New Business School is a leading business school in Netherlands. Round Table India has an opportunity to interact with students and professors on regular basis. As a part of their curriculum, they have an international charity section. They decided to raise funds in Netherlands for worthy Round table india school projects. After a lot of scrutiny of worthy charities they zeroed on work of Round table in Building schools all around india. Within Round Table they had invited proposals from various table units. We at PRRT105 had proposed our permanent project Nerlekar School at Khadakwadi for this purpose. Based on shortlisting, our project was one of the three projects in area they selected. As a part of process they arrived in Pune for cultural understanding as well as school visits. There were 12 students and Prof Rammers who accompanied them.They attended Antarnad program by Art of Living where 2000 vocalists performed. They had industrial visits to Tata Motors and Volkswagen. They enjoyed stay in families and also had few social parties hosted by tablers.
On saturday 16th, we took them to our school at Khadakwadi. They were visiting rural area for first time. They realizes stark difference in India which parties in city and Bharat which lives in villages. They were really moved when they were informed about economic status of students and hardships they face. They were presented to a musical welcome and cutural show which they throroughly enjoyed. They also saw self defense demonstration by girls. They were introdued to national integration theme songs. They really enjoyed it.
They understood school building construction plan. They realised that there was no library so they decided to help that cause. They had already committed 3500 Euros funding for the building. In addition they donated cricket sets to the school. They were interested to see kitchen where midday meal is served.
The highlight of event was all NBS students mobbed by school children from villages for autographs and photos. It was touching sight. They mixed with children nicely while some even dancing with them.
Really a satisfying experience for all tablers of 105...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Energy Crisis
India is making a lot of progress with more new billionaires being minted every month. The focus on software industry sometimes takes away from what are more pertinent problems- Water and Power. Mumbai faces worst water crisis in current years. Similarly, the business of electricity invertors is booming. It is no wonder that VCs have identified water and energy as the mega opportunities for the next few decades.
The crunch of energy has led Indian strategists to believe that the only solution to India's power problems is Nuclear Power as a result we signed the Nuclear Deal to import fuel and technology. Power problems are faced by all developing nations and United States of America too went through such a crisis in the 70's. As a result of it, presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter promoted the use of renewable sources of energy like solar power and also increased the mileage standards for the automobiles from 13.5 miles per gallon to 27.5 miles per gallon. This helped to create a global oil glut during mid 1980's. But as things eased off, the focus was shifted. When Ronald Regan became the president, he let the tax incentives lapse for the Solar Energy Research Institute and stripped of the solar panels in the white house installed there at the time of Jimmy Carter. He also reduced the mileage standards to 26 miles per gallon.Looking at India's energy model, we are adopting a model, quite similar to US model. Looking at successful energy models, Denmark's model is the most inspiring. Denmark also faced an energy crunch in the 80's and as its power demands grew, it had to look for alternative sources of energy. At that time, 99% of Denmark's energy requirements were met by the Middle East oil. To change that scenario, the government decided to go against nuclear, and went ahead with the scheme of levying high taxes. Japan too adopted such an approach. In Japan there is higher tax on bigger vehicles and the taxes on oil per gallon are also very high. In Denmark, to reduce electricity consumption, a CO2 tax was introduced. When the consumers saw a CO2 tax in their bills, they automatically resorted to an energy conservation approach. You might think that Denmark's economy would have slowed down. No, it has risen by about 70% since 1981 and there is only about 2% of unemployment there.The model of nuclear powered energy model has also been successful and countries like France get 78% of their electricity requirements from nuclear energy. But the atomic path has had