Measures to curb global warming - http://www.ecocentre.org.uk/global-warming.html
Renewable Energy Can Curb Global Warming by 2030 - http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/infocus/story?id=47351
EU Details Plan To Curb Global Warming - http://www.outlookseries.com/news/Science/1739.htm
EU's Ambitious Global Warming Plan - http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0210016DZC1U
Measures to curb the climate change impacts of aviation - http://www.transportenvironment.org/Downloads-req-getit-lid-443.html
Wasteful efforts to curb global warming - news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5346734.stm
Global Warming: A Comparative Guide to the E.U. and the U.S. and Their Approaches to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol - http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Climate_Change_Kyoto_Protocol.htm
Economist Paul Volcker says steps to curb global warming would not devastate an economy - http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/06/news/FIN-GEN-Egypt-Volcker-Global-Warming.php
A hoppa De State Transport bus
After a long had to goto our farm house in my village 80kms from Pune in India, best way to reach here is either drive or get onto state transport red buses or luxary buses, if one dosent want to drive and enjoy this route, then buses is one of best option.
I decided to hop onto ST bus, reached shivajinagar ST depot around 3.55pm, was fortunate to get 4pm bus, and luckily got a place to seat in front rows.
Bus was quiet for 5 mins or so, even now its so customary for many passengers in india that even knowing route of there bus they will wait patiently for announcement from control board on bus departure, and once they hear this they will race to bus first to make sure they manage to push all other doen and get onto bus and then to get place to rest there bums.
Same happened here and soon i could see co-passengers seated to few in standings as well.
As soon as bus got out of pune(bumpy roads and reading dosent see eye to eye), i pulled out 'Inheritence of Lost' by kiran desai. Read 20 pages or so and decided to enjoy scenery, courtesy global warming it had just drizzled
and could smell smell of soil, was refreshed in a moment, even expensive perfules fail to do this magic.
Things havent changed much on this ST buses in past 20 years(thats my meory of bus travels), same level of energy
cooperation angerlevel everything is just perfect, typical way of indian life.
Reached village bus stop around 7pm, and since it was cloudy it was dark :( and this not a city where you see
street lights, all u see is distant house lights and barely visible small street. Had no choice but to walk, and what helped
me like a fire fly was dim back light of my cell phone :) see technology helps.
Walked for 20 mins, and reached home. It was nice to reach home, mother was making indian breads on traditional
oven and some good curry was already ready. Took wash, changed into night dress and joined at table for freshly made
home cooked food.
Once in a while its fun to hoponto this red boxes called buses and go round countryside and experience and inhale pure air to life.
I decided to hop onto ST bus, reached shivajinagar ST depot around 3.55pm, was fortunate to get 4pm bus, and luckily got a place to seat in front rows.
Bus was quiet for 5 mins or so, even now its so customary for many passengers in india that even knowing route of there bus they will wait patiently for announcement from control board on bus departure, and once they hear this they will race to bus first to make sure they manage to push all other doen and get onto bus and then to get place to rest there bums.
Same happened here and soon i could see co-passengers seated to few in standings as well.
As soon as bus got out of pune(bumpy roads and reading dosent see eye to eye), i pulled out 'Inheritence of Lost' by kiran desai. Read 20 pages or so and decided to enjoy scenery, courtesy global warming it had just drizzled
and could smell smell of soil, was refreshed in a moment, even expensive perfules fail to do this magic.
Things havent changed much on this ST buses in past 20 years(thats my meory of bus travels), same level of energy
cooperation angerlevel everything is just perfect, typical way of indian life.
Reached village bus stop around 7pm, and since it was cloudy it was dark :( and this not a city where you see
street lights, all u see is distant house lights and barely visible small street. Had no choice but to walk, and what helped
me like a fire fly was dim back light of my cell phone :) see technology helps.
Walked for 20 mins, and reached home. It was nice to reach home, mother was making indian breads on traditional
oven and some good curry was already ready. Took wash, changed into night dress and joined at table for freshly made
home cooked food.
