahotsav. The Agricultural Festival is a knowledge sharing rendezvous of the farming community, a month-long event that brings together the farming community, the government officials, the scientists and many more connected with agriculture. Guidance by agricultural scientists to 14,50,655 farmers.

Personal counselling to 6,74,416 farmers and Guidance by APMC to 1,66,615 farmers.
Distribution of 1,42,711 Agriculture Kits and 1,36,773 Horticulture Kits
Distribution of 1,00,000 Animal Husbandry Kits and 98,827 Kisan Credit Cards
Implementation of All-Village Employment Scheme in 10,172 villages.
Vaccination of 48.8 Lac cattle and Agricultural sowing organized in 18,719 villages

Energy Achievements........

Increase in the plant load factor, decrease in T&D losses.
Biggest CNG and LNG infrastructure in the country.
Gujarat emerging as petro-capital of the country
Gujarat now provides 24 hours electricity to all its 18000+ villages. 1st of its kind in India.

State electricity board which had a loss of 1932 cr in 2003 , now had a profit of 180 cr !
Wind power installed capacity which was 119.49MW till 2003 is now 568.49MW!

Water Achievements...

Number of villages depending on tankers for water came down from 4054 in 2001 to 185.
Linking the villages with a State Wide Water Grid.
Interlinking of 21 rivers of the states.
Near completion of Sardar Sarovar Project with benefits of water and electricity reaching 500km away from the dam.
Creation of 2.25 lakh new water bodies by constructing check-dams and farm ponds.

Other Achievements.....

Almost 1000 Gynecologists provide free services to antenatal mothers on 9th day of each month.
67 Evening Courts started since November 2006. 1,16,000 cases have been disposed off!
Gujarat has made e-Governance functional in all its 141 municipalities. All 14,000 gram panchayats have been made e-grams. Lesser corruption

Gujarat is the first state to implement the unique concept of river interlinking
Constitution of Chetak Commando to contain terrorism.
Freeing illegally held fishermen languishing in Pakistan jails
Implementing the Gujcoc law to make the police force more effective,
Enacting law to check forceful conversion.
Setting up all-women police station in every district.

This is the time to support our CM Mr. Modi....

Why India needs Narendra Modi?

2010-02-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

In this blog I am writing this post on Politics. However it is not related to this blog theme, but as I am Indian I would like to share my readings on one of the prominent leader in India.

I am watching this congress government for the past many years, one thing I have noticed is Rich people getting richer and poor always poor. Also laws are misused in many places. This is the time we have to think about India’s future and encourage farmers and increase the productivity.

I read one nice article about Narendra Modi, who done a great job in Gujarat. He will be the good candidate for the next PM post. This article written by Suhel Seth in finanacial express