its fare share of negative effects. The two major accidents that have happened in the nuclear era has been that of Chernobyl in Russia in 1986 and the partial meltdown of core at three mile island in 1979. So it is a very risky proposition. But since now to power our economy forward have decided to follow a high energy print, we could be in for tough times ahead, in terms of our oil consumption. Being an agricultural nation we could have come up with a more ingenious solution, similar to that followed by Brazil, when it started a national program to produce ethanol from sugarcane. Today, between the domestic oil production and the ethanol industry it does not need to import oil. India today is highly depended on oil. Now that global oil prices have gone down, the government is thinking to reduce the price of petrol and diesel, rather than helping out the oil companies to recover their losses incurred during the last few years. Right now there seems to be a gloomy prognosis for our economic recovery, which is heavily dependent on energy and power.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said India had to curb its high-polluting coal consumption in the near future or risk burning through its reserves. "There's going to be a major constraint in supply of coal and if we don't bring about a shift to a more sustainable pattern of energy consumption and supply India is going to face a major crisis," he told reporters in New Delhi. He added that India was projected to import 750 million tonnes of oil and 1.4 billion tonnes of coal a year by 2031 and 2032. "We have already become major coal importers and it is a myth to believe that India has unlimited mineable quantities of coal and that we can use as much as we want," Indian-born Pachauri said. According to the International Energy Agency, more than half of the world's energy demands by 2030 will come from India and its fellow emerging economic powerhouse China. Already among the world's top 10 oil importers, India is expected to become the world's fourth-largest by 2025, according to US government data. The Ministry of Coal projected India's coal imports for 2008-2009 to be around 58 million tonnes. Coal currently provides just under 55 percent of the country's massive electricity needs, resulting in a huge carbon footprint on account of the country's 1.2 billion population. Pachauri urged India to improve energy efficiency and make "a very rapid move" to use more renewable sources of energy.
While the state is facing power shortage and with no sustainable solution visible in the near future, experts feel that renewable energy resources could be highly effective in solving problem
Though solar energy, if made grid specific, can do wonders in solving the energy crisis of the state, lack of political will-power is the biggest hurdle in effective propagation and subsequent use to generate electricity.
According to an expert on renewable energy resources, "Solar energy is the ultimate solution. The wind sector is progressing fast and as of today, India is generating 7,400 MW of electricity through wind. Solar photovoltaic is lagging behind due to some hurdles."
Solar thermal is already well accepted in the country. Solar dryers, water heaters have directly contributed in conservation of electricity. But due to some technological limitations solar photovoltaic has failed to gain necessary popularity.
The crunch of energy has led Indian strategists to believe that the only solution to India's power problems is Nuclear Power as a result we signed the Nuclear Deal to import fuel and technology. Power problems are faced by all developing nations and United States of America too went through such a crisis in the 70's. As a result of it, presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter promoted the use of renewable sources of energy like solar power and also increased the mileage standards for the automobiles from 13.5 miles per gallon to 27.5 miles per gallon. This helped to create a global oil glut during mid 1980's. But as things eased off, the focus was shifted. When Ronald Regan became the president, he let the tax incentives lapse for the Solar Energy Research Institute and stripped of the solar panels in the white house installed there at the time of Jimmy Carter. He also reduced the mileage standards to 26 miles per gallon.Looking at India's energy model, we are adopting a model, quite similar to US model. Looking at successful energy models, Denmark's model is the most inspiring. Denmark also faced an energy crunch in the 80's and as its power demands grew, it had to look for alternative sources of energy. At that time, 99% of Denmark's energy requirements were met by the Middle East oil. To change that