MONEYMAKERS
yummy utensils: Instead of wiping their dishes and bowls clean, people can now munch and chew them up after meals. A Taiwanese inventor, Chen Liang has launched edible containers made of wheat
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Sun lighting up the valley
Solar lighting systems have brightened up the gloomy winters of Himachal Pradesh s Mayad valley
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New crop scheme for Punjab farmers
the seeds of a novel programme to reduce the rice-wheat predominance in Punjab's cropping pattern have been planted. The state recently launched a multi-crop, multi-year contract farming programme.
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Time to bid adieu
April 23 marked the end of the 300-year-old coal mining industry in France. On that day, the last symbolic block of coal was extracted from the La Houve mine near the town of Creutzwald, abutting the
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SEZ, how special?
Despite having burned its fingers with export processing zones, which mainly involved a number of substantial fiscal benefits, the government has gone into overdrive to push its new policy on special economic zones. The difference, this time around, is th
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Sustaining 9 p.c. growth will be tough: Survey
Favours partial sale of profit-making non-navaratna PSUs, and tackling of inflationary impulses Holding out a warning that the current slowdown in the U.S. would have an effect on the Indian economy, the Economic Survey 2007-08 maintained that sustaining a high GDP growth of nine per cent while reining in inflation would be a tough challenge. Tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday, the Government's pre-Budget annual economic progress report said that in the current uncertain scenario, an increase in the overall growth to double digits would entail additional reforms and came out with a policy prescription. Among the various measures suggested to sustain the high growth momentum, the Survey favoured partial sale of the identified profit-making non-navaratna public sector undertakings (PSUs), phasing out control on sugar, fertilizer and drugs, sale of old oilfields to the private sector, a higher share for foreign equity in retail trade and further opening up of the banking and insurance sectors to foreign direct investment (FDI). With the economy projected to grow at 8.7 per cent during the current fiscal, the Survey pointed out that the lower growth represented a deceleration from the unexpectedly high growth of 9.4 and 9.6 per cent in the preceding two years. "Maintaining growth rate at nine per cent will be a challenge and raising it to two digits will be an even greater one,' the Survey said. Linking the huge accumulation of foreign capital inflows as the reason for the pressure building up on prices, the Survey said that inflationary impulses from global commodity prices must be tackled through use of fiscal and trade policy instruments. Inflation this fiscal is projected to return to the earlier level of 4.4 per cent, down from 5.4 per cent in 2006-07. Deceleration in growth this fiscal appears to have spread across all sectors except electricity, community service and services such as trade, hotels, transport and communications. More significantly, the slowdown in the farm sector growth is attributed to the sluggish trend witnessed in rabi crops. Also, other sectors like manufacturing and construction which grew at 12 per cent in 2006-07 dropped by 2.5 percentage points in the current year. "The slower growth of consumer durables was the most important factor in the slowdown of manufacturing,' the Survey said. As for the external sector, the U.S. economy is expected to slow down in 2008 as a fall-out of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. In fact, most projections of global economies anticipate a moderate and not severe slowdown. "This will impact all countries including India, depending on the importance of the slowdown in different countries and importance of the country in our exports,' the Survey concluded, while pointing out that a further fall in exports to the U.S. might be unavoidable but would be relatively modest. On the flip side, the Survey viewed that one of the implications of the U.S. sub-prime crises would be increased capital inflows into India and other emerging markets. "Thus the situation of excess inflows is likely to remain, though the pressure on reserve accumulation and exchange rate appreciation is likely to ease. Any reduction in excess capital flows from the high levels in 2007 may affect the equity markets in the short-term, but will make the task of monetary management easier,' it said.
