Archive for April, 2010

Trees, pavements, markets, people...everything has been 'uprooted' or 'transplanted' for the CWG 2010 I am in this Monday market in my East Delhi neighbourhood buying vegetables and suddenly all the trader shopkeepers of informal stalls start wrapping up their goods and merchandise on display. I heard a few complains about ‘they’ ... Full story

EMPower was initiated in 2005 by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Social Development together with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). New Delhi witnessed the EMPower Workshop on large scale solar power in Asia on April 26 & 27, 2010 at the Taj ... Full story

Earth to Moon: One of the cartoons that made it to the final round of the British Council cartoon contest on climate change (by Aditya Bhardwaj, Ahmedabad) British Council India invites applications for the 2010 International Climate Champions programme. 70 International Climate Champions in India and ... Full story

Here's another tree dechoking success story we present as a model for the citizens of Delhi. After reading the blog posts, Trees Dechoked: GK-I Residents Show the Way Against Concretization, students of B.Tech (Biotechnology) at GGSIP University took upon themselves to save trees from concretization and ... Full story

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world's largest technical professional association, highlighted commendable work achieved by its members around the globe to help preserve the planet. We all agreed to what Pedro Ray, IEEE president and chief executive officer said, "Science and technology play a ... Full story

Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation established in 1983 creating large scale sustainable livelihoods is organising a Training Workshop on 'Developing Training Approaches and Methods' at its Madhya Pradesh located Tara Livelihood Academy. Objectives of the Training: “To impart the necessary knowledge and skills to conceive, design the Training Strategies and suitable Training Methods, which would lead to the individual stakeholders of the organization finally leading to more effective Organizational Performance fulfilling larger organizational objectives and Mission.” Date:6 - 8 May, 2010 Venue: TARAgram, Appropriate Technology Centre, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh As the external environment, and the economy, change, the organisations today is undergoing rapid changes, to cope with these external changes. This in turn requires regular training and re-training of staff of organisations. Such training cannot be carried out by external faculty alone, but needs at least a few short programmes in-house, to be conducted often by the senior staff. However, a major challenge is in developing the right skills and approach among the staff, to make training effective. It is important that even if staff themselves do not conduct the training, they need to be aware of relevant methodologies, so that they can assess the effectiveness of the training independently. Full story

A research project on generating energy from walking, at the IIT-D Tech Fest The famous quote which says, ‘necessity is the mother of all inventions’ has been the driving force behind many engineering innovations and studies. The Open House 2010 hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology,  Delhi ... Full story

Flying past, rolling on the roads, flying above them on major roads in Delhi are parachute shaped tiny seeds of “Saptaparni” going the way the wind will take them. The flowers of this tree are not so prominent. Then there are small round seeds coated in soft cotton balls seeds of the Silk Cotton tree of the “Panchparni.” These have, almost a month ago, displayed ... Full story

Recently during a general discussion with my colleague, he said something that drove me to ponder upon a good thought and the result clearly became this post. “We are not doing anything on Earth Day this year, and I believe it suits our work interest driven organization”. ... Full story

The scorching 40+ heat of the Delhi summer evidently leads to a tremendous load on the city's energy supply. This is especially because the rising standard of living over the past few years, coupled with more intense summers has led to a tremendous shift from water coolers to ... Full story