scenario, the government decided to go against nuclear, and went ahead with the scheme of levying high taxes. Japan too adopted such an approach. In Japan there is higher tax on bigger vehicles and the taxes on oil per gallon are also very high. In Denmark, to reduce electricity consumption, a CO2 tax was introduced. When the consumers saw a CO2 tax in their bills, they automatically resorted to an energy conservation approach. You might think that Denmark's economy would have slowed down. No, it has risen by about 70% since 1981 and there is only about 2% of unemployment there.The model of nuclear powered energy model has also been successful and countries like France get 78% of their electricity requirements from nuclear energy. But the atomic path has had its fare share of negative effects. The two major accidents that have happened in the nuclear era has been that of Chernobyl in Russia in 1986 and the partial meltdown of core at three mile island in 1979. So it is a very risky proposition. But since now to power our economy forward have decided to follow a high energy print, we could be in for tough times ahead, in terms of our oil consumption. Being an agricultural nation we could have come up with a more ingenious solution, similar to that followed by Brazil, when it started a national program to produce ethanol from sugarcane. Today, between the domestic oil production and the ethanol industry it does not need to import oil. India today is highly depended on oil. Now that global oil prices have gone down, the government is thinking to reduce the price of petrol and diesel, rather than helping out the oil companies to recover their losses incurred during the last few years. Right now there seems to be a gloomy prognosis for our economic recovery, which is heavily dependent on energy and power.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said India had to curb its high-polluting coal consumption in the near future or risk burning through its reserves. "There's going to be a major constraint in supply of coal and if we don't bring about a shift to a more sustainable pattern of energy consumption and supply India is going to face a major crisis," he told reporters in New Delhi. He added that India was projected to import 750 million tonnes of oil and 1.4 billion tonnes of coal a year by 2031 and 2032. "We have already become major coal importers and it is a myth to believe that India has unlimited mineable quantities of coal and that we can use as much as we want," Indian-born Pachauri said. According to the International Energy Agency, more than half of the world's energy demands by 2030 will come from India and its fellow emerging economic powerhouse China. Already among the world's top 10 oil importers, India is expected to become the world's fourth-largest by 2025, according to US government data. The Ministry of Coal projected India's coal imports for 2008-2009 to be around 58 million tonnes. Coal currently provides just under 55 percent of the country's massive electricity needs, resulting in a huge carbon footprint on account of the country's 1.2 billion population. Pachauri urged India to improve energy efficiency and make "a very rapid move" to use more renewable sources of energy.
While the state is facing power shortage and with no sustainable solution visible in the near future, experts feel that renewable energy resources could be highly effective in solving problem
Though solar energy, if made grid specific, can do wonders in solving the energy crisis of the state, lack of political will-power is the biggest hurdle in effective propagation and subsequent use to generate electricity.
According to an expert on renewable energy resources, "Solar energy is the ultimate solution. The wind sector is progressing fast and as of today, India is generating 7,400 MW of electricity through wind. Solar photovoltaic is lagging behind due to some hurdles."
Solar thermal is already well accepted in the country. Solar dryers, water heaters have directly contributed in conservation of electricity. But due to some technological limitations solar photovoltaic has failed to gain necessary popularity.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
3 Idiots and Me
Once upon a time everyone amongst us was in college. We had great dreams, some unique vision about our life. We went into the world from the college with great enthusiasm. We made random decisions which after 10-15 years have made us reach where we are now. Life has taught us some hard lessons; life has been very generous sometimes. Life has given some really beautiful moments and some very challenging. But we have enjoyed the journey. But again college days really were the best days of life. Why all this thoughts?