: Let me begin with a set of disclosures: I have perhaps written more articles against Modi and his handling of the post-Godhra scenario than most people have; I have called him a modern-day Hitler and have always said that Godhra shall remain an enduring blemish not just on him but on India’s political class. I still believe that what happened in Gujarat during the Godhra riots is something we as a nation will pay a heavy price for. But the fact is that time has moved on. As has Narendra Modi. He is not the only politician in India who has been accused of communalism. It is strange that the whole country venerates the Congress Partyas the secular messiah but it was that party that presided over the riots in 1984 in which over 3,500 Sikhs died: thrice the number killed in Gujarat.
The fact of the matter is that there is no better performer than Narendra Modi in India’s political structure. Three weeks ago, I had gone to Ahmedabad to address the YPO and I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with Modi. I called him the evening before and I was given an appointment for the very day I was getting into Ahmedabad. And it was not some official meeting but instead one at his house. As frugal as the man Modi is.
And this is something that the Gandhis and Mayawatis need to learn from Modi. There were no fawning staff members; no secretaries running around; no hangers on…just the two of us with one servant who was there serving tea. And what was most impressive was the passion which Modi exuded. The passion for development; the passion for an invigorated Gujarat; the passion for the uplifting the living standards of the people in his state and the joy with which he recounted simple yet memorable data-points. For instance, almost all of the milk consumed in Singapore is supplied by Gujarat; or for that matter all the tomatoes that are eaten in Afghanistan are produced in Gujarat or the potatoes that Canadians gorge on are all farmed in Gujarat. But it was industry that was equally close to
his heart.
It was almost like a child, that he rushed and got a coffee table book on GIFT: the proposed Gujarat Industrial City that will come up on the banks of the Sabarmarti: something that will put the Dubais and the Hong Kongs of this world to shame. And while on the Sabarmati, it is Modi who has created the inter-linking of rivers so that now the Sabarmati is no longer dry.
He then spoke about how he was very keen that Ratan Tata sets up the Nano plant in Gujarat: he told me how he had related the story of the Parsi Navsari priests to Ratan and how touched Ratan was: the story is, when the Navsari priests, (the first Parsis) landed in Gujarat, the ruler of Gujarat sent them a glass of milk, full to the brim and said, there was no place for them: the priests added some sugar to the milk and sent it back saying that they would integrate beautifully with the locals and would only add value to the state.
Narendra Modi is clearly a man in a hurry and he has every reason to be. There is no question in any one’s mind that he is the trump card for the BJP after Advani and Modi realises that. People like Rajnath Singh are simply weak irritants I would imagine. He also believes that the country has no apolitical strategy to counter terrorism and in fact he told me how he had alerted the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the NSA about the impending bomb blasts in Delhi and they did not take him seriously. And then the September 13 blasts happened! It was this resolve of Modi’s that I found very admirable. There is a clear intolerance of terrorism and terrorists which is evident in the way the man functions; now there are many cynics who call it minority-bashing but the truth of the matter is that Modi genuinely means business as far as law and order is concerned.
I left Modi’s house deeply impressed with the man as Chief Minister: he was clearly passionate and what’s more deeply committed. When I sat in the car, I asked my driver what he thought of Modi and his simple reply was Modi is God. Before him, there was nothing. No roads, no power, no infrastructure. Today, Gujarat is a power surplus state. Today, Gujarat attracts more industry than all the states put together. Today, Gujarat is the preferred investment destination for almost every multi-national and what’s more, there is an integrity that is missing in other states.
After I finished talking to the YPO (Young President’s Organisation) members, I asked some of them very casually, what they thought of Modi. Strangely, this was one area there was no class differential on. They too said he was God.
But what they also added very quickly was if India has just five Narendra Modis, we would be a great country. I don’t know if this was typical Gujarati exaggeration or a reflection of the kind of leadership India now needs! There is however, no question in my mind, that his flaws apart, Narendra Modi today, is truly a transformational leader! And we need many more like him!

Benefits of Glass Recycling: Why Recycle Glass?

2010-02-12T13:29:00.001-08:00

Glass recycling is both simple and beneficial. Let’s start with the benefits of glass recycling:

Glass recycling is good for the environment.. A glass bottle that is sent to a landfill can take up to a million years to break down. By contrast, it takes as little as 30 days for a recycled glass bottle to leave your kitchen recycling bin and appear on a store shelf as a new glass container.

Glass recycling is sustainableGlass containers are 100-percent recyclable, which means they can be recycled repeatedly, again and again, with no loss of purity or quality in the glass.

Glass recycling is efficient.. Recovered glass from glass recycling is the primary ingredient in all new glass containers. A typical glass container is made of as much as 70 percent recycled glass. According to industry estimates, 80 percent of all recycled glass eventually ends up as new glass containers.

Glass recycling conserves natural resources. Every ton of glass that is recycled saves morethan a ton of the raw materials needed to create new glass, including: 1,300 pounds of sand; 410 pounds of soda ash; and 380 pounds of limestone.

Glass recycling saves energy. Making new glass means heating sand and other substances to a temperature of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, which requires a lot of energy and creates a lot of industrial pollution. One of the first steps in glass recycling is to crush the glass and create a product called “cullet.” Making recycled glass products from cullet consumes 40 percent less energy than making new glass from raw materials, because cullet melts at a much lower temperature.