Once in a while its fun to hoponto this red boxes called buses and go round countryside and experience and inhale pure air to life.
Cultural Fusion Changing rules of Animation world
Its so amazing to watch animation space be it movies, cartoon characters books and so on, changes coming to this space over priod of time are so fascinating, cultural fusion is number one factor which is attributing to so many changes.
During initial period of cartoon/animation industry it was mickey mouse, donald duck to so many entertaining and honest characters mostly living in a dream world and doing funny things, post world war II era gave rise to macho characters like superman, popey, batman and so many of them. For last few decades east and west culture fusion saw its effect on this industry and gave similar wester fashion characters like teenage mutuant ninja turtle and so on with machoism or so. This decade though many rules of game have changed and if we look at box office to television rating points one thing is very visible, only plain entertaining but intelligent characters with lots of extra power with politeness, well mannered and characters with both west & east see huge success. A 90's or 80's type of movie or character will fail to appeal larger kids to grownups here as we are already shifted culturally we cannot look at only one culture. This even applies to few classic creations like tintin, calvin and hobbes, garfield to others.
Most of todays popular characters like SpngebobSquarepants, ninja hatori, perman, dora and monkey, pokeman, justice league, power rangers to ice age, madagasker, happy feat to any thing, culture and fuson is very visible.
Happy watching.....
During initial period of cartoon/animation industry it was mickey mouse, donald duck to so many entertaining and honest characters mostly living in a dream world and doing funny things, post world war II era gave rise to macho characters like superman, popey, batman and so many of them. For last few decades east and west culture fusion saw its effect on this industry and gave similar wester fashion characters like teenage mutuant ninja turtle and so on with machoism or so. This decade though many rules of game have changed and if we look at box office to television rating points one thing is very visible, only plain entertaining but intelligent characters with lots of extra power with politeness, well mannered and characters with both west & east see huge success. A 90's or 80's type of movie or character will fail to appeal larger kids to grownups here as we are already shifted culturally we cannot look at only one culture. This even applies to few classic creations like tintin, calvin and hobbes, garfield to others.
Most of todays popular characters like SpngebobSquarepants, ninja hatori, perman, dora and monkey, pokeman, justice league, power rangers to ice age, madagasker, happy feat to any thing, culture and fuson is very visible.
Happy watching.....
How future will look with a collaborative IndChi
When two of neighbouring most populous nations homing 30+% of worlds burstling vibrant futuristic's youngsters what can future hold. Either a prosperous and longlasting future or a over energised ruined one.
Following are two small stories one where it shows prosperous and longlasting future and next one which shows over energised ruined one.
Following are two small stories one where it shows prosperous and longlasting future and next one which shows over energised ruined one.
India Rising Aaaaaahh Grrrrrhhhhh
Came across a nice article on outcry of india's potential to grow and how its stinking infrastructure is holding it back.
A realistic article on .
India Rising (or part of it)
Last year October I made my first visit to India. I had heard a lot of stories and read numerous articles about the 'Rise of India' (Thomas Friedman probably topping the list in terms of optimism). So...I arrived with high expectations. After arriving in Delhi Airport, staying three days in Delhi and travelling two weeks through Rajasthan, I was becoming more and more fascinated and disappointed at the same time.
Of course I hadn't expected India to have turned in to one big IT science park in just one or two decades (although some publications seem to give that picture). But I had expected India's optimism, ambition and rupees to have trickled down to other sections of society...at least a little bit. I have not been in the booming cities of Bombay, Bangalore or Chennai, but judging from my experiences from Delhi and Rajasthan, there's a lot of work to be done, in terms of public facilities, but especially in terms of equality.
