CARBON TRADING

Katrina, Nargis well known pulchritudinous movie stars of Bollywood in India are better known t in the world as the horrendous hurricanes that wreaked havoc in one of the most developed(USA) and under developed regions(Myanmar) respectively.There has been an alarming rise in the GHGs(green house gases) and this has augmented global warming. At this rate snow at the poles will disappear by September 2060 and will submerge all the coastal metropolises.
 A month ago world environment week was observed. All the 24X7 news channels painted green and flashed environment sensuous stories and highlighted the good deeds of the very few Indian environmentalists. NDTV went a step ahead and kicked a nationwide hunt for environmentalist. A few weeks later the IIFA selected environment as its theme. The stars were welcomed on to the green carpet replacing the traditional red carpet. But all these acts wont help save mother nature. What is required is a sincere and dedicated effort.
But a large chunk of world population is self centered. They do acts with the results in mind. Very few people would be ready to do selfless acts. Having realized this , a novel idea was born during world earth summit 1997 at Kyoto , Japan. Ideas like dreams are unbelievably romantic. The idea was “Carbon trading” that lay its foundation on “Earn by giving” .
 Unfortunately this idea hasn’t been well received by India. Though this idea was mainly for the developed countries to regulate their GHG emissions, it can help alleviate the problem of poverty in India. Most of you must be wondering how carbon in any way is linked to poverty. Let’s see how carbon trading can be beneficial to India.
 First, we need to know what carbon trading is all about. Through carbon trading a firm or individual gets monetary reward for the amount of carbon emissions prevented. Now how can a individual or a firm prevent emissions. Its not something about going about with awareness campaigns and appealing to the public to reduce the usage of automobiles and other things that result in carbon emissions. It’s something that can be done by YOU in your backyard and neighbourhood. The best way to prevent carbon emission is plant trees. We all know that it’s the best way but we lack the motivation and dedication to plant and take care of the trees since there is no instant return that one gets for planting a tree. This where carbon trading can play an important role . Carbon trading can provide the motivation for planting trees. As we all know the process of photosynthesis that takes place in plants can absorb certain amount of carbon dioxide in atmosphere and give back oxygen. Hence a plant can reduce carbon emissions. So the more you plant trees the more is the carbon emissions prevented the more you get paid. Some NGOs have been authorized for carbon trading. Each tree’s carbon content is transformed into carbon credits by these NGOs. These credits can be traded in the international market by the owner of the trees. The present rate is 15-20$ per ton of sequestered carbon.
 Now the question arises that who will be interested in buying these credits? During the World Earth summit , all the industries in developed countries were told to regulate their carbon emissions to a certain decided level , failing which the defaulting company will have to pay a huge penalty. For example say a power generation company generates 100000 tonnes carbon and approved emission standard is 80000 tonnes of carbon then the company buys the remaining 20000 carbon credits from the international market which allows the company to raise the bar to 100000 tonnes. It is a win-win situation for both the buyer and seller. 
 A hectare of land under forest cover can generate 300000 US$. This can help the tribal organization to be self sufficient. Even a person in urban area can get 200-300 US $ by planting trees. So start planting and earning. Carbon trading can make our country and lives green. The environment ministry should raise to the occasion and start promoting carbon trading in our country. 

DO WE NEED A DEVELOPED NATION?

