![Kabaadi system It is a system which extends all the way up to the ship breaking yards at Alang [in Gujarat].
In the market there you can buy anything from a ship’s refrigerator to a 500kW generator. A significant quantity of India’s steel requirements come from there, which is a much less energy-intensive way of sourcing them than making steel from iron ore, limestone and coke.
Everything of value is recovered. Sure, there have been concerns about working conditions, but they can and should be fully addressed. It is the most efficient and sustainable way of disposing of ships, so it serves a function not just for India but the world.
Harnessing tradition
Even though India is building up its infrastructure, it remains for now a relatively resource-efficient economy, and much of this has to do with the presence of these traditional practices. If we really want sustainable innovation, we need to harness these practices and adapt them, rather than consign them to history.
(via India must look to the past for sustainable innovation | RTCC - Responding to Climate Change)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/735890bf389cf07d848a8e246331a9b5/tumblr_mjee36Q1tg1re2bnso1_500.jpg)
Kabaadi system It is a system which extends all the way up to the ship breaking yards at Alang [in Gujarat].
In the market there you can buy anything from a ship’s refrigerator to a 500kW generator. A significant quantity of India’s steel requirements come from there, which is a much less energy-intensive way of sourcing them than making steel from iron ore, limestone and coke.
Everything of value is recovered. Sure, there have been concerns about working conditions, but they can and should be fully addressed. It is the most efficient and sustainable way of disposing of ships, so it serves a function not just for India but the world.
Harnessing tradition
Even though India is building up its infrastructure, it remains for now a relatively resource-efficient economy, and much of this has to do with the presence of these traditional practices. If we really want sustainable innovation, we need to harness these practices and adapt them, rather than consign them to history.
(via India must look to the past for sustainable innovation | RTCC - Responding to Climate Change)
So, he went on to study at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in Bhopal, where he interacted with rural life and learnt about agri-business and so on.
“But I didn’t like that either,” he smiles, “I did work with the National Dairy Development Board and did a project with the European Union and the Kerala Government, where I got to spend time in rural Kerala.”
And in a village near Kolar, Paul learnt the problems of the poor. Vulnerable cash flow, indebtedness, problems with traders,
“Rural financing wasn’t introduced effectively. So, banks and financial institutions couldn’t find a way to fund the people. I learnt how rural people invest on education because they think we are where we are because we went to school. So they aspire to send their children to convents,” Paul explains.
While the experience was enriching, Paul wanted to build something of his own. “And I had only two things in mind; that it must benefit rural people and have enterprise.”
In 2001, Paul came to Chennai and began Rural Innovations Network (RIN) at a time when social entrepreneurship was scarce. It later came to be called Villgro. “Why are people poor?” he wonders, “The solutions are not fundamentally different.
When I came to Chennai, there was no water. But the Government took an existing solution, rainwater harvesting, and executed it so well, we don’t buy water by the tankers anymore. There is a need for innovation, for old ideas to be executed in other ways with strength. The poor will remain poor if you don’t do things differently.”
— Paul’s call - The HinduWith ‘Krishiraja’, a portable device made from bicycle parts, Gopal Bhise has made ploughing feasible for poor farmers One may often come across stories, pictures or videos that depict farm hands labouring to till their fields in the country’s hinterlands using a heavy, unwieldy wooden plough. To many of us it is just a piece of news, a sad irony, that India no longer shines in villages; but not for Gopal Bhise, a small farmer from Jalgaon district, Maharashtra. Bhise owns some land but is so poor that he cannot afford a pair of plough animals or rent a tractor. One day, on his way to the field, Bhise happened to see a grocer transporting four big sacks of flour on a bicycle. He realised that though the activity appeared tedious, the grocer would have been saved the cost of cartage, and he thought, “Why should I not modify the bicycle for the purpose of farm operations?” Bhise set to work on this idea, and after a lot of trial and error, he came out with an implement — fashioned out of the front axle, wheel and handlebar of a standard bicycle — that could be used by marginal farmers to execute functions carried out by bullocks or tractors. People would laugh at him but he persisted in believing in his idea. Perseverance paid off and his portable implement, christened ‘Krishiraja’, was received very well in the local market and has won him the National Innovation Award. He has made more than 200 devices so far. The ‘Krishiraja’ currently sells for approximately Rs. 1,200 a piece. It is easy to operate and suited for those who cannot afford bullocks. The over 200 farmers who use Bhise’s multipurpose cycle weeder/hoe, vouch for its success. “It was my frustration at the plight of marginal farmers like me that made me develop this device. For a poor farmer like me, a bicycle is more affordable than a pair of bullocks,” says Bhise. With the help of GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), West, his innovation has been transformed into a motorised device.
EPFL is launching “EssentialTech,” a unique program in which engineers will in particular produce medical devices custom-designed for the difficult conditions encountered in developing countries.
An interesting short video from FAO on water management and cultivating responses to indeterminate (or insufficient) water stocks. In southern India, the climate is becoming unpredictable and drought more common , says FAO – and this indeed is the case for peninsular India in general. Indiscriminate pumping from shallow aquifers shared by many farmers has caused abnormal drops in water levels, most notably in northern and north-west India, in the states of Punjab and Haryana which were the Green Revolution model states. When a well goes dry, a farmer loses his crop. In Andhra Pradesh, said FAO, 6,000 farmers have been trained in groundwater management by a project run by Indian NGOs and guided by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. They have learned to monitor how much water is available underground at the start of the growing season. Then they only plant crops that need that much water. (via Barefoot water scientists in Andhra Pradesh, India « Resources Research)
Shiv Nadar often says that he is a product of education. Through his philanthropic arm, the founder and chairman of the $6.2 billion, 100,000 people-strong HCL Group is doing what he believes is closest to his heart—to build future leaders from rural India via free high quality school education.
A unique social experiment, under the direct supervision of his daughter Roshni, is presently underway at two schools in Bulandshahr and Sitapur in UP, that addresses social imbalances and envisions nurturing and creating leaders who would be the inspiration and role models for their families, communities and society at large.
A ground report from the rural heartland
— INNOVATION @ GRASSROOTSTata Agrico, the Tata Steel’s oldest brand, will collaborate with National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to sell unique agricultural implements made by grassroot innovators.
Tata will co-brand the technologies developed by grassroot innovators registered with NIF. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between NIF and Tata Agrico to market the innovations through Tata outlets and a fixed margin is to be paid to the innovator. The initiative has begun with a pilot project of a sugar cane bud chipper by innovator Roshan Lal Vishwakarma of Madhya Pradesh.
“Tata Agrico will procure the bud chipper from the innovator and will sell it through Tata outlets. It has been agreed that a margin will be paid to the innovator. Once the pilot is over, other technologies from NIF’s database will be co-branded in this arrangement,” said Dr Vipin Kumar, chief innovation officer from NIF who signed the MoU with T V S Shenoy, chief, Agro Division, Tata Agrico.