Recycled glass is useful. Because glass is made from natural materials such as sand and limestone, it glass containers have a low rate of chemical interaction with their contents. As a result, glass can be safely reused. Besides serving as the primary ingredient in new glass containers, recycled glass also has many other commercial uses—from creating decorative tiles and landscaping material to rebuilding eroded beaches.

Glass recycling is also simple, as I pointed out at the beginning of this article. It’s simple because glass is one of the easiest materials to recycle. For one thing, glass is accepted by almost all curbside recycling programs and municipal recycling centers. About all most people have to do to recycle glass bottles and jars is to carry their recycling bin to the curb, or maybe drop off their empty glass containers at a nearby collection point.

If you need an extra incentive to recycle glass, how about this: Several U.S. states offer cash refunds for most glass bottles, so in some areas glass recycling can actually put a little extra money in your pocket.

The Top 10 Green-Tech Breakthroughs of 2008

2010-02-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

Green technology was hot in 2008. Barack Obama won the presidential election promising green jobs to Rust Belt workers. Investors poured $5 billion into the sector just through the first nine months of the year. And even Texas oilmen like T. Boone Pickens started pushing alternative energy as a replacement for fossil fuels like petroleum, coal and natural gas.

But there’s trouble on the horizon. The economy is hovering somewhere between catatonic and hebephrenic, and funding for the big plans that green tech companies laid in 2008 might be a lot harder to come by in 2009. Recessions haven’t always been the best times for environmentally friendly technologies as consumers and corporations cut discretionary spending on ethical premiums.

Still, green technology and its attendant infrastructure are probably the best bet to drag the American economy out of the doldrums. So, with the optimism endemic to the Silicon Valley region, we present you with the Top 10 Green Tech Breakthroughs of 2008, alternatively titled, The Great Green Hope.

10. THE ISLAND OF THE SOLAR

With money flowing like milk and honey in the land of solar technology, all sorts of schemers and dreamers came streaming into the area. One
Swiss researcher, Thomas Hinderling, wants to build solar islands several miles across that he claims can produce hundreds of megawatts of relatively inexpensive power. Though most clean tech advocates question the workability of the scheme, earlier this year, Hinderling’s company
Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique received $5 million from the Ras al Khaimah emirate of the United Arab Emirates to start construction on a prototype facility, shown above, in that country. (Image: Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique)

9. NEW MATERIALS CAGE CARBON

Carbon capture and sequestration has a seductively simple appeal: We generate carbon dioxide emissions by burning geology — coal and oil —
so to fix the problem, we should simply capture it and inject it back into the ground.

It turns out, however, that it’s not quite so simple. Aside from finding the right kind of empty spaces in the earth’s crust and the risks that the CO2 might leak, the biggest problem with the scheme is finding a material that could selectively snatch the molecule out of the hot mess of gases going up the flues of fossil fuel plants.

That’s where two classes of special cage-like molecules come into play,
ZIFs and amines. This year, Omar Yaghi, a chemist at UCLA, announced a slough of new CO2-capturing ZIFs and Chris Jones, a chemical engineer at Georgia Tech, reported that he’d made a new amine that seems particularly well-suited to working under real-world condition. Both materials could eventually make capturing CO2 easier — and therefore, more cost effective.

Perhaps better still, Yaghi’s lab’s technique also defined a new process for quickly creating new ZIFs with the properties that scientists — and coal-plant operators — want. Some of their crystals are shown in the image above. (Image: Omar Yaghi and Rahul Banerjee/UCLA)

8. GREEN TECH LEGISLATION GETS REAL

On the federal and state levels, several historic actions put the teeth into green tech bills passed over the last few years. A review committee of the EPA effectively froze coal plant construction, a boon to alternative energy (though earlier this month the EPA ignored the committee’s ruling and it is unclear how the issue will be settled).
In California, the state unveiled and approved its plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, which could be a model for a nationwide system. Combined with the green-energy tax credits in the $700-billion bailout bill, the government did more for green tech in 2008 than in whole decades in the past.

