A green lung for Indian agriculture

Climate change, health concerns and farmers’ despair due to rising costs and dropping profits have prompted India to reconsider the agriculture’s path. The National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture is focusing on designing new outlooks for Indian agriculture.

One of the most creative initiatives is the program named Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA), an alternative to the conventional input-intensive agriculture model. It promotes the use of locally available, organic external inputs and traditional organic farming methods (such as poly-cropping and intense rice-growing systems). The program is headed and monitored by self-help groups of rural women supported by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), a state-government support structure aided by the World Bank.

This initiative builds on the key drivers of a sustainable agriculture. It empowers local population groups and resorts to organic farming that is both climate and health friendly. The outcome of the schemes is that, in the case of cotton for example, a CMSA farmer saves more than Rs 12,500 per year just by not using pesticides and without affecting crop productivity.

If you know of other interesting initiatives in the domain of sustainable agriculture, please share with us!

Let’s Pool Our Efforts for Sustainable Mobility

Cities are often said to be shaped by their mass transit system. For anyone commuting in Chennai and experiencing increased traffic congestion this is a relevant issue. Years of urban planning experience have shown that a collaborative approach is the only way that can actually embed sustainable mobility into the bustling city.

Aside from the emergence of new technologies in transportation, fuel and urban design, the shaping of new business models and collaborative partnerships is also fuelling urban planning. A platform such as City Connect (a partnership between the Confederation of Indian Industry CII, Tamil Nadu and Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (JCCD) created in 2007, which brings together industry, government and civil society stakeholders around urban India, has proven to be a crucial step towards an overarching approach to transport issues.

An example of this effort to pool various points of view and skills: Chennai City Connect, backed by Michelin India, has recently hired consulting firm Civitas to study the autorickshaw sector in Chennai. The report is now out and gives constructive insight into how to enhance sustainable mobility in Chennai.

Please share your thoughts on how to prevent lively Chennai from becoming a dead-end and turn it back into the crossroads it once was!

Will Biogas Help India Reach Swadeshi*?

With growing scarcity of resources, Gandhi’s dream of self-sufficient communities, sustaining their needs from the local environment is more than ever a burning issue. India’s rural areas have an amazing source of perennial and cost-effective energy at their disposal, thanks to biomass. Biogas potential is huge and can contribute to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, alleviating women’s drudgery, and to enhancing rural development.

These renewable energy options are promoted by the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), which operates under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) through subsidies and information dissemination. The government has organized the National Biogas and Manure Management Programme (NBMMP) nationwide for the promotion of biogas technology and several NGOs have been active in implementing the program on the ground.

Biogas plants transform cattle dung into a clean and particulate-free gas that can be directly used for cooking in rural houses. It sounds simple and would be if farmers were given adequate guidance to install and operate biogas plants, with advice about the appropriate pipes or gas transport. We may well soon see all rural households turn into plant operators for the sake of Swadeshi!

Have you heard of any biogas experiences in rural areas? Please share any promising achievements you know of!

*Self-sufficiency

Carbon Footprint Study Draft Report: Renewable Energies a Top Priority for Tamil Nadu

Did you know that 75% of Tamil Nadu’s emissions stem from energy and power-related sources? This fact was revealed in the draft report of the Carbon Footprint Study by the Confederation of Indian Industry. The study, sponsored by Michelin India, is the first of its kind in Tamil Nadu. Its purpose is to help the State gain a greater insight into its carbon situation. Both total and per capita emissions have been calculated from data provided by 15 State departments.

Clearly, the outcome of the study points to an urgent need to adopt a renewable energy strategy to lower the overall carbon footprint of Tamil Nadu and bring it in line with the national commitment of reducing emissions intensity by 20 to 25% of 2005 levels by 2020.

The report lays down several recommendations including: adoption of voluntary renewable power obligation targets; creation of green funds; charge of a fuel tax on diesel and petrol to fund bio-fuel research, support technology absorption and public transportation system; adoption of green buildings in residential and commercial space.

Astonishingly, we also learn that a single tree can sequester 30 kg of carbon per year while the per capita carbon footprint stands at 1.59 tons. Afforestation would be the most obvious step, not to mention that it would entail so many other benefits…

ASER 2011: a Roadmap for Boosting Rural Children’s Education

What better goal than giving our rural children an opportunity to develop core skills? Unfortunately, school enrolment rates and education quality do not always go hand in hand. The Annual Status of Education Report 2011 released earlier this year by Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development, highlights mixed news for rural kids’ education.

The survey by local organizations and concerned citizens shows that extraordinary progress has been made in schooling rates: 96.7% of all 6-14 year olds in rural India are enrolled in school, a number that has held steady since 2010. However, more worrying are the reported reading and arithmetic levels in rural schools. With a few exceptions (among which is the state of Tamil Nadu), children’s ability to read and count has declined over the recent years.

