Barunjha’s Blog

When I say, Go Green Save the Planet, it is not the planet that is in danger it is us. Yes Earth withstood many torments and severe conditions arising due to chemical and physical occurrences in different geological era. Many people you confront are reluctant to believe and accept that global warming and climate change are potential dangers to the earth. Who knows the fact, but one thing is sure with all these stuffs your chances of survival are same when with your hands tied your neck is on guillotine and you know that the blade above you is slipping slowly.  People are not serious as they think and take the matter too literally; they do not see any logic in temperature rise and driving a car, or smoke from burning coal and more interesting danger of global warming from belching of cows.

So, where does the solution lies? Are campaigns effective?  Until and unless people know how their actions contribute to emission, no campaign is successful. They should understand that driving an electric car is not green if the electricity is coal powered. Replacing plastic cups with paper cups is not eco-friendly. We need to understand that danger loom large on our survival not on the Earth and it is only us who can avert this.

I wrote this one almost a year back and since then it adorns the “About Me” section of my Orkut page.

Deep Within

Ages past understanding the sages

But, vagueness keeps on escalating

Words, words is what I seek

Words passionate, wild, insane

Words refined, cerebral, civilized

Unattainable is Oasis in wilderness

Do words define me?

Vigilant, thoughtful, straightforward,

Sharp, kind, pragmatic,

Indomitable, dedicated, candid

Is this what I am?

Imagination runs feral

Turbulence of pond, Stillness of oceans

Flying success of lost opportunities

Discarded friends, Cherished Strangers

Born once more, reached pinnacle

Descent of trounce, in Albatross of existence

Calm Down, Be a static vagabond

For special, unusual, out- of-ordinary you are

Be the moon soft, soothing, and romantic

Warm like sun, smile & brighten every soul you touch.

My days of romance with the city of Chennai are over for now. One of the metro cities of India and capital of Tamil Nadu, believe me every moment passed was an adventure in itself.  To be precise I was camped on OMR, and my short stay was literally on fast lane.  Old Mahabalipuram Road or Old Mammallapuram Road as called locally is home to the majority of the Information Technology businesses in the city. I will keep on adding to this post as I revisit the memories, memories good or bad, it doesn’t matter, each one had some takeaways. So here I start:

Take # 001

The bus ride was anything but pleasure on my way to join my office in Chennai. It was first week of February; I nearly froze, not because it is a cold place. The knob of the air-conditioning vent above my seat was not working and the push back bar of the seat was clogged. I do not know how it worked when I tried it for the last time about an hour before reaching Chennai. Whatever happened seemed to be a part of greater conspiracy, so that I cannot sleep and go to office with bleary, swollen eyes the next day.

The bus came to a final halt at Central, one of the railway stations. Like any Indian cities I was surrounded by people as soon as I got down the bus. All sorts of people porters, auto rickshaw drivers, agents of hotels nearby, anyhow we managed to find our way through them. Soon we were surrounded another sort of creatures they are in a mob large enough to lift you off the road and their humming sound was nothing but irritating. To be frank I had never seen such a mosquito menace before. I thought it is their way to say “Welcome to Madras”, although they can soon give you a mad-rash.

Wait for more to come……….

© Barun Jha. All rights reserved.

Have you come across this post titled “How Green Is a Nudist Vacation?” in Blog Green Inc. of the The New York Times? If not please do visit and go through it. This is bullshit journalism at its height. Talks a like these make the whole campaign against global warming useless and campaigners look silly.

James Kanter needs to understand that there are more serious people who really feel that green house gases reduction is a challenge and global warming a potential danger against safe survival of humanity on this planet. And they are working towards a better world, let them do so. Please do not pass bullshit from platform like yours and make their efforts go vain.

Wake Up America……

When the rich, developed and nations historically responsible for most of the emission do not think it as their responsibility (at least moral) to spearhead the reduction in emission of Green House Gases (GHG), expect the least of cooperation from developing countries like India and China. Most of the industrialized countries are talking of pledging their emission about 10-15% lower than 1990 levels and that too by 2050 is the most shameless and irresponsible statement made.

When these countries are so reluctant to take the step forward, only voice they are likely to hear from developing world is that “don’t preach what you cannot do it yourself”. And no doubt, in that case they will be justified with their viewpoint. But that do not give us the solution? In case of stalemate which is likely to happen between the industrialized and developing nations, Planet Earth will have to pay a huge price.

A country like Russia which pledges to reduce in 10-15% range by 2020 will in real sense is likely to increase their emission. Although energy efficient, since base year is 1990 when undivided USSR used to exist, and compared to that emission figure there is going to be an increase.

Often encountered in online forums, it is strange why the resident of the developed part are so careless, they just behave as if the problem doesn’t exists at all. It is really confusing to say, whether it is their reluctance or ignorance. For a better and immediate solution it is the people of these developed countries needs to understand the gravity of situation, change their attitude and raise a strong voice asking their administration to come up with a decent reduction target. After all it is for the humanity and Planet Earth.

To cover up its own inefficiencies regarding Solid Waste Management BBMP has forced Karnataka State Pollution Control Board to make it mandatory for large apartments to have an on site solid waste management unit. If newspaper reports are to be believed, without this it would not be possible for the builders to get pollution clearance certificate.