7. THE CATALYST THAT COULD ENABLE SOLAR

In July, MIT chemist Daniel Nocera announced that he’d created a catalyst that could drop the cost of extracting the hydrogen and oxygen from water.

Combined with cheap photovoltaic solar panels (like Nanosolar’s), the system could lead to inexpensive, simple systems that use water to store the energy from sunlight. In the process, the scientists may have cleared the major roadblock on the long road to fossil fuel independence: Reducing the on-again, off-again nature of many renewable power sources.

"You’ve made your house into a fuel station," Daniel Nocera, a chemistry professor at MIT told Wired.com. "I’ve gotten rid of all the goddamn grids."

The catalyst enables the electrolysis system to function efficiently at room temperature and at ordinary pressure. Like a reverse fuel cell, it splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. By recombining the molecules with a standard fuel cell, the O2 and H2 could then be used to generate energy on demand.

6. PICKENS PLAN PUSHES POWER PLAYS INTO AMERICAN MAINSTREAM

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens might be a lot of things, but environmentalist he is not. That’s why his support for a nationwide network of wind farms generated so much excitement. While his solution for transportation, natural gas vehicles, may not pan out, his Pickens Plan is the most visible alternative energy plan out there and it began to channel support from outside coastal cities for finding new sources of energy.

Of course, no one said Pickens is stupid. If his plan was adopted and major investments in transmission infrastructure were made, his wind energy investments would stand to benefit.

5. SOLAR THERMAL PLANTS RETURN TO THE DESERTS

When most people think of harnessing the sun’s power, they imagine a solar photovoltatic panel, which directly converts light from the sun into electricity. But an older technology emerged as a leading city-scale power technology in 2008: solar thermal. Companies like
Ausra, BrightSource, eSolar, Solel, and a host of others are using sunlight-reflecting mirrors to turn liquids into steam, which can drive a turbine in the same way that coal-fired power plants make electricity.

Two companies, BrightSource and Ausra, debuted their pilot plants.
They mark the first serious solar thermal experimentation in the United
States since the 1980s. BrightSource’s Israeli demo plant is shown above. (Image: BrightSource)

4. OBAMA PICKS A GREEN TECH EXPERT TO HEAD DOE

President-elect Barack Obama ran on the promise of green jobs and an economic stimulus package that would provide support for scientific innovation. Then, Obama picked Steven Chu, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, to head the Department of Energy. Chu had been focused on turning Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory into an alternative-energy powerhouse. The green tech community rejoiced that one of their own would be in the White
House.

That’s because green tech is going to need some help. With the world economy falling into recession, the price of oil has dropped, even though there are serious concerns about the long-term oil supply. When energy prices drop, clean tech investments don’t seem quite as attractive, and the renascent industry could be in trouble. It’s happened before, after all.

Back in the ’70s, geopolitical events sent the price of oil soaring, which, as it tends to, created a boom in green tech. But the early
1980s saw the worst recession since the Depression. Sound familiar? In the poor economic climate, focus and funds were shifted away from green tech. The last nail in the coffin was the election of Ronald Reagan, who immediately pulled off the solar panels Jimmy Carter had placed on the White House. The green tech industry collapsed.

History has given U.S. alternative energy research a second chance and environmental advocates hope that a different president will lead to a very different result. (Image: DOE)

3. SOLAR CELL PRODUCTION GETS BIG, GIGA(WATT)BIG

Every clean tech advocate’s dream is a power-generating technology that could compete head-to-head with coal, the cheapest fossil fuel, on price alone. Nanosolar, one of a new generation of companies building solar panels out of cheap plastics, could be the first company to get there. Early this year, the company officially opened its one-gigawatt production facility, which is many times the size of most previous solar facilities.

Nanosolar, in other words, has found a process that can scale: it works as well in production as it does in the lab. That’s the main reason that the company has picked up half-a-billion dollars in funding from investors like MDV’s Erik Straser.