Survey results clearly point to reconsidering the outcome of learning in rural areas. From this standpoint, effective school attendance, which is not the same thing as actual enrolment, should be a priority. Quality of schooling will also need to be targeted by education policies in the coming years, with a focus on enhancing pupil-teacher ratio in classrooms as well as schools infrastructure development, including libraries, bathrooms and water facilities.

Such steps are a pre-requisite for delivering quality education to rural children effectively and may provide a roadmap for all interested stakeholders in India, including private corporations and NGOs. Let’s give our children an opportunity to influence their own destiny!

Community initiative driving equal rights

Sometimes the little details make the biggest difference. In India, where equal rights have yet to mean equal opportunities, it is all in the details. For instance, there are far fewer women than men driving on the country’s roads. Yet driving is an incredibly powerful tool for independence; something NGOs have been quick to understand could serve many women.

Over the past years a number of initiatives have been rolled out to provide Indian women with easier access to cars and driving. Indeed, the sector is promising enough for companies like For-She to appear and grow throughout the country. The business model is built around providing women with access to jobs usually restricted to men, such as commercial driving or personal protection.

However, not all initiatives are for-profit; in Chennai alone, a number of small non-profit organizations such as the Association for Non-Traditional Employment (ANEW) or Human Trip have been offering women free driving lessons and the opportunity to become Auto-rickshaw drivers. Michelin India has joined the effort by offering free training at its site in Chennai. With four hours of classes a day, the program has already enrolled 14 soon-to-be female drivers. With so many ongoing initiatives, women drivers have hit the ground running and they’re going fast.

Eureka for super educational programs: Better learning through better teaching

India produces 3.7 million graduates annually. However, the country has yet to leverage the amazing possibilities of its intellectual treasure trove. One of the reasons stems from the fact that, although India’s economy is growing, its infrastructure still faces big challenges, particularly in education, thus creating an ever-widening gap between urban and rural areas, depriving poorer children of opportunities to learn and climb the social ladder.

But apprenticeship is no easy matter to solve. Thankfully, the NGO Association for India’s Development (AID), founded by Dr. Balaji Sampath, came up with a great idea. The NGO, in partnership with Eureka Child Foundation, established a fully scalable program called Eureka SuperKidz based on three core concepts: 1) Acting directly with children; 2) Active partnering with schools, institutions and civil society stakeholders; 3) Large-scale advocacy with communities, NGOs and Governments.

In Tamil Nadu, the NGO has had the opportunity to implement its program in over 1028 villages, reaching out to 10 additional villages, among which is Thervoy, in Thiruvallur District, with help from Michelin India. Through a very segmented set of lessons with clearly defined goals and methods, the program reached its 100% skills achievement goal for the enrolled children, ensuring that they had learnt and mastered essential core skills (reading, writing and arithmetic), which are essential to the pursuit of their studies. Thanks to AID and the Eureka Superkidz program, a whole new world of opportunities is now opening up to the children of Tamil Nadu.

Eye camps: our partnership with Sankara Nethralaya

National Highway 5 (NH5) takes a turn at Janapanchatram to converge into State Highway 51 (SH 51). Travel for 30 minutes and you enter into Sengarai. Tucked away from Chennai, this tiny village (1158 inhabitants) has little interesting information for a tourist or student of any subject or even an onlooker. But for us, this place is very special and shall remain so for a long time, for our learning curve in rural health interventions starts right here. It is not destiny that takes us here, but the findings of the conscientious “Household socio-economic survey” conducted by the Foundation For Rural Recovery And Development (Download Socio Economic survey) across 31 villages around Michelin India’s upcoming plant in SIPCOT’s Thervoy Kandigai Industrial Park, Tamil Nadu. The company initiates eye camps as a first step in the direction of addressing the healthcare requirements of the local communities and developing a long-term assistance plan.


Coming back to Sengarai, on 18 September, 2010, we conducted the first eye camp in association with SankaraNethrayalaya (Sankara Nethralaya link), a member of “Vision 2020: The Right to Sight India”(vision2020 website).The surprising turn out for the camp (over 200 people) was overwhelming, and it reiterated the figures in the ‘socio-economic survey’.

Since then, we have organized nine more eye camps. One each in Mukarambakkam, Palavakkam, KannanKottai, Latchivakkam, Sengarai, Thandalam and Kollanoor and 2 camps in Karadiputhur. Of the total 2291 people visiting these camps, 103 undergone cataract operations. An additional 700 people received spectacles and 51 have been identified for cataract operation.

It is truly inspiring to see people working together for the sake of a common project: the village people, volunteers from the neighborhood, Michelin colleagues and the Hospital team. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the highly esteemed doctors and medical staff who have been taking part in these initiatives. Their feedback is extremely important for us. Just to quote one of them, Mr. V. Sivakumar, Administrator, Jaslok Community Ophthalmic Centre, SankaraNethralaya (Sankara Nethralaya Homepage)said, “Efforts such as these from corporate bodies will go a long way in ensuring that health care services reach out to all sections of society”.