Environment and people setember 2013

EDITORIAL

Advisors Narne Prabhakar Kaza Krishna Rao Dr. N. Harinath Prof. Umapathi Varma Dr. V. Haraprasad Advisory Board M. Gopala Krishna, IAS (Retd.)

ACTION MAKES ACTUAL DIFFERENCE

M. Kamal Naidu I.F.S, (Retd) C.S. Ramalakshmi, I.F.S, Dr. N. Bhaskara Rao Prof. P.G. Sastry Er. G.Prabhakar Prof. D.N. Reddy Dr. Rameshwar Rao S. Raghupathy Prof. I.V. Muralikrishna Editor Dr. P. Narayana Rao Associate Editor Dr.B.Ramana Naik Edited, Printed & Published by P. Narayana Rao on behalf of society for environment and education, hyderabad.

Designing Srinidhi Address for communication 501, Kamala Towers, Street No.14, Himayatnagar, Hyderabad-29. email: nraopotturi@yahoo.com contact: 9247385331 (The views expressed by authors may not be necessarily be the same as those of magazine)

ndia's National Policy on Education, 1986 stated that "There is a paramount need to create a consciousness of the environment. It must permeate all ages and all sections of society beginning with the child. Environmental consciousness should inform schools and colleges. This aspect will be integrated in the entire educational process." On the directions of Supreme Court of India in 2004, UGC, AICTE, NCERT at last made environmental studies as compulsory subject and it was followed by the states also in their respective educational institutions. Ministry of Environment and Forests has a dedicated wing on Environmental Education and several schemes such as Eco-Clubs, GLOBE program, National Green Corps were started to impart environmental education among children, student, youth and other sections of the society. These measures are helping to gradual increase of awareness about environmental problems confronting our nation. But mere increase of awareness does not guarantee any measurable action. This fact is corroborated by growth of consumerism among the youth in the recent period which is responsible for environmental destruction. The fast food culture is growing by leaps and bounds. Wastage of water and energy is enormous that is one of the causes for shortages and hikes in their tariffs. Indiscriminate use of private transport is responsible for urban air pollution nod consequent health problems.

Unfortunately, most of those who participate in ritual environmental campaigns forget their eco-responsibility as soon as they reach their homes. Government's tree plantation programmes have not yielded desired results. All other conservation campaigns are seen as part of their annual reports not being followed subsequently. Above all, the enforcement authorities ridden with rampant corruption are lax at implementing Environmental Laws and several times the Supreme Court of India and the concerned High Courts had to intervene to remind them of their responsibility. So it is high time to evaluate the impact of environmental education in general and in academic field in particular on the basis of performance of those students in their later life and come out with necessary action oriented syllabus and implement it in true letter and spirit with measurable targets and indicators of ecological improvement for protection of our planet for present and future generations.

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content Amritsar - the pond of nectar

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Mending what works

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What a wonderful concept}

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Power hub becomes pollution hub

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Renewables to challenge coal in

A committee to exonerate industry?

China as power sector doubles in size

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Most people in Myanmar harp on traditional medicines

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Heat waves tied to flare-ups of digestive illness

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Fuelled vs Electric cars: The great race begins

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Eco IQ

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Eco Tourism

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Go organic and triple your profits

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No BRAI bill, please

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Eco quotes

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Environmental conference s in September

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Eco cartoons

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16 Water+Sunshine = Biofuel

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Water wars in the US: Lessons for India

Amritsar - the pond of nectar “PAWAN GURU, pani pita, mata dharti mahat� (air is teacher, water is father and earth our mother) - thus goes the closing line of the Japji Sahib given by the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak Dev. It holds special significance for Amritsar, the holy city, which boasts of the Harmandar Sahib (also known as the Golden Temple). The city has been named after the water body surrounding the temple. 'Amrit' means the nectar of immortality and 'sar' or 'sarovar' means pond - hence the name.

The city was founded by Guru Raam Das, the fourth spiritual master of the Sikhs, who also ordered the excavation of the pond. His son and successor Guru Arjan Dev completed this work. It is said that water from the river Ganga was added to the sarovar. The belief is

that whoever takes a dip there, gets rid of their bad karma. While the pond was earlier dependent on rainwater, its supply comes from the Upper Bari Doab canal of the Ravi river via the Jethuwal distributory today.

Harmandar Sahib became popular as 'Golden Temple' when Maharaja Ranjit Singh got its upper floors covered with gold plated copper sheets in the 1830s. The regilding was done again in 1999 with the gold and money donated by devotees from all over the world.

However, due to increasing air pollution around the shrine, restoration work has to be done every year to maintain the sheen.

Various temples, big and small, dedicated to different Hindu deities are located around the pool. It is believed that Luv and Kush, the sons

of Lord Ram, spent their childhood along with their mother Sita at the ashram of Maharishi Balmiki in this area. When Luv and Kush detained the horse from the Ashwamedh Yagya of Lord Ram, they were challenged to war by his brothers Lakshman, Bharat and Shatrughan, all of whom fell unconscious during the fight.

Later, they were brought back to consciousness with the help of amrit (nectar of immortality) some of which fell on the soil, which also justifies the name 'Amritsar'.

Whatever the truth behind such narratives, the Amritsar of today is a thriving symbol of spirituality and unwavering relationship with life-giving water.

Contrary to the practice of having a Persian wheel with just one belt, six belts were installed in this to draw more water at a time. This ensured substantial water supply for cultivation. Today, a whole town has risen around the well taking over the fields. A glass enclosure has been placed around the well and devotees pay obeisance here. The well's water, which is believed to have curative properties, is now diverted towards the tank where visitors can take a dip.

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The recommendations of the committee constituted to look into the claims of endosulfan victims in Kasargod and decide on the need to set up a tribunal to settle those, appear to be largely sympathetic towards the Plantation Corporation and endosulfan manufacturers. P N Venugopal reports.

From 1979, the chemical endosulfan began to be extensively sprayed aerially in the cashew plantations of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) spread over 2209 hectares in various divisions of Kasargod district in Kerala. Soon after, reports of unusual health disorders started coming in from villages like Vaninagar, Adur, Mulleria, Padre, and Kallar. Disorders of the central nervous system, cerebral palsy, mental and physical retardation, epilepsy and congenital anomalies became very common in the region.

There were also many cases of liver cancer, blood cancer, infertility, miscarriage, hormonal imbalance, skin diseases and asthma. Around a thousand people died, more than 2300 are even today either bed-ridden or require assistance for living, and at least 1600 others are suffering from less debilitating ailments.

The list is also ever expanding. Thanal, an NGO involved in research and rehabilitation in the area, estimates the final figure of affected persons to be between 8000 to 10,000.

Starting with Dr Y S Mohankumar, who was the first to link the spraying of endosulfan to the unnatural disorders that gradually enveloped a large community, a whole generation of social/health workers and voluntary organisations have involved themselves in the palliative care and rehabilitation of endosulfan victims. It is due to their incessant interventions and agitation, which included fasts, convenEnvironment & people

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tions, awareness camps and the like, that the victims are getting some succour.

Successive governments, regardless of the combination of parties in power, remained mulish and unmoved for a large part of the last three decades. It was only in 2008 that the Kerala government owned up to some responsibility in the matter, when V S Achutanandan, Chief Minister at the time, distributed relief amounts to the next of kin of 135 deceased victims.

By this time, the clamour was loud and clear that the victims, both the dead and the livingdead, had to be paid compensation. It was seen as a right and as the only way to set right a massive wrong. There were several factors ranging from money to manpower that had deterred many victims or their relatives from going to the civil court earlier. More discouraging was the bitter experiences of those who had approached the courts as well as the time that had lapsed, making most of the appeals barred by the statutes of limitation. It was in this background that a demand for setting up of a tribunal gathered strength.

"The people of Kasargod and the activists expected those responsible for the tragedy, be it the PCK, the endosulfan manufacturers or institutions like the agricultural university which gave the wrong advice, to be fixed by the tribunal," says Jayakumar of Thanal. And a tribunal would help to avoid all the cumbersome delays and expenditure of claiming compensation by approaching a civil court.

However, instead of directly constituting a tribunal, the government constituted a committee with retired high court judge C N Ramachandran Nair as chairman and the Director General of Prosecution and the Law Secretary to the government as members. The task of the committee was to "report on the need to constitute a tribunal to settle claims of endosulfan victims of Kasargod and also to examine the possibility of recovering compensation from Plantation Corporation and endosulfan companies."

Committee report

Even as the committee recommended the setting up of a single judge tribunal, it had altogether different ideas about the terms of reference. "We have to state that the existing law of the country permits any victim to proceed in tort against the plantation company and if

required against endosulfan manufacturers and suppliers before a civil court to claim damages," says the committee report. "On the other hand, victims have received compensation in part and are receiving monthly pension, ration, medical, education and other assistance rendered by the government as part of the implementation of the recommendations of the NHRC." The latter statement relates to the report dated 31 December 2010 from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that had recommended 'solacium' to the victims upto a maximum of five lakh rupees. The total amount required for this, Rs.120 crores was to be shared equally by the PCK and the government. PCK had paid Rs 27.40 crores in May 2012. Since the plantation company is already paying an amount, the committee seems to be emphatic that the proposed tribunal should not entertain any litigation against the corporation seeking further compensation.

Activist and writer M A Rehman points out that what the NHRC had recommended was 'solacium' and not 'compensation'. Solacium is only interim relief. Dr Asheel, Nodal Officer, Endosulfan Rehabilitation explains how the compensation should be arrived at in such cases: "If a child is crippled or becomes mentally retarded, the compensation should be based on what the child lost in his or her future life due to the spraying of endosulfan." It cannot even be likened to insurance payment to the victim of a road accident, because in that case, negligence could be alleged on the part of the victim.

"But here the innocents were inside their homes."

The committee also goes on to protect the endosulfan companies from being brought under the scanner of the proposed tribunal on the argument that these companies were given a licence to produce the chemical under the Insecticides Act of the central government.