"[It's the] first time in industry a single tool with a 1GW
throughput," Straser wrote in an e-mail. "It’s a key part of how the company is achieving grid parity with coal."

2. PROJECT BETTER PLACE FINDS HOMES
Green technologies are dime a dozen, but a business model that could allow an entirely new, green infrastructure to be built is a rare thing.

Doing just that is the centerpiece of ~~Sun Microsystems’~~ SAP veteran Shai Agassi’s vision for Project Better Place, a scheme that would distribute charging and swappable battery stations throughout smallish geographies like Israel, Hawaii and San Francisco.
So far, there’s very little steel in the ground, but in early December, the company’s first charging location opened in Tel Aviv, Israel. Agassi’s plan is one of several projects — like new biofuels rail terminals — that could create fundamentally new energy ecosystems.

Some of these systems, however, are actually throwbacks to earlier eras. As Peter Shulman, a historian of technology at Case Western
Reserve University, likes to remind his students: in the early 20th century, before the Model T, one-third of all cars were electric. (Image: Joe Puglies/WIRED)

1. CALERA’S GREEN CEMENT DEMO PLANT OPENS

Cement? With all the whiz bang technologies in green technology, cement seems like an odd pick for our top clean technology of the year.
But here’s the reason: making cement — and many other materials —
takes a lot of heat and that heat comes from fossil fuels.

Calera’s technology, like that of many green chemistry companies, works more like Jell-O setting. By employing catalysis instead of heat, it reduces the energy cost per ton of cement. And in this process, CO2
is an input, not an output. So, instead of producing a ton of carbon dioxide per ton of cement made — as is the case with old-school
Portland cement — half a ton of carbon dioxide can be sequestered.

With more than 2.3 billion tons of cement produced each year, reversing the carbon-balance of the world’s cement would be a solution that’s the scale of the world’s climate change problem.

In August, the company opened its first demonstration site next to Dynegy’s Moss Landing power plant in California

A Letter to Every Indian - APJ Kalam

2010-02-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

Why is the media here, in India, so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?
We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T.Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours..
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name - 'YOURS'. Give him a face - 'YOURS'.. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.
YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.'YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.' YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand ..
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan ..
Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.
We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? 'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too…. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..

'ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Blood Science Offers Possible Carbon Capture Route

2010-02-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

United Technologies is looking at how blood captures CO2 to see if this has potential for larger scale carbon capture / sequestration. One targeted industry is coal-fired power plants.

"Blood cells in all breathing creatures are constantly capturing carbon dioxide and moving it someplace better--just what coal-fired power plant operators may soon have to do with all the carbon dioxide produced by burning coal."

" ... trying to develop industrial blood--a synthetic version of the enzyme that blood uses to capture CO2 ... best known chemistry for CO2 management ... "

"Current carbon capture approaches use chemicals ... system has to be huge and the process requires a pile of heat, which means a pile of energy and therefore a pile of cash. The cost of electricity from a coal-fired plant is projected to rise 80% in order to pay for a 90% reduction in CO2."

" ... envisions a simpler, cheaper system involving membranes that sift carbon dioxide out of the flue gas ... hopes to do is dope the membrane with a substance based on the enzyme that blood uses to capture CO2, called carbonic anhydrase."c--are also working to develop carbon capture devices based on carbonic anhydrase.

Competition......unknown ones but can wipe out Businesses....

2010-02-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums it up rather neatly.

Rain Water Harvesting and its potential

2010-02-08T11:01:00.001-08:00

Rain Water Harvesting is a wonderful science if implemented in depth, as it has the potential to fulfill 50% of Mumbai’s total water requirements. The total demand of Mumbai is about 4000 MLD (million litres per day) whereas the supply is about 3000 MLD. The lack of 1000 MLD is suffered by people living in far-off places like Vasai and Virar just to supply water 24 x 7 to South Mumbai. This is the bitter truth. But the government has taken some steps like making Rain Water Harvesting mandatory for new and upcoming buildings whose plot area exceeds a certain area, without which there would not be any issuance of an O.C (Occupation Certificate). This has definitely given an impetus to Rain water Harvesting Projects. But it has become namesake and many builders do it at that level and thereby at a very low cost to get the O.C. This is not helping the cause of saving BMC Water.