Delhi's airport was in many ways worse of than the smaller regional airports I had just seen while visiting Indonesia and Malaysia the two months before. The roads and other public works were definitely a lot worse. Steve Hamm of Businessweek fears that the lack of investment in public space might hurt India's progress:
The infrastructure deficit is so critical that it could prevent India from achieving the prosperity that finally seems to be within its grasp. Without reliable power and water and a modern transportation network, the chasm between India's moneyed elite and its 800 million poor will continue to widen, potentially destabilizing the country. Jagdish Bhagwati figures gross domestic product growth would run two percentage points higher if the country had decent roads, railways, and power. "We're bursting at the seams," says Kamal Nath, India's Commerce & Industry Minister. Without better infrastructure, "we can't continue with the growth rates we have had."
In Businessweeks 'Covercast' Hamm explains why the private sector not investing in India's public facilities, even though it is dependent on good roads and airports for its own progress. One of the reasons is the bureaucracy in India. Compared for instance to authoritarian China, it's a lot harder to get things done in democratic India. As a chief executive of Novartis explains:
"If you have to build a road in China, just a handful of people need to make a decision. If you want to build a road in India, it'll take 10 years of discussion before you get a decision."
And obviously, corruption is still a big problem:
Nearly all sectors of officialdom are riddled with graft, from neighbourhood cops to district bureaucrats to state ministers. Indian truckers pay about $5 billion a year in bribes, according to the watchdog group Transparency International. Corruption delays infrastructure projects and raises costs for those that move ahead.
But what I'm more troubled with is the trickling down (or better, the lack thereof) of India's new economic prosperity to other segments of society. The division between India's new knowledge professionals and India's poor seems to have created different Indias. In a recent article in Theory and Society(*), Simitha Radakrishnan, a UCLA sociologist, illustrates this:
Rather than having successfully produced a “new middle class,” as touted in media representations of India’s success, emphasis on knowledge for development and a knowledge economy in India has had the effect of producing an elite with formidable economic strength, as well as the cultural dominance to re-imagine and negotiate meanings of Indianness.
(...) So long as those engaged in the knowledge economy are blinded by the belief that their success reflects the progress of the nation as a whole, and that their class positions are not privileged, the possibility for sparking true social and economic change greatly diminishes.
This dilemma is outstandingly portrayed in a 4 part radio documentary of the BBC's "The Changing World". India’s economy is booming. Salaries in the big cities are rising, and consumer spending is exploding. Economic opportunities abound in India – but not for everyone. This documentary series explores the effects globalisation and a decade of economic reforms are having on India. In each of the 4 parts it highlights another aspect of the rise of India:
Part 1 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
A new materialism and consumerism is an obvious sign of India ’s growing middle class. The BBC’s George Arney has been visiting India for nearly three decades. He says that India used to spiritually rich, but materially very poor. Now, Arney reports, it's a very different story.
Part 2 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
This part focuses on the Indian state of Bihar. The squalor there is obvious. Bihar is glaringly left out of India ’s economic revolution. The BBC reports from a region known as India ’s Heart of Darkness.
Part 3 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
As India's economy rises, its entertainment industry is also taking off and an urban culture emerges. In this part Arney takes a close-up look at the nation that lies behind the shiny façade of modern India.
Part 4 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
The environmental and social costs of India's rapid expansion.
It's definitely a revealing documentary, with all 4 parts picturing contemporary India in a lively manner and with all its paradoxes. It contains several observations and interviews that clearly confirm Radakrishnan's point.
________
(*) Smitha Radakrishnan (2007) Rethinking knowledge for development: Transnational knowledge professionals and the “new” India. In: Theory and Society
A realistic article on .
India Rising (or part of it)
Last year October I made my first visit to India. I had heard a lot of stories and read numerous articles about the 'Rise of India' (Thomas Friedman probably topping the list in terms of optimism). So...I arrived with high expectations. After arriving in Delhi Airport, staying three days in Delhi and travelling two weeks through Rajasthan, I was becoming more and more fascinated and disappointed at the same time.