Thus they are most likely to be exonerated on the grounds that their actions were legal in nature. In this context, Dr Asheel however points out that studies as early as 1979 had warned about the deleterious effects of the pesticide and hence, no one can shun responsibility.

The approach of the committee thus appears to be almost akin to exonerating the perpetrators.

Having poured water over the two

burning issues of the victims, the committee addresses the source of funds for future and seems to be clear that the liability to pay compensation should be taken over by the government. It can however 'expect' contribution from the central government, banks and other public undertakings, the plantation corporation and the endosulfan manufacturers like Hindustan Insecticides Ltd. It should be noted, however, that contributions by the latter parties are viewed as voluntary charity and also that the corporation and the insecticide manufacturers are placed on par with financial institutions that had nothing to do with the whole episode.

The biggest let-down in the committee's report perhaps lies in the fact that it has sought to put a ceiling on the compensation to be adjudicated by the tribunal. NHRC had fixed a maximum amount for various types of disabilities, the highest being five lakh rupees. The committee says that the total amount received by a victim, including the amount that the tribunal may decide to award him, should not exceed the ceiling prescribed by NHRC. Identifying victims

That practically leaves only one job for the tribunal. Eliminate and include. There are allegations that a few are getting solacium or pension even though they are not endosulfan victims. The 'Plantation Protection Samithi' - an organisation of workers of the PCK keen to protect their livelihoods - has alleged that even those who fell down from the coconut tree or those who suffer from working in hazardous conditions in the Gulf countries have now become beneficiaries. On the other hand, P K Sudheerbabu, Deputy Collector, Endosulfan Victims Relief Cell says that the names of 28 among the dead have not been included in the list of the endosulfan victims due to the disputes raised by the Samithi.

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And then, there is the question of inclusion.

Exclusion or inclusion is at present being decided through a series of screenings, starting at the Primary Health Centre and concluding with a medical board comprised of experts from all specialities. Is there a need for a judicial review of the medical adjudication is the moot question.

Also, given the fact that the time taken for endosulfan to break down into the soil is six years, and aerial spraying was halted only in 2000, are there possibilities of new victims? Dr Asheel says there are no chances of further contamination due to environmental reasons.

"Now in Kasagod, endosulfan is found only in human blood and human fat." He, however, explains that a girl who has been exposed to endosulfan during the reproductive period of her life, could cause symptoms in her child. So, genetic or perinatal reasons may persist.

A clouded future

Jayakumar also raises the issues of social

t’s not easy to make other people go green when they can not see the bad impact they have, because the results of that are not easy visible. Nevertheless, here are ten interesting Environmental Facts that you can tell them and make them think about green issues, but some of them will make you more optimistic, however.

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rehabilitation, environmental rehabilitation and rejuvenation that a properly assigned tribunal could look into. "More than the compensation, I'm concerned about the fate of hundreds of children who are now 17 or 18; those

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1. So Many Bad Deeds for So Little Time According to scientific assumptions the Earth exists for 4.6 billion years. Scaling this to 46 years we come to 46 years of existence, which means that humanity have been around for four hours, while the industrial revolution has began only one minute ago. In such short time of environment-predating madness we have managed to destroy great variety of species and endanger a lot of those which have not been extinct yet, just in order to get to raw materials and fuels.

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who cannot manage their daily life without assistance," says Vigneswara Bhat, president of Kallar panchayat. "Now their parents or someone else is there to take care of them. But what happens when the parents or caregivers die?"

Bhat says there are hundreds of such children in Kasargod district whose future hangs in the balance. The tribunal should be able to do something to help them, he feels. He is also hopeful of an effective and helpful tribunal being set up, despite the restrictive report presented by the Justice Ramachandran Committee.

It is difficult, however, to share the optimism of the panchayat president if you scan the checkered history of endosulfan victims in Kasargod. Every opportunity has been used by the establishment for prevarication, postponement, inaction and abdication of responsibility.

A report of this kind with an aura of judicial respectability can always be highlighted as one more convenient excuse.

(Source: http://www.indiatogether.org)

Interesting Environmental Facts

2. Population Growth In that short time the industrial revolution has also caused an amazing growth of population. In last 50 years it has grown more than the previous four million years. The number of one billion was reached in 19th century, while today there are almost seven billion people on Earth. The estimations say that we could reach the number of nine billion until 2050. If food is problem today, it’s not easy to imagine what a problem it would be after 40 years from now.

3. The Wall Street Bailout The Wall Street bailout reached over $700 billion and still grows. Only 4% of that could end the world hunger. There is a well known old Chinese saying: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” According to that, this is not the right solution for the problem, but there are indications which show that only $30 billion per year are needed for creating and implementing programs that could help toward solving this issue.

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By Bharati Chaturvedi

aste can be a tool to break poverty when used imaginatively. In Nainital, Haridwar, Nagpur and several other cities, public-private partnerships in solid waste management have displaced the invisible, informal-sector wastepickers and traders instead of nurturing and upgrading them

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Things as they stand

Nainital is a romantically named hill town, popular with tourists and a base for many scenic spots in Kumaon, in the Himalayas. Like other places in the region, it is named after a local lake. Till the '90s, Nainital was a prime summer destination. Then with more spending power, holiday destinations changed. Nainital too urbanised rapidly. Trash became a key concern. Till just recently, a scheme called Mission Butterfly tried to convert Nainital into a zerowaste town. The Mission drew in community involvement, job-creation and more responsible action on the part of waste-generators.

Then, it was time to upgrade. Nainital decided

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to improve its solid waste management under the Ministry of Urban Development's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Much like other JNNURM-funded infrastructure improvement programmes across the country, Naintal started looking to enter into a public-private partnership (PPP) with private waste management firms.

Amongst the five bidders (1) on October 16, 2012, three had already tarnished their reputations by displacing wastepickers and small waste dealers. SPML had provided similar services in three zones of Delhi. As they began to fulfil their contractual obligations to the city, Chintan found that nearly 50% of Delhi's informal sector waste service-providers in the area (2) quickly became unemployed or underemployed. This kind of PPP model could not exist without displacing wastepickers. In fact, it competed with them for the same plastics, paper and metal -- stuff that could be sold in the recycling markets of Delhi. Another bidder, Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd, followed a simi-

lar business model and has only recently tried to work with the informal sector in small areas. The winner in Nainital was A2Z Maintenance and Engineering Service Ltd. But the company was no replacement for Mission Butterfly, which subsequently closed.

Like its other two competitors, A2Z's business model competed with the informal sector in

vate' have a place. All else either don't fit or are easily pushed aside to make way for grander, more modern plans for the city.

For several years, a complex network of wastepickers, itinerant buyers, waste traders and sorters have picked up, segregated and recycled the increasing amounts of paper, plastic, metal and glass that we trash. We owe

previous projects, displacing them from their only source of livelihood.

Haridwar, another city in Uttaranchal Pradesh, offers a similarly telling tale. An additional bidder for a PPP in Haridwar was Hanjer Biotech Pvt Limited. Hanjer is also implementing an integrated waste management project in Nagpur. The Nagpur project is located next to a landfill, where over 300 women wastepickers worked. None of them were included in the project's planning and implementation. When I visited the plant, several workers were involved in unskilled work - lifting and moving waste (3). "Surely some of the women wastepickers could have been hired for such work?" I asked one of proprietors, a few months later (4), in another meeting. "Firstly, these women, we waited for them. They never came from the front," he replied. "They always came jumping over from the back. This is not correct." In addition, he added, he didn't think this would be women's work.

The problem is Nainital and Haridwar are not unusual. Across India, the informal sector is being displaced by a new regime of solid waste management (SWM), a predatory regime of PPP in which only a predefined 'public' and a predefined, capital-intensive 'pri-

these often silent and invisible workers in the underbelly of our cities for their persistent labour of efficiently recycling nearly 20% of our rubbish. Not just that, they avert greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by a huge margin.

In 2008, Chintan tried to answer the question: How much GHG do informal sector recyclers really save? After a long year of struggling with the question, we got some stunning answers. The data showed that in Delhi alone, the waste recycling system run by the informal sector saved more than 3.6 times the GHG emissions any single formal project that had applied for carbon credits had ever done (5). While the projects received carbon credits, the wastepickers, far greater emission-averters, have never been thanked. They add value to discards, as much as 750% (6) to a unit of plastic. It is not a question of a few thousand waste recyclers; India is estimated to have about 1.5 to 2 million wastepickers alone (7), approximating about 10% (8) of the world's total. In every large city of the developing world, nearly 1% (9) of the population comprises people who earn a living off waste recycling. Instead of receiving our gratitude, these resource recyclers are being displaced by new ideas of what a modern city looks like and appropriate waste management practices

within it.

Central to these new ideas of SWM is the fact that the private contractor needs to be assigned property rights to the city's waste.

The contractor, in most cases, is a corporate entity that must not just break even, but make profits. To make these, contracts specifically assign the contractor the right to waste. This is similar to fencing public spaces to create private property as happened during the Industrial Revolution in England and happens continually anywhere profits can be made from privatising the commons. Waste, once the property of the municipality, an elected body, is now owned by a corporate body. And informal waste workers, once living off the waste, are transformed from informal to illegal.

What is happening?

India is witnessing a shift in how waste is managed. Cookie-cutter solutions are being offered in a scenario where waste has become a lucrative industry. The informal sector, even if it is organised, is being seen as unskilled labour rather than entrepreneurs. Three key trends are clear (10).

There has been a shift in perspective

Many new trends are based on changing ideas of waste management and a lack of clear understanding of how these ideas might apply in the Indian context, or any developing country for that matter. These are outlined below: Centralisation: This is considered to be key in solid waste management. Given the large quantities, many municipalities believe that only a large facility, at a centralised level, can handle waste. There is little trust in a decentralised approach despite several well-documented pilot projects that have taken place in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, for instance, in the 1990s and 2000s. Only a few decentralised plans have continued to be robust, and these are ones that have scaled-up.