Let us see what Rain Water Harvesting actually is.

RWH is the method of catching the rooftop water and diverting it to the borewells and hence recharging borewells and increasing the groundwater level. This water in general is recharged in sub-soil even in cities like Mumbai. This water of sub-soil can be utilized by others in nearby area too. This is not an exciting fact for any society who intends to do RWH. But we have come up with a very innovative way of RWH. The way which allows users to fulfill all their required quantity apart from primary usage. They get no water bills for secondary water as they themselves use this water from their own borewells. How we do it, is described ahead.

We basically find out water in a given plot using Water finding Survey (using Dowsing, Pendulum method). We drill borewells and check water hardness, contaminaton and pollution at every 10 feet height of the borewell water. At minimum hardness level, we drill horizontally and inclined to make new borewells to find “Water Streams”. Water flows from top to bottom in these streams. We create an infrastructure which holds a large volume of water to create enough weight of water, so that it injects itself into the water streams and gets stored for further usage. Hence the water that is recharged can be utilized only by the organization who have done the RWH project. It is like a bank account wherein we put a total sum of yearly required amount and withdraw as per our requirements on a daily basis.

For example: My building has got 32 flats (A & B wings 4 floors each). The daily requirement of this building is 16,000 litres (500 litres on an average per household). The plot area we have is 200ft x 200ft i.e. total 40,000 sq. ft. Total requirement of this building per year is 16,000*365 = 58,40,000 litres. Approximately 60 lac litres. Rain Water available in the building per rainy season = 40,000 x 3 x 80 = 96,00,000 (96 lacs) (1” rainfall gives 3 litres of water in 1 sq. ft, Mumbai’s rainfall = 80” on average)

The building requires approximately 60 lac liters and RWH has a potential of providing (96 x 2) 1,92,00,000 litres of water. This quantity is double the rain water is because there are underlying water streams. These streams can take in as much water as it can give out. Hence if we have to recharge the water streams with 96 lac litres, there will have to be a source of 96 lac litres beneath the surface and hence double the quantity.

I think with this example one can definitely measure what RWH is capable of.

The elite list of projects which we have done is

1. Sanjay Gandhi National Park

2. Hiranandani Hospital and Buildings

3. Andheri Sports Complex (very challenging one)

4. United Phosphorus (Juhu) (very challenging one)

5. Hyatt Regency, Pune

6. Shri Ram Mills, Worli (54 storeyed building). (The 1^st and the only residential project to have got Platinum Status in the whole world)

7. Neelkanth Valley, Ghatkopar East

8. All staff quarters of Tata Colonies

9. MTNL Staff Quarters

And many more…..

-By Nisarg Shah

A journey to Going Green

2010-02-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

It’s a very confusing thing to select a career option, especially when you are at the threshold of graduating with a degree in Engineering and the Big Question of what to do next is looming large. Not so long ago I stood at this threshold. I was an average student during my college days, scoring a decent percentage and finally I managed to grab my Degree in Production Engineering comfortably.

Having aspirations to study further and get an MBA from India’s premier institute ‘IIM-A’, I did not appear for most of the Placement interviews. Then scoring less than what I had expected in CAT, I appeared for a Campus placement which I ultimately joined. I am very impatient by nature. A few days into the new job, I figured I did not really have a great future in the company and left it within 7 days. Following this I applied for jobs in four more companies where again I did not see any future for myself and hence did not continue with any of the four.

I am very ambitious by nature and was therefore looking for a job with some responsibility I knew I wanted a job that was challenging enough as I knew I would not be satisfied to merely carry out other people’s instructions involving repetitive work and take home a salary each month. However, as a fresher it was probably too much to ask for work which would give me decision making power. I almost got depressed despite getting many job offers.