I am blessed to live in a world where technology has become a part and parcel of daily life. I have personal laptop to hang out with and vent out my views any time, to keep in touch with all my friends in an economical way, have a air conditioned room to shield myself from harsh weathers outside. But in this fast paced track of development boosted by the burgeoning IT and BPOs and an increasingly materialistic society I feel we are losing out far too many than what we are gaining. India has made a leap to become a developed nation a bit too early. Rewind back 3 decades and we were nowhere near to claiming that we were a developing nation. There was political instability, famines and many other problems, peace was hindered by frequent wars. Farmers were forced to end their lives owing to failure of crops due poor irrigation facilities. Then came the GREEN REVOLUTION which changed India’s fortunes. There was a boost in crop productivity and the government of the day responded favorably by introducing farmer friendly policies. This made India one of the leading food producers in the world. India had finally achieved food security. Having achieved food security, the government hopped onto the bandwagon of countries to become a developed nation. In this Endeavour the license regime met its end and the markets were opened up to let the private players on to the turf. This was followed by Technological revolution. A few statesmen were fascinated by the technology that they came across on their trips abroad. Hence they created favourable environment for major players in Information and Technology to enter into the Indian market. From that day India hit a purple patch. The MNCs not only got a large market but also cheap labour and infrastructure. This brought technology into the households. Then came BPOs which started cropping up in every nook and corner of modern day metros. Places like noida,gurgaon which were  unheard of in the world were now buzz places thanks to the burgeoning number of BPOs in these areas. All this has so far been a smooth ride. We are almost near to becoming a developed nation. But what actually is happening is for every 1 step forward we are moving 2 steps back. Bolstered by the astounding success of green revolution resulting in achieving food security , India went on to participate in race to become a developed nation. But in this mad race to become a developed nation We forgot what was quintessential and that is SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. We put the food sector on the back burner and put focus on IT sector. What IT sector did was , filled the coffers . Our country is now home to some of the richest people in the world. But what we are missing out is that the banks are getting stacked up with cash but the stocks in granaries are fast disappearing. The concrete jungles(cities) are expanding owing to the burgeoning real estate market thus urbanizing some the village on periphery. Some of the most fertile lands have now become prime locations for setting up shopping malls which are nothing but a hang out place for the rich while the poor who were making a livelihood on the land are left in the lurch. The lands that have turned infertile due to unscientific farming have been converted into SEZs by the government instead of making an attempt to revive the fertility of land. As a result of all these activites the net sown area has been on a decline. There is a growing demand for food. This has resulted in shortage of some essential commodities , resulting in shooting up of prices . This is one of the main reasons for increasing inflation rate. No austerity measures can save us from inflation. The only way out is to increase net sown area and increase the productivity of agricultural land by scientific research.This is just a start of our journey down the helical path. Very soon food stocks will reach alarmingly low levels and all these malls and technology parks wont come to our rescue. I would be more happy to stay on the roads with an assurance of 1 square meal a day than starve to death in an air conditioned room. So dear denizens ARISE AWAKE HELP OUR FARMERS REAP THE MAXIMUM BENEFITS OUT OF THEIR FIELDS.

LET THE YOUNG TAKE OVER

A fortnight ago Hillary gracefully accepted defeat and went forward to appeal to all her supporters to support Obama as democrat’s presidential nominee. While I was seeing the speech I was wondering whether such an instance would come in our Indian politics. A women of the stature of Hillary who has seen everything in American politics accepting defeat to a young dynamic person like Obama was a treat to watch. She very much respected the people’s opinion. If we shift over to India the scenario is completely different. Today if at all there are some young leaders with potential to lead the country they must satisfy the following conditions:
(i)Has to be son/daughter of an influential national leader
(ii) Shouldn’t show any interest in changing the current political scenario
(iii) Turn a blind eye to grave problems of people but travel threw out the country on road shows like a hypocrite
If all these conditions are satisfied and he/she manages to impress all the octogenarian leaders of their party then he/she can hope to get nominated as the prime ministerial candidate. The agony doesn’t end there. If at all a young person(35-45) gets elected as the prime minister which I know is very hypothetical then opposition forces instead of respecting the people's mandate starts their mudslinging activity saying he/she has been spoon fed by their parents and dynastic politics . Infact I can draw an example from present scenario, Rahul Gandhi a 38 yr old MP from Amethi fought the election and followed all norms of constitution to become what he is now. But the opposition keeps attacking him even after 4 yrs as MP, labeling him as a child on the block being shielded by his mother . I fail to understand on what grounds are these people attacking him?. He has been elected by the people of his constituency (Amethi) . What these attacking people want to convey ? Do they want to say that these people were fools?. Did the people who elect him not know his background?. That’s the sad state of our Indian politics. The Politicians are disconnecting from people . They give more preference to their agenda than to their people. What for have they been elected? Definitely not to accommodate them in the lutyen’s bungalows and pamper them with all the perks and allow them to come out on roads and shout on the ruling government on every single issue. These days the opposition is not concurring with the government even on a single issue. For example the BJP very well knows the plus points of nuke deal but they don’t support it because its being carried forward by its rivals. Its simply school boyish in nature. There are cat fights happening every where with the the blame game going on everywhere. In AP the state govt was going ahead with auction of licenses for alcohol shops. On the media asking the CM for such a move which would encourage alcohol consumption he puts the blame on the previous govt which had done the same. Its absolutely insane. Doesn’t the CM have a mind of his own to judge what is good and bad for his citizens? It’s a tit for tat game going on. I don’t know when this is going to end. Even the parliament which was witness to some great debates till the early nineties has seen very few debates over the last few years with the opposition boycotting most of the sessions without even thinking of how much loss it is for the exchequer. I appeal to the political fraternity to act in a sane manner and please allow the young who have managed to come on to the national political scenario to implement their ideas if they have any.
JAI HIND