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Privatisation at multiple levels of SWM: Leading from the understanding of centralisation is privatisation, where large companies are entrusted with running several processes related to the collection and processing of solid waste. Hence, starting from the mid-2000s, several cities have outsourced waste management services to private companies. These services include doorstep-collection, transportation to landfills, and processing of waste into energy and other products.

Profits from waste-based products: Several companies see profits in a business model where they own the waste and can either sell it directly to the recycling industry or through processing, such as making compost or briquettes. A prerequisite of such a model is that companies should be able to procure contracts that allow them ownership over waste, and thereby illegalise any prior, existing enterprise that might affect their own profit margins. Such contracts often receive government and public support because private waste firms are seen as, and indeed portray themselves as, key players in cleaning up the city.

Lack of understanding of the informal recycling sector: Often policymakers are unable to understand the critical role of various commodity supply chains that the informal sector provides the basis of, or even the quantum of their work. Instead, most see the informal sector as a small number of urban poor making a small contribution, and therefore not germane to SWM planning or any urban planning at all despite global studies that have shown quite the opposite. One reason is because of poor dissemination of information within India, and lack of knowledge networks that policy and decision-makers are part of. An outcome of this is a formal margin-

alisation of the informal sector.

Indifference to reprocessing: The informal recycling sector in India is, in large part, a trade chain. Wastepickers at the bottom pick up and insert recyclables into this chain. Only materials that can be reprocessed are traded, making the technology and the reprocessors critical. Such reprocessors are rarely included in discussions, far less in plans. Hence, popular understanding on this issue is that paper, plastics, metals -- the discards these plants depend on -- are as much the problem as wet waste that comprises over 60% of total waste. Consequently, an unequal competition is created between informal waste workers and waste-to-energy and other such technologies. This identifies the wrong problem, and therefore, an inappropriate solution. Moreover, not understanding the needs of the reprocessing sector results in exclusion from city plans, and hence illegalises their important work.

Brazen flouting of laws and policies

Several policies and rules have, in fact, been inclusive of the informal sector. A brief summary is here: E-Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011 allow for the inclusion of informal sector associations that can be authorised for e-waste collection and dismantling. " Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011 in Section 6 (c) states that the municipality is responsible for engaging 'agencies or groups working in waste management including wastepickers'. " The National Action Plan for Climate Change, 2009, in its part on the Mission on Urban Sustainability, states: 'While the informal sector is the backbone of India's highly successful recycling system, unfortunately a number of municipal regulations impede the operation of the recyclers, owing to which they remain at a tiny scale without access to finance

or improved recycling technologies.'

The CAG Audit on Municipal Solid Waste in India (December 2008) also recommends (Chapter 3, Section 3.5) that the 'MOEF/states should consider providing legal recognition to ragpickers so that recycling work becomes more organised and also ensure better working conditions for them'.

The National Environment Policy, 2006, which states: 'Give legal recognition to, and strengthen the informal sector systems of collection and recycling of various materials. In particular enhance their access to institutional finance and relevant technologies.'(Section 5.2.8, point (e), pg 36) The Supreme Court accepted recommendations of the report of the committee constituted by the Supreme Court in 1999 ('Solid Waste Management in Class 1 Cities in India'). Sections 3.4.7 and 3.4.8 (pg 34) of this report say that ragpickers must be converted into doorstep waste collectors as a means of upgradation.

Many of these are directly linked with Chintan's advocacy efforts. But rules and policies are only the tip of the iceberg.

Implementing them is a much more daunting task, even with institutional oversight.

Take JNNURM, for example. Chintan's 2012 report 'Failing the Grade' (11) evaluated how these rules were implemented, five years after the CAG's performance audit of solid waste management in India was published.

Chintan studied Patna, Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Varanasi, Mathura, Allahabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Bangalore, Nagpur, Rajkot, Cochin, Pune and Delhi. We evaluated the proposals the cities had submitted to JNNURM for solid waste, corresponding master plans, and the reality on the ground based on visits, discussions and observations. Our focus was to study these 14 cities under JNNURM to understand how they had included the informal recycling sector, either by not damaging their livelihoods or by formalising or upgrading them by making

their work safe, formal and recognised. We assumed that compliance with rules and following the spirit of the policies would be highly encouraged, if not essential, under the government's flagship JNNURM scheme.

Unfortunately, Chintan found that none of the 14 cities had fully implemented these rules and policies.

We also observed that several cities, such as Patna and Nagpur, had displaced wastepickerinclusive systems instead of nurturing and upgrading them. This had been done by privatising aspects of the SWM chain -- doorstepcollection and at the landfill --in the two cities respectively. Our report concluded that JNNURM could have fostered inclusion of the informal sector in SWM systems. Instead, it failed this opportunity. Of the eight detailed SWM projects that Chintan could access, only six cities even mentioned wastepickers in their plans (Ahmedabad, Faridabad, Varanasi, Allahabad, Indore and Cochin). The reality was even worse. In Ahmedabad, wastepickers lost their doorstep-collection contract to a small private company. In Varanasi and Indore, another private company, A2Z, was contracted for SWM, including doorstep collection. In our prior experience, A2Z has been particularly hostile to any prospects of wastepicker inclusion.

In Faridabad, two private contractors were providing solid waste management services. Of these, Ramkey, contracted for door-to-door collection, was working with Safai Sena, an association of wastepickers and other small waste workers, to

ensure inclusion. This step was not a result of encouragement from officials at any level but an initiative by the two partners.

But this is only one part of the story, the part where waste is picked up and access denied to workers at the neighbourhood and ward level. In most small and large cities today, landfills or dumps are also work sites for wastepickers and small traders and sorters. Waste-toenergy plants, an internationally favoured SWM solution, cause livelihood loss too.

Chintan measured (12) the impact of the waste-to-energy plant in Okhla on worker livelihoods. To do this, the team compared a baseline study undertaken five months before the plant began operations to a study conducted nine months after operations. The results were astounding. First, there was significant depopulation (approximately 40%) among those dependent on landfill wastes. Second, landfill pickers reported the lowest earnings of all the waste workers surveyed in the area and a 24% decrease in incomes during the last eight months. Overall, respondents noted a 5% decrease in the percentage of children attending school between last winter and now. Sixtyseven per cent of these cited not having enough money and having to enlist children as income earners as the primary reasons for their children stopping schooling.

At every point in the waste handling chain - collection, segregation, reprocessing -- the informal sector finds its livelihood challenged.

A lost opportunity

The idea of inclusive solid waste management is not a pie in the sky. It has been demonstrated on the ground across India.Good practices include the Bhopal Municipal Corporation's orders for doorstep-collection, Delhi and Pune's doorstep-collection and Bangalore's I-card system. These cities have emerged as the best in terms of implementa-

tion, but all with glaring deviations. In Rishikesh, local actors have set up an effective doorstep-collection system that creates livelihoods for the urban poor. In Pune, inclusive doorstep-collection systems for approximately 200,000 households co-exist with mass displacement of wastepickers from a Hanjer-run landfill and loss of a contract due to unfair competition from a private company in Chinchwad (13). In Delhi, the NDMC works with Chintan to include wastepickers in doorstep-collection and has recognised itinerant buyers, but MCD is an entirely different story.

More recently, several initiatives across India, often in partnership with the German bilateral agency GIZ (14), have leveraged ewaste rules to create livelihoods for waste workers by collecting e-waste. Local waste collectors and itinerant buyers are trained to collect (for free or by purchasing) various kinds of e-waste channelling it into authorised recycling units.

What to make of this, then?

Waste can be a tool to break poverty, if used imaginatively. Informal sector wastepickers, sorters, traders and reprocessors handle nearly 20% of urban waste in a highly efficient manner that is poorly understood and even more poorly acknowledged. Despite several progressive rules and policies, municipalities across cities tend to favour PPPs that dislocate the informal sector, and deprive some citizens of their livelihoods, and all citizens of their right to a greener, cleaner city. On the other hand, there is no dearth of possibilities, many of which currently exist on the ground. The challenge is to see the informal sector waste recyclers with new eyes.

(Bharati Chaturvedi is an environmentalist and writer. She is the Founder and Director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group) (Source: http://infochangeindia.org)

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About World No Tobacco Day

In 1987, the World Health Assembly passed a landmark resolution (WHA40.38), calling for April 7, 1988 to be "a world nosmoking day." Thereafter, in 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on May 31.

Ever since then, each year, World No Tobacco Day has been observed around the world on May 31. It is a reminder to one and all that tobacco use bodes nothing but disaster.

Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) selects a theme for the World No Tobacco Day. This year the

his day marks the need for global attention to the tobacco epidemic and highlights the loss on account of preventable death and disease.

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Why is tobacco a health threat?

Did you know? Tobacco claims nearly 1 million lives each year in India The National Family Health Survey, in its third round, found that tobacco use among males was 57% and 10.8% among females aged 15 years and above. In India, tobacco use prevalence is higher among older age groups as compared to the younger age groups and also higher in rural population in comparison with urban areas.

The younger population is however, increasingly vulnerable and at great risk.

The threat across all age groups is evident

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from recent studies on prevalence and projections for future. The need for more effective action is therefore very clear.

The Indian component of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) conducted among school going youth (aged 1315) in 2006 estimated that 12% students had smoked cigarettes at least once; 4.2% currently smoked cigarettes and 11.9% used other tobacco products (GYTS, 2006).

A study conducted by HRIDAY (Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth) in two large cities of India: Delhi and Chennai, concluded that students in sixth grade were using two to four times more tobacco than those in eighth grade ( Reddy KS et al, The Lancet, 2006).

theme is "Tobacco Health Warnings."

Tobacco health warnings are meant to appear on all tobacco products and are viewed as among the strongest defenses against the global epidemic of tobacco.

In India all tobacco products are meant to have these warnings from 1 June of this year.

Why are tobacco pack warnings important?