But it would be worth watching how BBMP and KSPCB define large apartments? And a valid question will remain, was the waste pressure from these apartments so high to make the waste management plan of city like Bangalore inefficient?

Sick of seeing waste, garbage piled up on the roadside in a beautiful city like Bangalore; let’s hope things will change this time with the said effort. Moreover BBMP needs to beef up its waste collection mechanism and make the system efficient enough so that available Solid Waste Treatment and disposal facilities do not go underutilized of its capacity.

Hope things will get better.

There are a lot of challenges that lies ahead for India like elimination of poverty, providing better health care, education and livelihood opportunities for its people, bridging the rural urban gap with better infrastructure.  One important thing that will drive India’s growth towards better tomorrow will be providing energy for these ambition, not just energy but green and clean energy. Energy which is in synergy with sustainable development, non-polluting and do not put extra financial burden on the national exchequer with increasing scarcity of the raw resources.

But what is the present state of India‘s energy requirement and how much of that requirement is fulfilled? More importantly what percentage of that requirement comes from renewable sources? Believe it or not here environmental concerns and emission norms are often neglected or traded off when it comes to developmental or energy projects. Till now it was alright but with growing concerns and pressure from around the world, and also as responsible citizens of this planet we need to have introspection. We have a democratic framework and it is the right time for us to ask what is our stand on going green? Or more specifically do we have a renewable energy policy go support?

Before General Elections 2009, it was really strange to see the seer absence of environmental issues and address regarding green energy policy in a country where nature is worshiped and placed high above. Moreover, this holds about one-sixth of the human population on this planet.

Do we really care?? No, I don think so.

So what you can do?

Raise Your Voice from the every platform you can and let’s grow the voice strong enough to demand a clear Renewable Energy Policy as soon as possible.

Greenpeace has recently launched a campaign asking Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to initiate the process for formulation Renewable Energy Law by 2010. You can also show your support and apply pressure for the cause.

The days have not faded in my memory, just a few years before, in last term of Congress led UPA government, and there was a huge debate over it. Yes, it was OBC (for those who don’t know, they are backward but not the backward classes in India, they are Other Backward Classes) Reservation Bill. In those days I was at National Institute of Technology Patna. Our college was one of the top bastions of pro-reservation activists. There was much argument about how the Bill is going to help the so called other backwards. As they are archaic in their practice, it is not new in India. The bigger debate starts when one asks has they served the purpose they were intended for? Even to answer this there is a debate.

The newest entry to the Big Debate on Reservation is Women’s Reservation Bill which proposes to reserve one-third of the seats in legislation for woman. The argument women constitute about 50% of our population so they should have representation in the same ratio. Alright I do not oppose that. But why do we need reservation?

One similarity that I find in the nature and the democracy is that, both take their own course over a period of time. Then why we want to impose a change, what is supposed to act as an accelerator. With all our previous experience with reservation, why are we blinding ourselves with the perception that things will change the way we want? Representation is OK, but has anyone thought about the quality. Daughters, wives, daughter in laws, sisters, etc….eligibility has never been a problem and question of merit doesn’t arise. Is that what we want? The bill is yet to come but we have already seen a lot of politics over it, someone even threatening to gulp down poison and commit suicide, others demanding provisions of reservations within this reservation.

But you see, we Indians are like that only….. benefit or no benefit we want something political enough to make our vote polarized and making it secure for our not so worthy vote bank politicians.

With all my experience, one thing I ask… reservations ok, but how you measure its impact and when this will end???

Victim of the amorous act

Duped by phony ethics

I lay here vulnerable, hopeless

Born for enormity, cerebral triumph

Remained latent never saw daylight

Whom to blame, I still awe

They say it’s mine, I say it’s others

But in the dead heat reality remains intact

With cosmos within, a break I yearned

Far-away, deceptive, fantasy it remained. 

Solution to climate change will come at many prices, and this has to be borne not only by the developed world but developing nations too. Funding the huge investment required to implement low emission technologies will have to be fairly balanced among all. Any deviation from that will see reluctance from the developing world in going green. The problem is of humanity as a whole and nation, organization or individual cannot alienate themselves to escape.

Funding technology implementation in less developed countries can be done in ways like direct financial help or in form of technology transfer. In later case one complication that is certain to arise is intellectual property (IP). It is not unethical if IP holder of these green technologies will ask why they transfer it when they have invested so much in Research & Development. What incentive they will get by transferring?

No doubt intellectual property is a major motivation when an organization makes investment in Research. Will we see all these dried up when developed world take away IPs from them and pass it on for a little or no incentive?

In my view we are going to see huge investment in state sponsored research around the world. Rewarding private organization for better green technology developed and compensating them for transferring IP of these technologies to lesser developed world will be another way to march ahead. Beside these, countries like India and China will see a considerable growth in development and implementation of efficient, less emitting and clean technologies. These countries will try to go what can be described as Japan Way, efficient systems, lower per capita energy consumption and in turn lesser emission.

But a question remains; will the developed ones will trade off IP for better planet?

Be prepared and let’s see which the negotiations will take turn.