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Lack of quality seeds hits prawn production
During this biting cold what can be better than a dish of black-tiger prawns cooked in oriental style for dinner or just batter fried along with your evening drink. But then, be prepared to shell out a huge sum as black-tiger prawns supply is going down with stagnant production over the past several years. India is the leading producer of black-tiger prawns in the world but today the prawn farmers are faced with the problem of stagnant production due to lack of quality seeds and financial support from the government. According to I.P.R. Mohan Raju, president of the Prawn Farmers Federation of India, "Although India is the leading producer of black-tiger prawns in the world, the production in our country is stagnant for the past few years. The primary reason for the stagnation is the inadequate supply of quality seeds. The hatchery operators depend on the supply of wild brood stock for the production of seeds. The quality and quantity of this wild brood stock has deteriorated over the past few years.' The hatchery operators depended on the supply of wild brood stock for the production of seeds but the quality and quantity of this had deteriorated over the past few years. The federation, the first national platform for prawn farmers constituted by state federations of the 10 maritime states and union territories, would collaborate with the hatchery operators and the government to address this issue, he said. India has over 1,50,000 hectares under prawn cultivation with around 1.2 to 1.4 million hectares potential brackish water area available. More than 91per cent of the 1,00,000 plus farmers are small scale with land holding of less than two hectares. About 6 per cent of the farmers' own land only between two to five hectares and the remaining three percent own land over five hectares. Total production is around 1,35,000 tons with an average production of less than 1000 kg per hectare. Farming methods are mostly extensive or modified extensive with less than 20 per cent of the farms having electricity connections. Black-tiger (Penaeus monodon) is the major species cultivated constituting over 97 per cent of the total production. More than 90 per cent of the 135,000 tons produced and over 94 per cent of the value of exports come from small-scale farmers. Said V. Balasubramaniam, general secretary of the federation, "Lack of institutional finance and insurance coverage is a big deterrent for the growth of the small farmers. More than 90 per cent of the over Rs 3,000 crore invested in prawn farms in India is from the pockets of the small farmers or borrowed from unorganised money lenders. More over, more than 90 per cent of the production cost is financed by credit from the dealers of inputs and companies, since the farmer does not get any type of crop loan from financial institutions. "This drives the cost of production up by 20 to 30 per cent, since credit is involved at various levels in the chain of crop input supplies. If farmers get institutional financing and insurance coverage for their crop, the accrued benefits will make him more competitive in the world market,' he said.
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Cancun musing
<p>I have reached Cancun few hours’ back to attend the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP-16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and have been greeted with news that can only be characterised as bad or worse.</p>
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Lunawa Environmental Improvement & Community Development Project
<p><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Lunawa Environmental Improvement & Community Development Project</strong></span></p> <p><img alt="" src="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/country/srilanka/lunawara_hl.jpg" style="border-width: 2px; border-style: solid;" /></p> <p>The Lunawa Environmental Improvement & Community Development Project (2003-10), was the first ‘test’ of Sri Lanka’s National Involuntary Resettlement Policy. Today it is touted as an innovative, pro-poor model for infrastructure projects in the developing world, especially relevant for the involuntary resettlement of people from densely populated urban areas.</p>
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India's national solar mission: getting it right
<p>India launched its National Solar Mission last year. The aim is ambitious – to build capacity of 22,000 mw by 2022. Clearly this is critical: if we can upscale our solar energy generation, we also build the ‘learning’ needed for the world – prices will drop, technology will grow, new answers will be found. But the question is how is this programme working?
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Solar energy is everybody's business
Solar mission is too important to let doubtful dealings hijack it. In public perception the renewable energy sector is a do-good sector that promises environment-friendly and affordable energy. It is
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For a place in the sun
<p>How will solar energy be made to work in India? As I discussed in my previous article there are three key challenges. One, how will the country pay for solar energy in a situation where there is no
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Editor's pick
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Coal-based power industry expands rapidly while solar power trots behind
Tuticorin, a coastal district in southern Tamil Nadu, is a large hub for coal-based thermal energy generation with many more such projects in the pipeline. Currently there are 2 power stations commissioned
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Mission impossible?
Managing the conflict
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Green justice: up in smoke?
<p>Aided by officialdom and politicos, polluting industries seem well cushioned against thunderous court orders</p>
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The essence of being
Is it the soul? Is it the mind? Or is it something outside the confines of the human body? Author most elusive of mental phenomenon of consciousness
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Visionary
Blind terror: 80 per cent of the world's sightless are in the developing world, and the number will double by the turn of the century. Carl Kupfer is the director of the National Eye Institute, Betheseda, USA. He tells the author that blindness is not onl
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How to be a glutton and bloom with health
How what you tuck into can pull you back from the brink of death
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The rulers nouveaux
Madhya Pradesh took a head start in implementing the 3 tier panchayati raj. But lack of finances might just undo the transfer of power to the people