Every eight seconds, someone somewhere in the world is killed as a result of tobacco use. Such a big loss! Is one day in a whole year enough to turn the havoc around? Most definitely not! We need a continuous reminder, if not every eight seconds, at least often enough to keep the momentum going.

Are health warnings on packages effective?

Health warnings on cigarette packages are among the most prominent sources of health information: more smokers report getting information about the risks of smoking from packages than any other source except television. Health warnings are an extremely cost-effective public health intervention and have tremendous reach.

(Hammond D et al. Effectiveness of cigarette warning labels in informing smokers about the risks of smoking: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey. Tobacco Control 2006; 15

WHO particularly approves of warnings that contain both pictures and words, because they are the most effective at convincing people to quit using tobacco. Using gory pictures to remind people of the ugly truth has been observed to work very well.

Cigarette packs in India may soon display graphic health warnings, like the ones below: An image illustrating the effects of smokeless tobacco products Reaching out to communities

There are examples far and wide where behavioral scientists have successfully modified people's thinking, attitudes, and behavior by involving them in creating stories, dramas, and role plays that entertain and educate people at the same time. They have also been able to communicate clearly the risks that they are likely to suffer from, in case

they do not change. Tobacco pack warnings are a step in that direction, by providing a clear picture of the negative effects on one's health, body and those of our loved ones.

For over 30 years entertainment Education (E-E) has been a tool for changing health behavior. E-E uses drama, music, or other communication formats that engage the emotions to inform audiences and change attitudes, behavior, and social norms.

Worldwide, several hundred major projects have used E-E to improve health.

Entertainment-education has encouraged people to live healthier lives. For example, EE projects for family planning and reproductive health have helped motivate people to use contraception, to prevent HIV infection.

To improve public health, E-E has encouraged people to exercise, eat more fruits and vegetables, and stop smoking as well as to adopt family planning and avoid HIV infection.

In South Asia animated cartoons and comic books from the Meena initiative portray the dangers of early marriage and early pregnancy and the advantages of allowing girls to finish school through the life of a dynamic little girl, her pet parrot, her brother and friends.

In India the Community Media Initiative used a video van to show episodes of Jasoos Vijay, a TV detective drama with a theme of HIV prevention. Thanks to the video van, people in 1,200 towns in Uttar Pradesh saw the episodes and participated in discussions and interactive games that accompanied the shows. (Entertainment-Education for Better Health, INFO Reports, No. 17. Baltimore, INFO Project, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, January 2008.

It might be very rewarding to attempt something along these lines. One story each day or one episode in a serial to show what it takes for people to introspect about their behavior. A simple way of doing it would be to have someone come up with a problem and show how drama can be created to bring about a solution. It would be worthwhile to try this as an experiment. It might prove to be the beginning of the end of tobacco use! ( Source: http://www.healthy-india.org)

4. Pharmacy Purchases The next of the most interesting Environmental Facts is related to the pills and other medications in pharmacy stores which have been made from some exotic plants. One in every four purchases comes from the rainforests.

With reducing the deforestation of rainforests there will be a lot more plants available for pills producing.

Unfortunately, we have lost over a half of them already.

5. Australia’s Geothermal Energy Only 1% of the untapped geothermal energy potential in Australia could be enough for next 26,000 years, providing optimism for the future. We can not use that energy yet, but the Australian government invests a lot in green technologies recently and announced that this one won’t be excluded. They hope to be able to use up to 40% of that until 2020.

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Power hub becomes

pollution hub orba, Chhattisgarh ranks 5th in the ‘critically polluted area’ category according to the Central Pollution Control Board.

Why aren't thermal power companies following pollution control mandates?

‘Fly-ash’ refers to fine particles of ash sent up by the burning of solid fuel-like coal.

Typically, this is the residue of ash generated by thermal power companies. Due to its toxic nature, the government has mandated that flyash must be dumped in ash ponds, which are specially made on vacant lands. However, this mandate is not strictly observed and casual dumping has resulted in the poisoning of air, water and land in areas close to the power plants. This has also had a negative impact on the health of people living in those areas. Korba, located in the northern half of Chhattisgarh, is one such affected area.

According to a study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board in 2009, Korba ranks fifth in the ‘critically polluted area’ category among 88 industrial clusters. Ankleshwar in Gujarat ranks first followed by Gaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Vapi in Gujarat.

Many coal-based thermal power plants like the National Thermal Power Corporation and Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board among others are located in Korba making it a power hub of Chhattisgarh. Unfortunately, it has also become a pollution hub.

More than 1 lakh metric tonnes of fly-ash is generated annually by the eight thermal

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power plants in Korba, which produce 6090 megawatts of electricity. The current average fly-ash utililisation by the eight thermal power companies put together is less than 50%.

To mitigate the pollution in the area, the Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board created an action plan titled ‘Development of Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Abatement Action Plan for Critically Polluted Areas’. In this, it mandated that all the thermal power companies in Chhattisgarh have to implement a plan to use 100% of the fly-ash that they generate.

That was in 2011.

Two years past the deadline, none of the plants have implemented this plan even though it isn’t that difficult to reuse fly-ash. Fly-ash can be used to make bricks, tiles and cement. It can be used instead of sand to reclaim low-lying areas. Roads and embankments can be built with it and mines can be filled with it. Inspite of knowing all this, the companies are yet to make a conscious effort to plan its reuse.

For the last two decades, no visible action has been taken by the state government to mitigate the problem of fly-ash disposal in the district. All thermal power companies in the area were asked to adopt High Concentrated Slurry Disposal System (HCSD), a controlled and monitored fly-ash feeding system to help with its safe disposal.“Companies like Balco,Lanco, CSEB and Aryan in Korba have installed HCSD but it is not able to deliver even 50% of the out-

put” says Lakshmi Chauhan, a Korba-based lawer and environment activist.

Another method to stave off pollution was by the building of fly-ash storage tanks. Two tanks have been built but there are no roads to reach the tanks, so they are not operational and are of no use at all.

The end result of this is that the fly-ash generated has affected the water in the Hasdeo river in addition to polluting the environment overall. The water of the Hasdeo is only fit for bathing now and the Central Pollution Control Board declared Korba a ‘critically polluted zone’.

Local news dailies have reported several incidents related to health problems such as various skin diseases like rashes and itching and some respiratory diseases like chronic bronchitis, chest discomfort, asthma attacks and even cancer. (1) The state government has ignored these health and environmental problems for more than 20 years. Instead, they continue to open new avenues for public sector companies by expanding coal mines in the area. These new projects will further displace people from other villages including Raliya, Bhalanpat and Hardibazar, and will also affect the environment by polluting the air with smoke from heavy traffic in the area.

Unless the mandates set by the ministry are followed, Korba will continue to suffocate under the pollution caused by the fly-ash.

Renewables to Challenge Coal in China as Power Sector Doubles in Size report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, titled The Future of China's Power Sector: From centralised and coal powered to distributed and renewable?, predicts that by 2030 the nation's current reliance on coal will be challenged by competitive renewables, growing awareness of environmental pollution and a potential carbon emissions price, while the size of the power market will almost double.

According to the report, China will add an additional 1583 GW to its total power generation capacity, to reach 2707 GW by 2030. The nation's electricity consumption will grow by 5 percent or 88 GW per year, BNEF said, pointing out that this is equivalent to adding the UK's total installed capacity each year.

Renewable power sources are projected to contribute over half of this new capacity growth, reaching the same capacity level as coal by 2030. Coal-fired power generation will decrease from 67 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2030, or 25 GW annually, while renewable generation will increase from 27 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2030, at 47 GW per year.

In order to support such large-scale growth in the power sector, investment on the order of US $159 billion per year, or 2 percent of China's 2012 GDP, will be required, and half of that amount will be invested in renewables - around $77 billion annually, with a shift toward investment in distributed projects also predicted.

A

In addition China will need to invest $57 billion annually in supporting infrastructure, the analysis showed, with $1024 billion required for long-distance transmission lines, smart grid, energy storage and demand response systems around one-third of the total investment in generation capacity.

Continuous improvement in the economics of wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) due to falling technology costs and an expected commercial-sector uptake in distributed solar were identified as key reasons for renewable energy's predicted rapid growth. The growing cost of coalfired plants due to environmental controls will also play a part, the report said.

However, BNEF warned that certain events could significantly change its forecast. For example, there could be a Chinese shale gas boom at the end of this decade, resulting in very low gas prices (lower than $5/MMBtu). And if China implements an emissions trading scheme, the report said, emissions will peak as soon as 2023 at a low average carbon price of $16/tCO2e from 2017-2030, which could result in a decrease in new-build coal plants and their replacement by renewables and natural gas.

Milo Sjardin, BNEF's head of Asia Pacific, said in a statement that China's energy sector faces "extreme uncertainty" and that the nation's future energy mix "depends on a number of big questions, questions on which one can still only spec-

ulate: the cost at which China may be able to extract its shale gas reserves, the potential impact on fracking and thermal generation of water constraints; and potential accelerations in climate and environmental policy, including a potential price on carbon."

And Michael Liebreich, BNEF chief executive, added that "It is hard to underestimate the significance of China's energy consumption growth and its evolving generation mix. The impacts will reach far beyond China and have major implications for the rest of the world, ranging from coal and gas prices to the cost and market size for renewable energy technologies - not to mention the health of the planet's environment."

Among the report's recommendations for how China should manage its expected power sector growth was a call for Chinese grid operators to establish partnerships with grid operators worldwide, drawing on their experience in integrating and managing high levels of renewables. And the expected rapid growth of distributed PV will require increased focus on the distribution and end-user side, rather than on transmission, requiring more and faster investment in distribution automation, distributed storage and demand response, the report said.

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By Devinder Sharma

aps are running dry, water tables are falling, crops are shrivelling and cattle dying as America faces its worst drought since the '30s. Strangely, America's hi-tech model of precision farming has crumbled under just one year of severe drought. What does this say about the wisdom and efficacy of industrialised farming versus India's subsistence farming methods?

