Tag: india

World’s Longest Lasting Tomato

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

Researchers in Delhi at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research have developed a tomato that has a shelf-life of 45 days. A. Datta and S. Chakraborty with co-workers report in the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they identified the ripening-specifics enzymes and silenced those genes through RNA interference.

India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and about 40% of the produce is lost because of excessive softening. This is particularly important problem in India because of poor infrastructure such as bad roads and lack of refrigeration which exacerbates the damage due to shipping and handling. The results of this research may be applied to mangoes, papayas and bananas and thus be of great significance to the agriculture industry which forms the backbone of the Indian economy.

During a time when genetically modified vegetables such as BT brinjal, are at the forefront of national consciousness, these researchers believe that there will be no objects to these tomatoes because there is no alien gene that has been introduced in the vegetable. The review process could be completed in as little as two years.

ResearchBlogging.org Meli, V., Ghosh, S., Prabha, T., Chakraborty, N., Chakraborty, S., & Datta, A. (2010). Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (6), 2413-2418 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909329107

Let’s freecycle India

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Let’s Freecycle India

Everyone loves free stuff. What if you get free stuff and also get to contribute your bit to save the environment? That is what the idea behind Freecycle is. Freecycle is a network that has close, almost five thousand groups and seven million members in 85 countries around the world. This rapidly growing non-profit organisation claims to keep 500 tons/day out of landfills. Their work is neither charity nor entrepreneurship; it stems from the basic human value of give & take.

The concept is simple. If you have something that you don’t want or don’t have a use for and feel like throwing away in the waste then instead of binning it, give it to someone who has a need for it. Freecycle has city specific email groups where people advertise things they want to give away and whoever asks for it first gets to keep it. The giver may also oblige to drop it to your place if he is kind.

Mandar Mali, a graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology says “It’s very common in the US that the house you rent will be unfurnished.” For students who will be studying in a university abroad just for a few years it doesn’t make sense to buy new furniture just to sell it after sometime. This is where freecycle kicks in. “I got almost every piece of furniture in my house from people ready to give away things for free. All I had to do is rent a van for a day and go around the town picking up the items people advertise.” he continues.

Recycling in India although has existed for quite a long time. Thanks to the valiant ragpickers and kabaris who have made sure that they collect our unsorted garbage and recycle whatever can be. However theirs is indeed a difficult task. An undermined and unregulated activity, it renders almost a million people in India to live a very low standard of life. Most people in this profession earn very little daily which causes almost a million people in India to live a very low standard of life. The occupational hazard of working in this profession is also a serious issue. With the technological progress, India also has a growing electronic waste problem. A proper system does not exist to handle such waste and almost 150,000 tons of electronic waste is recycled informally every year, exposing these warriors of waste to radioactive tubes from CRTs and to toxic metals like Lead, Cadmium and Antimony

India currently boasts of very feeble numbers when it comes to the membership of freecycle. Compared to Freecycle India’s 4000 strong membership, Freecycle UK has almost 2 million members. Bangalore leads the way with over a thousand members but the numbers quickly fall. Cities on the list are: Bangalore (1150), Mumbai (546), Delhi (511), Hyderabad (427), Pune (426), Chennai (387), Gurgaon (192), Lucknow (116), Panaji (102), Jalandhar (36), Jaipur (35), Ahmedabad (32), Vijaywada (27) and Kolkata (21). Kolkata is the only metro city which has very few members.

Following a system like freecycle not only helps people get stuff for free but also enables the society to help reduce unnecessary waste from going to landfills or causing harm to people involved in this profession. Yet the success of this system depends on the number of people involved in the activity. More the number of people, more the choice of things available and more attractive does the whole scheme becomes. These low numbers can be attributed to lack of awareness but with the growth of the reach of internet in India, we only hope that green activities like freecycle will take a quick leap.

First published at YouthkiAwaaz.com

Ground Reality

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Last month I attended the Oxford Indian Society’s annual lecture which was delivered by Lord Chris Patten, the chancellor of the University of Oxford. It was titled, “India and the changing world order”. It was indeed an honour listening to Lord Patten and more so because he had praises to bestow upon India. Like Shashi Tharoor, he spoke of the soft power, that India is wielding over the world currently and how it will affect the twenty-first century. He spoke of the role of the Indian diaspora and the effect that it is having on the western world. In their respective talks, they spent 90% of their time on talking about the great things in India and the rest about the difficulties. Listening to all this progress, the speakers painted a very rosy picture of my own country giving me tremendous hope.

And then after 15 months in England, I came to India for my vacation. May be for a short while, but I have become the common man that I was 15 months ago. The fog created by that rosy picture cleared up as soon as I landed and got a taste of the ground reality. The evils of living in India showed their face one by one: filth, poverty, lack of infrastructure and general chaotic existence. And they showed up in times when you would least want to see them. I will elaborate.

After an amazing new year’s eve, we decided we should watch the sunrise on the first day of 2010. We reached this beautiful scenic place in Nasik  which had a road in the middle of a small lake and we could watch the sun rise out of the mountains. We stood there in the dark waiting for the first rays of light. The sunrise was indeed beautiful but the first few rays of light exposed the piles of filth we were standing on. We left within a few minutes of the sunrise. So much for cleanliness!

The next thing to hit me was the inflation. Mostly in food prices, the changed rate-cards of restaurants in Mumbai and Nasik made that evident. I wondered how the poor must’ve kept up with the rising prices of everyday things. Specially because this time the difference was very significant. The slums I knew still exist and have even increased in size. So much to curb poverty!

Then of course, there was this “world bank project” that was going on in Nasik. They were laying HUGE drainage pipes. Reasons? The city has outgrown the size of the drainage pipes that exist and if it floods then the city could be in trouble. Fair enough. Now, for this purpose they have dug up half of every good road in Nasik and sources say that the money from th grant was only for laying the pipes not rebuilding the roads. So much for the infrastructure!

To top it all, we spent an evening discussing crime and corruption in my hometown. A relative of mine was a victim and his story was was painful one to listen to. So hard to imagine how difficult it might have been to face it. We spoke of how easily people can get away after serious offenses, of people who take bribes openly and then open an educational institute, of able people being replaced by ones who can pay a higher price for the position. We discussed the inefficiency of the public sector corporations like BSNL. Not just that, a few days before I spent 4 hours to change my broadband scheme but to no avail.

In all this time away from home I don’t think the agony of the common man has decreased much. The ground reality of things is very different from the rosy picture painted by the media.