Of course I hadn't expected India to have turned in to one big IT science park in just one or two decades (although some publications seem to give that picture). But I had expected India's optimism, ambition and rupees to have trickled down to other sections of society...at least a little bit. I have not been in the booming cities of Bombay, Bangalore or Chennai, but judging from my experiences from Delhi and Rajasthan, there's a lot of work to be done, in terms of public facilities, but especially in terms of equality.
Delhi's airport was in many ways worse of than the smaller regional airports I had just seen while visiting Indonesia and Malaysia the two months before. The roads and other public works were definitely a lot worse. Steve Hamm of Businessweek fears that the lack of investment in public space might hurt India's progress:
The infrastructure deficit is so critical that it could prevent India from achieving the prosperity that finally seems to be within its grasp. Without reliable power and water and a modern transportation network, the chasm between India's moneyed elite and its 800 million poor will continue to widen, potentially destabilizing the country. Jagdish Bhagwati figures gross domestic product growth would run two percentage points higher if the country had decent roads, railways, and power. "We're bursting at the seams," says Kamal Nath, India's Commerce & Industry Minister. Without better infrastructure, "we can't continue with the growth rates we have had."
In Businessweeks 'Covercast' Hamm explains why the private sector not investing in India's public facilities, even though it is dependent on good roads and airports for its own progress. One of the reasons is the bureaucracy in India. Compared for instance to authoritarian China, it's a lot harder to get things done in democratic India. As a chief executive of Novartis explains:
"If you have to build a road in China, just a handful of people need to make a decision. If you want to build a road in India, it'll take 10 years of discussion before you get a decision."
And obviously, corruption is still a big problem:
Nearly all sectors of officialdom are riddled with graft, from neighbourhood cops to district bureaucrats to state ministers. Indian truckers pay about $5 billion a year in bribes, according to the watchdog group Transparency International. Corruption delays infrastructure projects and raises costs for those that move ahead.
But what I'm more troubled with is the trickling down (or better, the lack thereof) of India's new economic prosperity to other segments of society. The division between India's new knowledge professionals and India's poor seems to have created different Indias. In a recent article in Theory and Society(*), Simitha Radakrishnan, a UCLA sociologist, illustrates this:
Rather than having successfully produced a “new middle class,” as touted in media representations of India’s success, emphasis on knowledge for development and a knowledge economy in India has had the effect of producing an elite with formidable economic strength, as well as the cultural dominance to re-imagine and negotiate meanings of Indianness.
(...) So long as those engaged in the knowledge economy are blinded by the belief that their success reflects the progress of the nation as a whole, and that their class positions are not privileged, the possibility for sparking true social and economic change greatly diminishes.
This dilemma is outstandingly portrayed in a 4 part radio documentary of the BBC's "The Changing World". India’s economy is booming. Salaries in the big cities are rising, and consumer spending is exploding. Economic opportunities abound in India – but not for everyone. This documentary series explores the effects globalisation and a decade of economic reforms are having on India. In each of the 4 parts it highlights another aspect of the rise of India:
Part 1 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
A new materialism and consumerism is an obvious sign of India ’s growing middle class. The BBC’s George Arney has been visiting India for nearly three decades. He says that India used to spiritually rich, but materially very poor. Now, Arney reports, it's a very different story.
Part 2 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
This part focuses on the Indian state of Bihar. The squalor there is obvious. Bihar is glaringly left out of India ’s economic revolution. The BBC reports from a region known as India ’s Heart of Darkness.
Part 3 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
As India's economy rises, its entertainment industry is also taking off and an urban culture emerges. In this part Arney takes a close-up look at the nation that lies behind the shiny façade of modern India.
Part 4 (25:00 ; MP3 10MB)
The environmental and social costs of India's rapid expansion.
It's definitely a revealing documentary, with all 4 parts picturing contemporary India in a lively manner and with all its paradoxes. It contains several observations and interviews that clearly confirm Radakrishnan's point.
________
(*) Smitha Radakrishnan (2007) Rethinking knowledge for development: Transnational knowledge professionals and the “new” India. In: Theory and Society
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