There is never a time when an educated Indian doesn't search for solutions to India's problems in the land of dreams.

Whether it is hunger, sustainable agriculture, kick-starting industrial growth, food habits, music, or of course the successful model of economic growth, India must follow the US. No wonder our intelligentsia, our economists and our scientists are always desperate for opportunities to travel to America and return with a bag full of answers to our many problems.

Their solutions to India's raging drought - some call it the worst in recent memory, which haunts and ravages 12 states - are thus also inspired by America's management of its croplands. India, they say, must follow the United States' drought-mitigation strategy. High technology, we assume, has insulated American

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agriculture from the vagaries of drought.

After all, don't the Americans use lasers, information technology, huge machines, satellite data, electronics and now genetic engineering for what is popularly called 'precision farming'?

In India, fragmented land holdings, subsistence farming methods, poor productivity and exploitation of the natural resource base make the sustainability and viability of our farms doubtful. The only way out for the country, we are invariably told by agricultural scientists, is to follow the American model.

Such an approach will provide impeccable drought-proofing.

And it is primarily for this reason that corporate agriculture is being pushed.

By a strange coincidence, America too is faced at present with its worst drought since the days of the great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. As many as 26 of the 50 American states are reeling under a severe drought, with 'exceptional drought' conditions --the worst level of drought measured - in 13 states, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. Such is the crop damage that like the drastic reduction expected in rice production this year in India, US wheat production is anticipated to fall to

its lowest levels in nearly 30 years. There couldn't have been a better time to study America's droughtproofing mechanisms and suggest its replication in a developing country like India or for that matter in South Asia, Africa and Latin America.

But get ready for a rude shock. The American agriculture that we all studied and appreciated in university has crumbled under one year of severe drought. The drought-proofing that we heard so much about appears to have failed. It is known that Indian agriculture falters because of its complete dependence on monsoons. But with the kind of industrialisation that took place in American agriculture, and with the

amount of investment made, we believed that US agriculture is not dependent upon rains.

But the news reports appearing in the American media might almost be emanating from a drought-stricken village in India's hinterland. You read in utter disbelief about 100 desperate farmers and rural residents praying for rain at the St Patrick parish church in Grand Rapids, Ohio. With hands clasped and eyes cast downward, they seek divine intervention. "None of us have control over whether it is going to rain or not," Sister Christine Pratt, rural life director for the Catholic Diocese of nearby Toledo told Reuters. "But the people are praying for one another and there is some hope."

Another report in the Washington Post

ers have sold off herds rather than let them starve for lack of pasture. "I have never seen it like this and I'm 60 years old," said Richard Traylor, who owns 37,000 acres in Texas and New Mexico but has sold off much of his cattle herd.

Serious hydrological problems with wells and reservoirs have emerged. Streams have gone dry. The groundwater table has fallen drastically. Wildfires have become more rampant, and an estimated 4.6 million acres have been scorched this year, twice the average acreage burnt in the previous decade. "It is pretty dire," said Mark Svoboda, climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center.

From southern California to South Carolina and from Montana to New Mexico, individuals

states that President George Bush is unwilling to extend any more finances for drought relief, other than the support available from the $180 billion farm bill he signed in May. The president however underscored his commitment to helping farmers through existent programmes including the agriculture department's decision to make $150 million in surplus milk --- "spoiled milk" as the Democrats called it - available for use in animal feed in four drought-stricken states including South Dakota.

Cattle are dying and crops are shrivelling.

Fodder has become scarce, and therefore the need to feed surplus 'milk' instead. There is a scramble for new water sources as town and city residents are urged to stop watering lawns and washing cars. In heat-baked fields ranch-

and industries are suffering, the news agency reports.

In India, the total drought relief demanded by the affected states is around Rs 30,000 crore. In America, the drought relief being sought is in the range of US $5 billion.

In India, the government still hasn't banned watering of lawns. But in Monticello, Georgia, south of Atlanta, all outside watering has been banned, because creek levels were so low that the area could run out of water in 30 to 45 days. And like the loss estimates being worked out by the Indian ministry of agriculture, the national estimates for drought-related losses are being prepared by the US department of agriculture which is waiting for the harvesting of corn and soybean and other key crops before computing the loss figures.

Lack of rain is the obvious factor for the prevailing drought in both India and America.

But let us not forget that while India receives almost its entire rainfall in 100 hours during the monsoon season, it continues to rain intermittently in America. And still, water shortages are prompting battles between 'upstream and downstream states and between individuals and businesses in Dodge City, Kansas'. In Jasper County, South Carolina, a drop in an underground aquifer left households without water. Rural residents, as in India, blamed business operators for using too much water. As if this were not enough, North and South Carolina are fighting over North Carolina's refusal to release water from its reservoirs downstream. In Colorado, Denver's water reservoir has already hit a historic low.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens has approved a $1 million emergency drought fund so that farmers and ranchers can buy water. "People are battling for water like we've never seen before," said Hope Mizzell, South Carolina's drought program coordinator. Like Rajasthan in India, which is faced with its fourth consecutive year of drought, some areas in America are also experiencing their fifth consecutive year of drought.

The conditions are close to those seen during the country's most devastating drought in the 1930s -- the Dust Bowl years, when some 60 per cent of the United States was affected, media reports. Isn't it the same situation that India is also passing through? After all, if a severe drought some 70 years after the 1930 Dust Bowl years still results in such massive devastation, isn't it time to question the efficacy of the American model of farming? Isn't it a fact that hi-tech American agriculture remains as vulnerable to dry weather as the subsistence farming systems that prevail in India? Why then should India follow a faulty agriculture and farming system?

It is time India realised that it must develop its own low-cost farming strategies suited to the needs of the country. It is time Indian agricultural scientists looked inwards to build up a farming system that meets the nation's requirements and also addresses problems of sustainability. Blindly apeing the industrial farming system would only push the country into a hitherto unforeseen crisis, much more severe than recurring drought. (http://infochangeindia.org) September 2013

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n Myanmar, an overwhelming majority of people use traditional medicines as these are affordable and widely available. With the government recently formalising its role in the healthcare system, these medicines that are in use since 600 BC have got a fresh lease of life.

Yangon: Four years after contracting rheumatic fever, Mee Naing, 28, finally beat the disease with the help of traditional medicine.

Rheumatic fever can recur if not treated with long-term antibiotics, but because Mee Naing could not afford the medicine, she suffered from a bad bout of

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the disease for many months.

She finally went to a traditional medicine clinic and underwent a course of pills and balms and her health gradually improved.

"Whatever ailments I have, nowadays I take traditional drugs, which I can afford," said Mee Naing, whose monthly income as a marketing assistant is less than US$40.

More than 85% of country's population of about 57.5 million uses traditional medicines, according to government figures, partly to supplement western medicine and partly as an alternative.

"Traditional medicine is quite afford-

able and accessible for people from all walks of life, which are the fundamental reasons why most people use it," said Maung Nyan, president of the Myanmar Traditional Medicine Practitioners' Association.

Practitioners say people in rural areas - about 70% of Myanmar's population - rely more on traditional medicine than in urban areas, since it is more widely available and affordable than western medicine.

Traditional medicine is also 10-20 times cheaper than western medicine - a huge factor when 32.7% of people live below the poverty line, according to spe-

cialists.

Government promotion

Traditional medicine, in the form of pills, powders and balms, has been used in Myanmar since 600 BC, but only recently has the government moved to formalise its role in the healthcare system.

A Traditional Medicine Drug Law introduced in 1996 controls the quality, production and sale of the drugs. The government has also introduced good manufacturing practices, while the production, packaging

and storage of medicines have been modernised.

These standards mean that "public trust and confidence in indigenous drugs has greatly been enhanced", notes the World Health Organisation in Myanmar in its 2009 health report for the country.

"There is a progressive increase in demand for traditional medicine not only in rural areas but also in urban areas," it states.

There are 14 traditional medicine hospitals, and 237 district and township clinics and sub-centres across the country, while there are more than 10,000 practitioners, according to the Myanmar Traditional Medicine Practitioners' Association.

In 2007, the government established the first national herbal park on 81 hectares of land in the new capital, Naypyidaw, to grow plants to treat diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, diabetes, hypertension, malaria and tuberculosis.

A long tradition

"Traditional medicine has regained its golden age," said Aung Naing, who practises both traditional and western medicine, choosing one or the other depending on a patient's illness.

Most traditional practitioners combine traditional medicines with western equipment, such as blood pressure monitors.

"Traditional medicine is very effective in curing chronic diseases such as diabetes, rheumatic fever, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, stroke, paralysis, motor paralysis, malaria, and menstrual disorders," said Mya Win, 66, who has practised traditional medicine for 49 years.

While it cannot cure diseases such as cancer or HIV/AIDS, it has fewer side-effects than western medicine, said Mya Win. Knowledge of Burmese traditional medicine has been handed down from generation to generation for centuries, and is influenced by traditions from neighbouring countries such as India and China.

Most of the medicines are of plant origin, although animal, mineral or aquatic material is also used.

In 1976, the government established the Institute of Myanmar Traditional Medicine to train traditional medicine practitioners, while the University of Myanmar Traditional Medicine was established in Mandalay in 2001. The curriculum covers traditional medicine, science and basic concepts of western medicine.

"Today, more and more young people are interested in learning traditional medicine as the role of the medicine becomes larger and larger in the country," said Aung Myint, the university's rector.

(Source: http://southasia.oneworld.net)

6. Too Much Chemicals in Homes When we talk about chemicals that “hurt” the soil, we usually point finger to the farmers who use pesticides and other chemicals that destroy the soil. However, it’s good to know that the homeowners use ten times more chemicals per acre than them. It is yet another proves that saving the planet doesn’t mean necessary change of the agriculture politics, among others, but we could do so much more with just a little change in our lifestyle.

7. Cars vs. Public Transport According to the US Department of Transportation Americans use 140 million cars to travel almost four billion miles everyday, using over 200 million gallons of gasoline for that. However, United States keep promoting and investing in private cars instead of public transportation, despite these numbers.