Then one day as I was dealing with my frustrations of not being able to get a job of the kind that I wanted, one of my uncles Mr. Hitendra Salot (B.E Mech; DGM Maintenance, GACL, Dahej, Gujarat); a very knowledgeable person; stepped in and boosted my confidence to start my own venture with whatever I really had in mind. His words were motivating enough, and helped me sort out the confusion and really got me thinking along a new track….. I sat down and made a list of all that I really wanted and this is what my list had in it:

No more working for ‘Someone else’.
I shall struggle for my existence all on my own.
I want to be the sole ‘Decision maker’.
I’ve got all that I always wanted.
My success, failure depends on me.
I can prove myself and answer all those questions (“What’s wrong with him? What is he up to? Does he think life is a Joke?”), if I’m successful.

Then came the decision of a Lifetime. I always was an ‘Environment lover’. I always had the passion to do something “Socially Relevant”. I was also very much aware of the “Energy Crisis” that our country and the world at large will soon be going through. During my student days at DJSCOE, Prof. Sonal Dhar was very helpful in providing all the knowledge regarding Energy Crisis and also about joining Societies which are active in reducing the consequences of it. She was very helpful for all the “Non-Syllabus Topic” discussions, always present with her vast ocean of knowledge. That was the time I gave a thought towards doing something for society. The thought in the back of my mind was there to GO GREEN big time, but maybe after a certain amount of Experience as suggested by others.

There is hardly any awareness among people regarding the Solar Energy field. Even when people are aware, they have misconceptions about the commercial and financial factors. People must be made aware in order to save a large amount of energy. If people stop using Geysers to heat water and use Solar Water Heaters, a huge chunk of energy can be saved during peak hours. This made me give a serious thought to the concept of a Socially Responsible Engineer.

In today’s world every Engineer needs to be a Socially Responsible Engineer, in order for our country to progress, as after all we Engineers are the ones who run the most industries worldwide and they understand the Technical Terms which a layman or a non-Technical person might not be able to understand. Every Engineer must be socially responsible, giving suggestions wherever applicable, say societies, homes, industries, etc. in any field where Saving Energy is possible and making our Environment “Clean”, so that it becomes less difficult for the future Generations to come. I decided to make my mark in this field.

Thus my journey as an entrepreneur began.... I was now very much determined to work as hard as possible. I spent countless hours on the Internet to get my finger on the pulse of the latest environmentally friendly technology and the technical details. I then met a lot of people who could enlighten me about the field. I developed some excellent sources and built some trust with good communication and was ever willing to learn more and more. Eventually I gathered enough confidence to start my own company, which I named: “SAVMOUR ENERGY PRODUCTS”.

With this leap I jumped into the so called “Practical World”. I registered with many “Talking Yellow Pages”. I started getting enquiries from there. Those enquiries were big enough to give a huge pack of motivation to me. Initially none of the enquiries were less than say 5 lakhs in revenue. But none of the enquiries got converted into orders. This really demoralised me. But then enquiries kept coming my way, although without any conversion ratio, but it kept giving a dose of motivation to me. I felt that I was perpetually stuck between success and failure. It was the most important lesson that I learnt….the ability to cope with failure. I learnt that “Life is not ideal”, “Life is not as easy as it seems”, and “Convincing People is a very Big Task”. I also realized how difficult it is to survive in the practical world which is very harsh, and has no mercy for anyone whosoever.

I had however made up my mind that I will not give up under any circumstances, no matter what the difficulty, no matter if my conversion ratio continued to remain zero. That decision gave me a lot of courage and I started believing “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst”. It was then that I realized that I was into a field which is as good as a new born baby.

Slowly but surely I started making some sort of a head way. Soon more and more contracts started falling into my lap and the hard work that I had initially put in started bearing fruit. Today I am proud to say that I have managed to make a name for myself in this field. My sincere advice to all of my juniors is to give a serious thought to what they really want in life. And take it from me, if you have conviction in your beliefs and perseverance in your efforts, the world is yours! The world is in the hands of “Socially Responsible Engineers” and if you hear the voice of your conscience, you will hear the Socially Responsible Engineer in yourself. All the best!