In this digital era, access to technologies has become a crucial factor to avail livelihood options. Thus, digital equality becomes a prerequisite to ensure many other kinds of equalities. This edition of the newsletter highlights some of the challenges along the way, some innovative solutions, especially from finance, and the lessons learnt so far.
Even as the economy strives to recover from the aftermath of the pandemic with a high incidence of unemployment, climate action remains an imperative too. Smaller enterprises can offer a beautiful solution, providing livelihood opportunities to more while also caring for the planet. However, among the actions needed to make them click, access to finance should be accorded priority.
For sustainable growth in the days of climate change, conservation of nature is bound to be a critical factor in any process – be it of manufacturing, creating economic opportunities, or even promoting eco-tourism. In this edition of the newsletter, our writers explore various alternatives to the traditional models of nature conservation.
Plastics have become embedded in our lives like a few other materials have, thanks to the many benefits they offer. But there is also a price to pay. Reducing plastic waste is among the key challenges that humankind faces today. An industry and research collaboration between India and Australia has been at work to find a way out. This edition of the newsletter, which is written in collaboration with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia, brings to you a series of articles about that collaboration and the progress made on the possible solutions.
Every year, a large number of youth transit into the working age, and search for opportunities to earn their livelihood. While employment creation has its own challenges, converting some of the job seekers into job creators can solve the problem. This edition touches upon the themes of the ‘Sam-Udyam’ initiative, the need to involve the community in job creation, and creating decent livelihoods through rural entrepreneurship, apart from revisiting finances for micro-enterprises.
India is not only among the largest economies in the world, it is also among the fastest growing ones. The future growth is bound to involve explosive growth in building construction, which can put pressure on natural resources. This edition of the newsletter is devoted to LC3, the cement-manufacturing technology that is our best possible alternative to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.
Women hold up half the sky. In this edition, let us consider how unleashing their enterprising energies ticks off so many boxes on the charts: not only empowerment and inclusive livelihood, but also the overall betterment of society and economy.
There is always a great deal of discussion with respect to emissions of each country at every climate conference. In this article, Dr. Soumen Maity, Team Leader-Technology, Development Alternatives Group emphasises that resource efficiency is an important tool for achieving challenging emission targets. He throws light on some of the Blue-Sky Innovations that the Development Alternatives Group has been promoting for the last few years. These revolutionary innovations improve the economy’s efficiency by enabling it to produce more with the same or fewer resources
Hospital bills are rising, as gastro-intestinal epidemics, skin allergies, cancers, and chronic impacts on kidneys, bones and teeth become rampant pointing to pollution from water sources. Water bills are rising as bore wells need to be sunk deeper and deeper and often water pipes run dry because treatment....
The importance of water, a life-growing resource, cannot be over emphasised. India has a low water management score. This is not only making a deep impact on the country’s economic advancement but is also leading to acute shortages of water for agriculture and potable water....
Among the many cries of ‘build back better’, one wonders who the face of this post-pandemic future in India is. As we design a post-pandemic economic recovery, are we considering the undeniable ‘duality’ of an economic system – disproportionately ignoring the needs of many while responding, almost exclusively, to the aspirations of a few?...
It is now very clear that we are certain to go into a 1.5-degree-plus world within this decade with likelihood to have a 2-degree-plus world by 2100, and that too only if we act now, because beyond that, human civilisation as we know it would have irretrievably changed.
The world now requires action including the immediate capping of global emissions despite the need to enhance energy and material consumption in the global south....
As per the United Nations definition, South-South Cooperation (SCC) is a broad framework of collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains. Involving two or more developing countries, it can take place on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis. Developing countries share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to meet their development goals through concerted efforts. When South-South Cooperation is supported by traditional donor countries or bilateral and multilateral organisations, it takes the form of Triangular Cooperation.
March 2020 came with an unprecedented circumstance. The entire country came to a standstill. The Covid-19 pandemic, the lockdown and physical distancing measures forced skill training institutes to adopt innovative measures. This forced innovation majorly involved digital interventions. Digital transformation proved to be a glocal movement, where global problems had local solutions and vice versa. Community radios, WhatsApp, online meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Webex, simple phone calls – whatever had the reach and availability was picked up by skill training providers. For those who had access to the digital means have taken a quantum leap in terms of know-how of technology.
Modern concrete technology drives with ideas and innovation; new trends are always welcomed. It may transform from material replacement, change in composition or engineering design. This comes with a wide range of opportunities to develop new-age concrete that includes fibre reinforcement concrete for flexural and tensile strength, lightweight aggregate structural concrete, self-healing concrete, ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) etc.
With growing prosperity in the country, 62 million tonnes of garbage is generated annually by 377 million people living in urban India. We are the world’s third-largest garbage generators. It is a disturbing fact that only 43 million tonnes of waste is collected in a year and 11.9 million is treated while 31 million is dumped in unscientific landfill sites, implying that 75-80% of the municipal solid waste gets collected and barely 22-28 % of this waste is recycled or treated (Press Information Bureau, 2016). Incidents like rampant self-ignition of unregulated dump sites in Delhi in recent years indicate the lethal social and environmental hazards awaiting India’s cities and towns.