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lare-ups of inflammatory bowel disease and "stomach bugs" may be more common during and immediately after heat waves, a new study suggests.

Swiss researchers looked at five years of records from one hospital and found more admissions related to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during long stretches of hot days.

Hospitalizations for so-called infectious gastroenteritis, marked by vomiting and watery diarrhea, also increased, lagging behind IBD admissions by about a week.

The study "shows clearly that climate change might have serious effects on human health that have not been understood until now," Thomas Frei, a climatologist who worked on the study while at the Swiss National Weather and Climate Service, said.

However, one researcher not involved in the study said the findings should be interpreted cautiously.

IBD is a chronic condition that occurs when the immune system attacks the digestive tract, leading to chronic inflammation of the intestines and sometimes other parts of the digestive system like the liver. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that over one million Americans have IBD. Gastroenteritis affects about 179 million Americans each year.

Infectious forms can be caused by viruses, bacteria or parasites.

Children and the elderly are at higher risk for health complications caused by intestinal infections.

For their study, the researchers looked at the records of 738 people admitted to the University Hospital of Zurich with symptoms of IBD - including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis - between 2001 and 2005, and 786 admitted for intestinal infections.

Temperature data was collected from the meteorological station in Zurich.

There were 17 heat waves during that time, lasting up to 19 days.

During a heat wave, admissions for both IBD and intestinal infections increased by close to five percent for every additional day the heat wave went on, according to findings published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Admissions for intestinal infections seemed to lag a week behind the heat wave. When that was taken into account, the researchers found those hospitalizations rose by about seven percent for every day a heat wave lasted.

There was no change in hospital admissions for a comparison group of 506 people with non-infectious chronic intestinal inflammation, such as those with colitis or celiac disease, during heat waves.

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Prior studies linking IBD flare-ups with weather patterns have come to conflicting conclusions, the researchers said. Some suggest symptoms worsen during winter months; other studies show just the opposite.

It's unknown why digestive illnesses might cause more problems during a heat wave, Frei, currently an independent research contractor, told Reuters Health in an email.

The researchers suggest that heat waves may alter bacterial growth and produce stress on the body, which could trigger a flare-up of digestive symptoms. The most likely explanation for the time lag between heat waves and admissions for vomiting and diarrhea, they said, is that bacteria require time to grow, so they don't usually cause symptoms right away.

"This is a novel study examining a unique environmental variable," Dr. Ashwin Ananthakrishnan, who studies environmental influences on Crohn's disease at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said.

"However, I think much of the conclusions from the manuscript are highly speculative, and I would be very reluctant to tie in 'climate change' as the authors have to IBD." Ananthakrishnan told Reuters Health in an email the results could be influenced by missing information about people's history of IBD, treatment, medication adherence, reasons for visiting the hospital and other factors such as smoking and use of aspirin, which can affect flare-ups.

Another limitation, also mentioned by the authors, is that the comparison group may have included people with mild or misdiagnosed IBD. "It is somewhat difficult to presume that just one day of a heat wave is sufficient to influence somebody with (disease that is in remission) to go into a flare requiring hospitalization," Ananthakrishnan, who wasn't involved in the new research, said.

"I would be concerned about over interpretation of the results given the significant and concerning limitations," he said.

(Source: http://in.reuters.com)

8. Fake Development Credits Many banks offer credits to the countries that need it in order to develop their economies. If one see the amounts of money that these countries receive, it would be hard to understand why they’re still undeveloped. The answer is very simple: they have to use their natural resources in order to pay off the debts and the interest that comes from them. Of course, they do that irrationally and cause even bigger problems.

9. Too Little Air in China Actually, I am not sure if there is air in China’s biggest cities. In fact, only 1% of the 560 million city residents in China breathe air that is considered to be safe according to the standards of the European Union. The cancer have become reason no.1 for deaths, but things become even worse, as clouds of polluted air reach the skies of Japan and Korea as well, causing acid rains.

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he amazing success of the Tesla model S proves that electric cars may have a chance of replacing liquid fueled vehicles in the long run. Skeptics point out that most of our electric power today comes from coal, which is dirty and inefficient. We must change to clean, renewable energy sources but is that really practical? The Tesla has proven that we can use photovoltaic solar power to recharge pure electric cars. Let's calculate how much land is needed to renewably fuel a car using several possible electrical and biofuel approaches.

I recently purchased a Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid car. It is the perfect laboratory for this experiment because it can run on pure electricity or as a gasoline hybrid.

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Solar plant will generate an estimated 76,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. Dividing by 180 acres we get 422,000 KWh/yr/acre. Since we can drive three miles on a kilowatt-hour, we find that we can drive 1,266,000 miles per year per acre. That's pretty encouraging!

CPV uses an array of magnifying glasses to concentrate the sunlight onto tiny photovoltaic chips. This only works well under clear sunny skies. In areas with many cloudy days, we would use fixed photovoltaic panels that can also capture diffuse light from cloudy skies. For example, the 100-acre Jacksonville solar plant in Florida generates 243,000 kilowatt-hours per year per acre.

Multiplying by three, that's enough to

In the electric mode it can go 38 miles on a 10.8 kilowatt-hour recharge. That's 3.5 miles per kilowatt hour. Allowing for power transmission and charging losses, let's use 3 mi/kWh. I will compare the land use efficiency of several real approaches to renewable power using both liquid fuel and electricity. We will calculate the number of miles per year that can be driven using an acre of land to produce the power.

We can then compare the miles/year/acre numbers for some real-world renewable energy approaches.

Let's start with the most efficient first, a concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) plant in Colorado. Amonix's 180 acre Alamosa

drive 729,000 miles/year/acre.

Wind power is another approach. The Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas generates 55,000 kWh/year/acre, enough to drive 165,000 miles/year/acre.

Wind can be combined with solar on the same land and can produce almost twice as much at sea where winds blow steadily.

Liquid fuel can also power cars but the engine is typically about one third as efficient as electric drive. (My Chevy Volt is EPA rated at 37 mpg with 91 Octane gasoline which has 33.56 KWh/gal. 37/33.56 = 1.1 miles/KWh.) The best efficiency biofuel operation I know of is a pilot plant in Florida run by Algenol. They grow a genet-

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ically altered cyanobacteria (algae) that "sweats" ethanol in large, soft plastic tubes (see photo above). They claim to have produced 9,000 gallons/acre of ethanol in this pilot plant. Since ethanol has only 72 percent of the energy content of 91 octane gas, the Volt's engine would probably get only about 26 mpg, which would be enough to drive 26x9,000 = 234,000 miles/year/acre.

Sugar Cane ethanol powers many of the cars in Brazil.

It produces about 600 gallons per year per acre so you can drive 26x600 = 15,600 miles/year/acre.

Corn ethanol has been heavily subsidized so it is really available in great quantities but it makes very poor use of the land and a lot of water and fuel is used to grow it. It typically yields about 400 gallons per acre which translates to 10,200 miles/acre/year.

Palm oil diesel produces about 500 gallons/year/acre in tropical climates. Palm oil oil has 20 percent higher energy content than 91 octane gasoline so let's assume 43 miles per gallon. 43x500 = 21,500 miles/year/acre.

Soy diesel yields about 57 gallons/year/acre so 47x57 = 2,679 miles/year/acre.

To summarize, here are the results, arranged in order of land use efficiency, with an additional column showing the acres need-

ed to support one car based on 13,476 average miles driven per year according to the FHA: Though solar electric is the clear winner based on land use, biofuels are still in the race (particularly if commercial scale) designer

sold as fuel as it is in Ireland. In the long run palm oil could be an almost carbon neutral source of energy that is far better than petroleum or coal. But more productive crops such as Algenol's algae could greatly improve the

Concentrated PV solar electric

1,266,000 miles/year/acre

1/94 acres/car

PV panels solar electric Algenol, Joule algae ethanol Wind power electric Palm oil diesel fuel Sugar cane ethanol Corn ethanol fuel Soy diesel fuel

729,000 234,000 165,000 21,500 15,600 10,200 2,679

1/54 1/17 1/12 1/2 .86 1.32 5

algae becomes a reality. Biofuels have a gigantic advantage in remote areas because no power lines are needed. The liquid fuel can simply be picked up and delivered by trucks and ships. High-capacity power lines are very expensive to build and are seldom found in remote, tropical areas where land is cheap.

The existing sources of biofuels from soy and corn are an embarrassing result of political influence and heavy subsidies. We must stop letting politicians make technical choices!

Palm oil is a productive source of biofuel.

Malaysia has 12 million acres in cultivation but many of the new sources are developed by burning peat and clearing jungle habitat. This is a boom for Indonesia and Malaysia but countries who burn coal and have already cleared their wilderness are hypocriticallyprotesting. Oil palms are not the problem.

They are guilty only of being very productive.

Peat is the precursor to coal. Perhaps it can be

efficiency of land use.

The yields for algae can potentially be even higher than shown on the table. Another algae startup promising even higher output is Joule Unlimited. They have predicted ethanol production of 25,000 gallons/year/acre and also direct production of biodiesel using another algae strain. Algae has been difficult to tame, but it has great promise for remote, sunny areas where land is cheap. Salt water or polluted water can be used and fresh water is distilled out in the process. Most growing plants waste large amounts of energy building supporting structures but algae can just float in water.

Electric cars are now my favored bet in the horserace between electric and fuel power.

History has shown that progress in electronics generally outruns everything else. Solar photovoltaic power is progressing at its usual breathtaking pace. Soitec is already working on a next generation CPV design that will use four-layer cells with four different semiconductor materials stacked to capture a very wide bandwidth of light. The efficiency of this chip is an amazing 43.6 percent, which should make it possible to increase the numbers on the table above even further.

It will be an exciting race and I'm ready for whatever happens. When my Volt switches over to fuel mode, it still drives the same but the feeling I get is much nicer as I drive past the gas stations in electric mode.

