The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
PARUL CHANDRA NEW DELHI After what seems a failed experiment of Tughlaqian proportions that saw the Indian railways spending several lakhs on planting crores of jatropha trees along its railway tracks, the ministry appears to have junked jatropha for producing bio-fuel. Having realised the financial and practical unavailability of extracting …
'A quantum of 135 million litre ethanol is being produced from six sugar factories of the State annually. This is being used with petrol as a fuel. There is a target of increasing the use of ethenal to 10 per cent in the State by the end of next year,' …
Pune An armed forces study has shown that children are susceptible to jatropha poisoning if they ingest the seeds of the plant. Specialists from the Department of Paediatrics and Neonatology at Command Hospital Pune and Military Hospital at Ahmednagar conducted the study that was reported in the January issue of …
''What the scientists are saying about global warming and the glaciers in North and South Poles melting and raising the sea level is all bull****!,'' observed Medical Education Minister Ramachandra Gowda here on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of a Biofuel Information and Research Centre at the University …
Aiming to reduce India’s dependence on fossil fuels¤ the Centre gave its nod to the national biofuel policy last month that the ministry of new and renewable energy (mnre) has developed. The policy sets a 2017 deadline to achieve blending 20 per cent home grown biofuel with petrol and diesel¤ …
Ajay Modi / New Delhi January 5, 2010, 0:55 IST New government policy on biofuels may consider financial incentives. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country
Viable biofuels could end up reducing land for crops The national biofuel policy announced by the government last week is well-intentioned but is not really practical. It aims for achieving a 20 per cent blending of biofuels with petrol as well as diesel by 2017. Given that even the 5 …
Jairam Ramesh Biofuels have a limited role in India due to land limitation and food security issues, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said today, a view which differs from the official line pushing for a 20 per cent blend of such fuel in gasoline and diesel by 2017. Pitching for hybrids …
JAIPUR: Experts attending a zonal consultation on bio-fuel for semi-arid eastern plains of Rajasthan here over the week-end called for evolving a balance between the commercial production of bio-fuel bearing plants such as jatropha and the use of common land, crucial for the rural poor, for their cultivation. The consultation
ONCE upon a time, biofuels were thought of as a solution to fossil-fuel dependence. Now they are widely seen as a boondoggle to agribusiness that hurts the environment and cheats taxpayers. A report commissioned by the United Nations endorses neither extreme. It gives high marks to some crop-based fuels and …
Research on energy from nuclear, wind, tidal and biological origins gained great momentum but it needs special infrastructure facilities, whereas biofuels can be produced from a diverse set of crops. Each country is adopting a strategy that exploits the comparative advantages it holds in certain crops. In India, more than …
Ethanol from sugarcane is not an option available to water-deficient India Subir Roy / New Delhi September 16, 2009, 0:36 IST Ethanol from sugarcane is not an option available to water-deficient India. The sharp rise in sugar prices in India, now the world
Sanjib Kumar Roy ISLAND PURA: ABDUL KALAM' S VISION FOR ANDAMANSEXTENDING his dream plan of PURA (providing urban amenities in rural areas) to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam said that he visualised Island PURA for the welfare and better employment opportunities of islanders. Dr …
Emami Biotech, a part of the Rs 2,000-crore Emami Group, will invest Rs 400 crore in a plantation project over five years in Oromia in Ethiopia. The company will engage in plantation of biofuel crops (jatropha) and other edible and non-edible oil seeds on 100,000 acres allotted to Emami Biotech …
US start-up Joule Biotechnologies hopes to make commercial amounts of motor fuel by feeding engineered organisms high concentrations of carbon dioxide and sunlight, its top executive said. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, which launched Monday, hopes to make up to 20,000 gallons per acre of fuel a year by late 2011 …
Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) has launched a number of projects aimed at cultivating bio-fuel crops for the production of fuel products to enable the country save huge amounts spent on fuel imports. "We have identified three salt-tolerant plants including Jatropha, Salicornia and Castor, which would grow in salt marshes …
Africa is taking the lead in creating its own biotechnology agenda, according to researchers based at South Africa's Durban University of Technology and the University of Kwazulu-Natal. They say that sugar-farming countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe are exploring large-scale production of bioethanol, while the use …
Last year the skyrocketing cost of food was a wake-up call for the planet. Between 2005 and the summer of 2008, the price of wheat and corn tripled, and the price of rice climbed fivefold, spurring food riots in nearly two dozen countries and pushing 75 million more people into …