Reason: I happened to come across a cult movie released very recently 3 Idiots. In the movie the main three (or 4 if you consider the comedian colleague who is modeled on to most of us who are in rat race) protagonists meet 10 years after graduation. Movie took me back to those days. I am of the opinion that each one should have at least a year of hostel life to make their education complete. It invokes bonding which we have seen that run through lifetimes. We were also subject to intense academic pressures but also enjoyed a life secluded from world (we being stationed in remote town as per Jawaharlal’s Nehru’s vision of IITs). We had our friends, hostel mates, seniors, juniors as a part of extended families. Thankfully in those time internet was just newly launched and only computer exposure was in labs. We had many extra curricular activities. We enjoyed a lot and suffered a lot through hardships like lack of basic amenities like toilet, water. We had to eat refugee camp food etc. But we then enjoyed it. It taught us perspective. Education was good: definitely it taught us to manage things in life irrespective of whether you know the subject or not. Some topics really made us interested to know the subject. That’s not what is called excellence but effectiveness. That’s what makes even elite Indian institutes to churn out good managers, good performers but very few original scientists or innovators. They have to go out of Indian systems to enable them with those skills. But mere mortals like me are happy to be part of this great Indian dream. Our vision was to create new Infosys but not Google…
Coming back to Movie review, it’s a well made movie. It runs through cliché and predictability why typifies Bollywood. But it excels in performances and sheer new idea of story. It tries to address a problem but that is hardly any novelty. We already knew that we cannot create Nobel laureates within IITs. It has general appeal as it touches each one of us and taking back to our college days. Each one of us had faced academic, family pressures. Each one of us had those peculiar professors. Good marketing, presence of Aamir khan, great directorial touches has made it cult movie like sholay, ddlj. Movies has some really funny moments: Virus speech, Chatur speech, induction motor start, many more.. Movie also sends a good message that what matters is journey and not the end. Success will follow you pants down if you enjoy your journey.
There is hue and cry about the fact that movie glorifies ragging and also has resulted in few suicides. I think its bit too harsh on the movie. I agree movies do inspire reaction in real life from immature audience but that’s a problem for all movies as a media form of expression. It’s our value system that is at fault. There are far many catalysts than movies which influence us.
For those who have seen engineering and hostel life from inside will find it more appealing. Movie will surely be the reflection of own experiences. That’s what makes this movie more effective.
Reason: I happened to come across a cult movie released very recently 3 Idiots. In the movie the main three (or 4 if you consider the comedian colleague who is modeled on to most of us who are in rat race) protagonists meet 10 years after graduation. Movie took me back to those days. I am of the opinion that each one should have at least a year of hostel life to make their education complete. It invokes bonding which we have seen that run through lifetimes. We were also subject to intense academic pressures but also enjoyed a life secluded from world (we being stationed in remote town as per Jawaharlal’s Nehru’s vision of IITs). We had our friends, hostel mates, seniors, juniors as a part of extended families. Thankfully in those time internet was just newly launched and only computer exposure was in labs. We had many extra curricular activities. We enjoyed a lot and suffered a lot through hardships like lack of basic amenities like toilet, water. We had to eat refugee camp food etc. But we then enjoyed it. It taught us perspective. Education was good: definitely it taught us to manage things in life irrespective of whether you know the subject or not. Some topics really made us interested to know the subject. That’s not what is called excellence but effectiveness. That’s what makes even elite Indian institutes to churn out good managers, good performers but very few original scientists or innovators. They have to go out of Indian systems to enable them with those skills. But mere mortals like me are happy to be part of this great Indian dream. Our vision was to create new Infosys but not Google…
Coming back to Movie review, it’s a well made movie. It runs through cliché and predictability why typifies Bollywood. But it excels in performances and sheer new idea of story. It tries to address a problem but that is hardly any novelty. We already knew that we cannot create Nobel laureates within IITs. It has general appeal as it touches each one of us and taking back to our college days. Each one of us had faced academic, family pressures. Each one of us had those peculiar professors. Good marketing, presence of Aamir khan, great directorial touches has made it cult movie like sholay, ddlj. Movies has some really funny moments: Virus speech, Chatur speech, induction motor start, many more.. Movie also sends a good message that what matters is journey and not the end. Success will follow you pants down if you enjoy your journey.
There is hue and cry about the fact that movie glorifies ragging and also has resulted in few suicides. I think its bit too harsh on the movie. I agree movies do inspire reaction in real life from immature audience but that’s a problem for all movies as a media form of expression. It’s our value system that is at fault. There are far many catalysts than movies which influence us.
For those who have seen engineering and hostel life from inside will find it more appealing. Movie will surely be the reflection of own experiences. That’s what makes this movie more effective.
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