(Source: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com)

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Eco Human influenced facts If just 25% of U.S. families used 10 fewer plastic bags a month, we would save over 2.5 BILLION bags a year.

On the average, the 140 million cars in America are estimated to travel almost 4 billion miles in a day, and according to the Department of Transportation, they use over 200 million gallons of gasoline doing it.

1.

Do you do some kind of bone-strengthening activity like fast walking, running, dancing, or playing a sport every day? Hint: Count only bone-strengthening activities.

Yes

2.

Every year we throw away 24 million tons of leaves and grass. Leaves alone account for 75% of our solid waste in the fall.

4.

About 1% of U.S. landfill space is full of disposable diapers, which take 500 years to decompose.

Energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a TV set for 3 hours, and is the equivalent to half a can of gasoline.

Yes

Homeowners use up to 10 times more toxic chemicals per acre than farmers.

By turning down your central heating thermostat one degree, fuel consumption is cut by as much as 10%.

3

4

5 or more

No

No

Bonus Point: Is the cereal fortified with calcium and vitamin D?

5.

6.

No

During a normal day, do you eat a bowl of ice cream or frozen yogurt or drink a low-fat milk?

Yes

7.

No

During a normal day, do you eat a container of yogurt?

Yes

Glass produced from recycled glass instead of raw materials reduces related air pollution by 20%, and water pollution by 50%.

Americans use 50 million tons of paper annually -- consuming more than 850 million trees.

2

During a normal day, do you eat a bowl of cereal with milk?

Yes Every ton of recycled office paper saves 380 gallons of oil.

1

During a normal day, do you drink fruit juices or soy drinks that have calcium added to them?

Yes

Over 100 pesticide ingredients are suspected to cause birth defects, cancer, and gene mutations.

No

During a normal day, how many glasses of milk do you drink?

0

3.

IQ

No

During a normal day, do you have cheese on your pizza? Or on nacho chips? Or on broccoli? Or on a burger? Or on anything?

Yes

No

Bonus Point: Do you usually try to eat low-fat cheese?

Yes 8.

Even when it's really cold or really hot outside, do you still do physical activity indoors that's good for your bones like playing basketball or dancing?

Yes

9.

No

No

On days that you do heart-healthy physical activity like swimming or bike riding, do you also try to do other bone-healthy activities like jogging or doing push ups?

Yes

No

10. Do you do bone-healthy physical activities with your family or friends?

Insulating your attic reduces the amount of energy loss in most houses by up to 20%.

Yes

Enough glass was thrown away in 1990 to fill the Twin Towers (1,350 feet high) of New York's World Trade Center every two weeks.

Yes

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September 2013

No

Bonus Point: Have you read all the fun tips on bone-healthy eating and physical activity on this Web site and shared them with your family or friends?

No

Eco Tourism

Athirampally and Vazhachal Waterfalls

thirampally and Vazhachal Waterfalls are located at the at the distance of 90 km from Kochi. They are located in the district of Thrissur close to the Sholayar forests ranges in Kerala. Athirampally is approximately 63 km and Vazhachal is approximately 68 km Thrissur. After running down 80 feet Athirampally fall joins the Chalakkudy river.

The pristine Vazhachal waterfall is located amidst the dense green forests and is the part of the Chalakkudy river. You can visit the waterfalls any day between the 8 am to 6 pm.

The best time to visit the waterfalls is after the monsoons, between the month of September to February. Athirampally and Vazhachal waterfalls are one of the best waterfalls in the country.

A

to a beautiful Vachumaram lake, where you may get the chance to spot the wild elephants and spotted deers.

has made it a favourite picnic spot among the nature lovers. This is the place where you can spend time at leisure exploring its rich flora and fauna. The natural beauty of the Athirampally and Vazhachal is hard to describe in words.

Shopping

Next to the Vazhachal waterfalls is the Moolika Vanitha Swasraya from where you can get the exquisite samples of the herbs, honey and herbal soaps at an reasonable rate. You can also shop for the bamboo wall hangings and hats from here. You may find number of stalls on the roadside selling wild honey. You can explore the handicrafts items made by the local villagers and buy them for the near and dear ones.

Tourists attractions

Vazhachal is quite popular among the tourists for its exotic flora and herbal plantations. The major attraction among the tourists are the two water themes parks namely the Silver stone and Dream World, which are located west of Athirampally. The scenic Thumpurmuzhi gardens are beautifully tucked between the two theme gardens. Another waterfall which is quite popular in the area is the Charpa fall, situated on the eastern side of Athirampally. Tourists have the golden opportunity to venture into the fascinating Malakapara tea gardens. You can make a visit

Things to Remember

Picnic

If you are looking for a break from the busy routine life of yours, Athirampally and Vazhachal waterfalls are the best place to seek.

The natural spell bounding beauty of the area

Tourists are requested to maintain eco tourism in the area. Do not throw the waste anywhere unnecessarily. Do not smoke and do not consume alcohol. Please mind that swimming is strictly prohibited in the area. Tourists are recommended to wear comfortable clothes while visiting the place. Carry along with yourself insect repellent and first aid box. You are requested not to feed the animals especially the monkeys as the waterfalls are plastic free zones.

imicking the way plants turn sunlight and carbon dioxide in the air into energy and oxygen, the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at the California Institute of Technology is in a race to trump nature and slow global warming. Nate Lewis, a Caltech professor and solar energy research star, has a plan to remake fuel as we know it.

“If we couldn’t get to that, we wouldn’t be doing it,” Lewis said in an interview last month.

The effort is backed with $122 million of U.S. Energy Department funds and combines the talents of 120 scientists at Caltech; Stanford University; the University of California’s Berkeley, Irvine and San Diego campuses; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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Along with electric powertrains, vehicles that drive themselves and cars rented by the hour, it’s another disruption of the global auto industry that dates back to the 19th century.

Just a few years ago, all-electric cars seemed fantastic, too. Now Tesla Motors Inc., which makes only battery-powered vehicles, has a higher market value than some old-line automakers, such as Suzuki Motor Corp. and Fiat SpA.

hydrogen, which can power super-clean fuelcell cars, is needed for chemical plants and refineries.

Then comes the second leap: Applying that same research to a system that can blend the hydrogen fuel with carbon dioxide from the air, much as a plant does, to make liquid fuels that can power cars, heavy trucks, boats or aircraft.

Two Leaps

Research labs worldwide are racing to find renewable alternatives to petroleum. Some are private endeavors; others are governmentfunded. While some seek to make fuel from algae, corn or other crops, Lewis argues that such solutions require too much water or land

To revolutionize transportation fuel, Lewis has a two-step plan. Really, it’s two leaps.

First, the coalition aims to develop a system to make large amounts of hydrogen fuel using cheap solar-panel-like devices. Liquid or gaseous

Synthetic, carbon-free gasoline won’t come easy, quick or cheap.

that will be needed for food production.

Innovation Race

Research projects like JCAP have the luxury of not having to satisfy investors’ short-term demands, said Pavel Molchanov, a Houston-based analyst for Raymond James & Associates Inc. “Companies that rely on private capital, even venture capital, in most cases aim to be commercial within the next three years,” said Molchanov, who follows biofuel companies. “If we think about what private developers of biofuels are focusing on now, none of them have a commercialization road map that goes out to 2025.”

Startups such as KiOR Inc., Solazyme Inc., Ceres Inc., Gevo Inc. and Amyris Inc. have a lead over JCAP because they’re already commercializing biofuel alternatives to petroleum and grain-based ethanol.

What JCAP has going for it is the Energy Department, which deemed it an Energy Innovation Hub, one of three Manhattan Project-like efforts. Others are to improve nuclear power plants and make buildings more energy-efficient.

With the government funding, Lewis can be methodical in search of a breakthrough.

Wright Brothers

“The first five years of JCAP, our goal is to show that this can be done; to make the pieces, components, to build an artificial photosynthetic system,” he said. That prototype “isn’t going to be commercializable, in the same way the Wright Brothers’ plane wasn’t a 747. We first have to show people there’s a there there.”

About five years after that, with “faster, better, cheaper” fuel-making technology, JCAP may be able to license its system to oil and energy companies, Lewis said.

The program is talking with potential industrial partners to help expand its analysis of promising “earth-abundant” materials needed for its solar-fuel distillery. Lewis declined to identify specific companies. JCAP’s technicians are test-

ing hundreds of combinations of metallic salts and alloys, seeking the optimal recipe of low-cost, light-absorbing materials and catalysts needed for hydrogen generation.

Urgency to increase low-carbon energy sources has intensified as extreme weather adds to concerns that heat- trapping gases in the atmosphere are making the Earth a less hospitable planet.

President Barack Obama, whose administration funded JCAP, signaled in June that U.S. action to curb carbon emissions will intensify with new steps to pare such pollution from power plants, the biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Transportation Fuels

Second is the use of petroleum-based fuel in transportation. Engines in autos, trucks, aircraft and ships produced 28 percent of the 6.7 million metric tons emitted by the U.S. in 2011, according to the EPA, trailing only electricity generation’s 33 percent. Obama also laid out a plan in 2011 to double vehicle fuel efficiency by 2025 to cut carbon pollution.

Carmakers are boosting vehicle efficiency with small, high- output engines; propulsion delivered by batteries; and even hydrogen fuel cells.

A big hurdle for vehicles powered by fuel cells, such as those being developed

by Toyota Motor Corp. and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, is the lack of a clean source of hydrogen fuel. The first part of Lewis’s plan should make it more plentiful and produce it in a much cleaner way than it’s traditionally done.

By 2020, JCAP technology could supply hydrogen needed for chemical plants and refineries, said William Royea, JCAP’s assistant director for strategy.

Both use vast amounts of the gas — and emit large amounts of carbon when getting hydrogen from natural gas, the main industrial source.

“When gasoline-like fuel produced from this process is combusted, it’s only putting back the same CO2 used originally,” Lewis said. “It’s completely carbon neutral.”

Human influenced facts One ton of carbon dioxide that is released in the air can be prevented by replacing every 75 watt light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs.

Many banks lent large sums of money to developing nations. In order to pay those debts plus interest many nations have turned to the mining of their natural resources as a source of financial aid.

Every day 40,000 children die from preventable diseases.

The public transportation that we have is a wreck.

The U.S. continues to promote and invest in private car travel rather than public transportation.

The human population of the world is expected to be nearly tripled by the year 2100.

10. environment Is Reversible Finally, we can say something positive about these interesting Environmental Facts. All these things could be much better: we can renovate buildings and turn them into greener places, clean rivers, restore habitats and return species there, replant forests, help development countries with the money that we do not need too much; environment is reversible and could be in better condition. However, we still need to do the hardest step forward – changing our awareness.

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Environment & people

Go organic and triple your profits wenty years of hard work and devotion has made Kalaivani from Vellitiruppur, Tamil Nadu a celebrity of sorts in the organic farming circles in Erode district and beyond.

Kalaivani, a single mother of three, took to farming after the loss of her husband almost two decades ago. Since then, she has grown all the crops on her farm without using chemical or synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Over the last few years, she has focused her time and energy in growing organic cotton.

People often associate the cotton crop with parched lands and farmer suicides but Kalaivani insists that cotton can be profitable when grown organically. Organic inputs like Panchagavya and Jeevamritham, both of which

T

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contain cow dung as their main ingredient, not only improve the crop yield but also enrich the soil. Organic pesticides and growth promoters can be made at no extra costs. Farm and cattle left overs can be effectively used to conjure up a host of different potions to boost plant growth and immunity.

Cotton is a 6 month crop. Flowers bloom when the crop is a month and a half old. This gives way to the unripe fruit at the end of two months. The pod doesn’t burst until the 4th month. At the end of 4 months, the fruits slowly dry up and dehisce or split open. Cotton picking commences a few days after the first burst.

On average, a farmer invests around Rs. 10,000 to 15,000 for an acre of organic cotton.

This includes the cost of seeds, costs involved in

preparing the land and wages. Organic cotton is sold at a higher rate compared to those grown using chemical fertilizers and pesticicdes.

When chemicals are used, the crop lasts around six months and cotton can be picked three times at the most. When purely organic inputs are used, the crop stands for more than 6 months, so more than 3 pickings are possible.

More cotton equals more money. In addition, over time, the quality and texture of the soil improves and the amount of water required for the crop's sustenance substantially reduces.

Overall, moving away from chemical farming has proved to have a lasting effect on the soil as well as the yield per acre.

In her spare time, Kalaivani travels to villages in the vicinity, to spread the word, one farmer at a time. She can be reached on (0)98654-85221.

ver 2000 farmers and representatives of farmer unions, 18 MPs and numerous civil society representatives gathered in New Delhi on August 8 to call for a scrapping of the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, recently tabled by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST).

The present regulation of genetically modified (GM) crops has faced criticism from many quarters. In July, the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court of India in a PIL came down heavily upon the current regulatory mechanism and advised against any further field trials until the serious lapses were rectified.

Last year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture (PSCA) found that while India is a signatory to a number of international agreements with respect to the protection of biodiversity and ensuring health and environmental safety from GMOs (genetically modified organisms), the necessary scientific expertise, infrastructure and manpower for ensuring compliance has not been put into place. Appalled, the PSCA called for an allencompassing umbrella legislation on bio-safety which focuses on ensuring biodiversity, human and livestock health, and environmental protection.

O

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The BRAI Bill is seen as a quick one-stop clearing house to benefit GM corporations as a committee of just five scientists will be empowered to clear their patented technology for use in the whole country, contrary to the unanimous concerns of the PSCA and the well-reasoned, science-based recommendations of the TEC. The Bill has a mandate to promote biotechnology in the country. The PSCA as well as the TEC state explicitly the need to remove conflict of interest from the regulatory body.

The TEC recommends that the regulatory body be located in the MoEF and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The BRAI under the MoST will clearly result in a conflict of interest.

Recently, the Coalition for a GM-Free India published a book containing abstracts of more than 400 scientific studies detailing the adverse impacts of GM crops on health and environment.

LIABILITY AND REDRESSAL

While the Bill specifies offences and penalties, there is a need to integrate the principle of 'absolute liability' and the 'polluters pay principle', as penalties laid down are too weak to deter violations. A special legislation needs to be enacted in respect of liability and redress for damage from GMOs. One of the reasons for the moratorium on

Bt brinjal in 2010 was opposition from 10 State governments. Under the Constitution, agriculture is a state subject. However the Bill seeks to override the authority of State governments.

The BRAI Bill also goes against the 73{+r}{+d} and 74{+t}{+h} amendment which focus on decentralisation of power and responsibilities to panchayats so as "to enable them to function as institutions of self-government".

The Eleventh Schedule (Article 243G) as introduced by the amendment, gives a detailed list of functions to be performed by PRIs (Panchayati Raj institutions). The very first point specifies 'Agriculture, including agricultural extension'. The BRAI bypasses them, violating the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

It is thus evident that the BRAI Bill is regressive in nature, and falls short on a number of fronts. It neither conforms to international agreements and protocols, nor does it include fundamentally important recommendations made by the TEC and the PSCA. For this reason the Bill needs to be withdrawn, and an all-encompassing bio-safety legislation needs to be drawn up.

(The author is a researcher at the LEAF Initiative which focuses on issues relating to livelihood, environment, agriculture and food.)

(Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com)

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Eco

HEALTH TIPS

Quotes “Space travel has given us a new appreciation for the Earth.

We realize that the Earth is special. We’ve seen it from afar.

We realize that the Earth is the only natural home for man we know of, and that we had better protect it.”

-James Erwin, U.S. Astronaut “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

-Margaret Mead

Karela lowers

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing

the blood-sugar level as it contains a high dosage of `plant insulin`.

is going to get better – It’s not.”

-The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss “What good is achieving academic excellence if the planet we live on is compromised for ourselves and future generations?”

-Mary Allen, SWANCC Recycling and Education Director

"Where the quality of life goes down for the environment, the quality of life goes down for humans."

Prevent infectious diseases spread in monsoon

George Holland "When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves. "

With diseases like cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis, conjunctivitis, viral infections, etc. on the rise it is important to drink clean water properly boiled or filtered. Do not eat stale food.

David Orr "Over the long haul of life on this planet, it is the ecologists, and not the bookkeepers of business, who are the ultimate accountants."

- Stewart Udall "If we do not permit the Earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food either."

- Joseph Woodkrutch "Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment."

- Rene Dubos

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18th Coasts, Marine Structures and Breakwaters 2013 Edinburgh, United Kingdom 18th Practical Strategies for Improved Flood Risk Management Crowne Plaza, Leeds, United Kingdom 19th 1st International Conference AGRICOM 2013 “Agriculture & Competences: Challenges in Hydroponic and Irrigational Training” Viterbo, Italy 21st 2013 International Conference on Renewable Energy and Environment (ICREE 2013) Phuket, Thailand 21st 2013 International Conference on Civil and Architecture Engineering (ICCAE 2013) Phuket, Thailand 21st 2013 International Conference on Biological and Medical Sciences (ICBMS 2013) Phuket, Thailand

Environmental Conferences in September

21st International Conference on Latest Trends in Environment, Civil and Structural Engineering - ECS 2013 Jakarta, Indonesia 21st 2013 3rd International Conference on Power and Energy Engineering (ICPEE 2013) Phuket, Thailand 22nd The 8th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems – SDEWES Conference Dubrovnik, Croatia (Hrvatska) 23rd 6th international wood fibre polymer symposium Biarritz, France 24th International Conference in Social Sciences, Health and Environment (ICOSSHE 2013) Sydney, Australia 25th Sustainable Enterprises of the Future Pittsburgh, United States of America 25th Tight Oil & Shale Gas Water Management Canada 2013 Calgary, Canada 25th EMECON'13: EMERGING ECONOMIES CONFERENCE Istanbul, Turkey 27th ENERGY WEATHER SUMMIT Houston, United States of America 27th Global Conference on Global Conference of Agriculture Economoics and Environment Research (GCAEER) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 28th International Conference on Advances in Civil and Structural Engineering - CSE 2013 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 29th First International Conference on Global Food Security Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands 30th Sardinia 2013 - 14th International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium S. Margherita di Pula, Italy 30th International Conference on Economic and Social Sustainability 2013 (ICESS 2013) Tokyo, Japan

Tully's Coffee Japan Opens Green, Disaster-Ready Shop

ully's Coffee Japan Co. opened a new concept shop, Tully's Coffee Shop Ekoda, in Tokyo's Nerima Ward on September 25, 2012. The shop is environmentally friendly and disaster-conscious.

The shop is equipped with rooftop solar panels, storage batteries, and an EcoCute electric water heater that can supply 420 liters of hot water in emergency situations. It is also furnished with water-saving toilets that consume 40-percent less water than traditional types. Equipment and kitchen appliances are controlled centrally through a multi-circuit monitor while electric consumption is measured by-the-minute and can be checked by the shop office as well as by company headquarters.

T

The shop also features select eco-friendly materials: wood from forest thinning for tables and chairs, Eco Mark-certified recycled materials for the floor, and silver skin (a layer of skin that surrounds the coffee bean) for paper napkins.

The shop is also disaster-conscious. In a blackout or disaster, storage batteries installed at the shop can power recessed ceiling lights and a television monitor for up to seven hours, digital signage in the shop broadcasts the news, and Wi-Fi service is offered to the public for free. These features make the shop a reliable place for local residents to go in emergencies.

(Source: http://www.japanfs.org)

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Global Supply & Demand The world's oceans are nearing depletion because of the global consumption of fish.

Obesity Versus Starvation While millions suffer hunger every day, the West battles another problem entirely: people are getting fatter every day

Air Pollution According to the UN, more deaths are caused each year by air pollution than by AIDS and malaria

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