Will state-owned company match the professionalism and competitiveness of private MNCs?

http://t.co/MJt4FgmEzW

PSU bids to break MNCs’ monopoly in farm innovations

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 17, 2013, 10.54PM IST 

NEW DELHI: After making Indian farmers solely dependent on multinational private giants for overall farm solutions, including high-yielding seed varieties for years, the government is now all set to provide them a public sector cushion through an independent commercial arm of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) that aims to break the monopoly of private firms.


Agrinnovate India (AgIn) Limited — first of its kind PSU whose presence remained unnoticed after its soft launch two years ago — will on Saturday, unveil its plan of action, explaining how it would not only take on top MNCs like Monsanto and Syngenta through marketing innovations of Indian agriculture scientists but also set its footprints abroad by acquiring land on lease for farming and other agro practices.

Setting up research and development (R&D) farms and assisting in setting up of production units outside India — especially in Africa and in the Asia-Pacific region, and other parts of the globe like Latin America — is one of the mandates of AgIn.

"Our aim is to commercialize ICAR technologies, high yielding and disease-resistant crop varieties and planting materials, keeping in mind the interest of farmers who have to largely depend on private giants for seeds and biotechnological products," said MM Pandey, CEO of AgIn.

Pandey, however, preferred to tread cautiously at this juncture and said the public sector company would strive to provide a platform to Indian innovations and share agriculture related information to stakeholders including farmers and foreign clientele.
At present, innovations of Indian agricultural scientists make it to local markets through commercial arms of various agricultural universities and institutions. These bodies, however, lack marketing skills making them an unequal challenger to well-entrenched MNCs.

The intervention through AgIn is expected to help farmers in the long run as it will not only provide them with 'choice' but also bring down price of seeds, biotechnological products, vaccines, diagnostics and other farm implements and machinery through competition in the market.

The company was incorporated on October 19, 2011, as "for profit" firm owned by the Department of Agriculture Research and Education (DARE) under the ministry of agriculture. On the occasion of its foundation day on Saturday, the company will unveil its logo and website.

Besides agriculture, the company will also diversify itself in the area of animal husbandry, fisheries and poultry in due course.

Activities relating to technology for cloning and breeding for both flora and fauna, consultancies, development of soil nutrient maps, post-harvest processing technologies and developing and marketing of value added agro products are also part of the company's mandate.

Climate Change will hit South Asia in our life time ... we can just delay the inevitable by couple of decades

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Mumbai, Chennai may reach climate tipping point by 2034: Study

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 11, 2013, 01.03AM IST 

The paper carries predictions for 10 Indian cities, saying Mumbai and Chennai will be the first to reach the 'point of no return'.

NEW DELHI: Around 20 years from now, Mumbai and Chennai could routinely start witnessing temperatures hotter than the two cities have experienced in 150 years, an alarming new University of Hawaii study predicting the climate 'tipping points' of various cities around the world has warned.

By 2045, Pune, Surat, Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad would have joined the ranks of cities showing such climate departure, which means even the monthly dips in temperatures would be hotter than that experienced in 150 years (ending 2005), states the paper published in Nature on Wednesday.

The study, a massive new analysis of all climate models, says most cities around the world would have reached their climate tipping points by 2047 if no new steps to contain carbon dioxide emission are initiated.

(Read the full report here)

The paper carries predictions for 10 Indian cities, saying Mumbai and Chennai will be the first to reach the 'point of no return' — as early as 2034 — in the "business as usual" scenario wherein the world makes no special efforts to cut emissions.

Even in the second scenario, where concerted efforts are made to cut emissions, Mumbai is predicted to reach its tipping point by 2051, followed by Chennai a year later. Delhi will follow suit by 2050 (in first scenario) or 2081 (in second scenario).

"The results shocked us. Regardless of the scenario, changes will be coming soon," said lead author Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii. "Within my generation, whatever climate we were used to will be a thing of the past".

Other Indian cities, the study says, will only be delaying the inevitable by a few years. The list predicts Hyderabad would reach tipping point by 2057 or 2085 (under two different scenarios) and Kolkata by 2053 (or 2081).

The years mentioned against each city denotes the beginning of an entirely new — and hotter — climate regime for that city.



These predictions have come from an analysis of 39 climate models developed independently by 21 climate centres in 12 different countries. The Nature reported that Mora and his team of researchers from the University of Hawaii used those climate models to assemble projections on seven environmental variables, such as near-surface air temperature and precipitation, for the years 1860-2005.

"The researchers then ran simulations for the next 100 years to identify the years in which climate variables are predicted to exceed historical limits in various locations", said the report. The study — Projected Timing of Climate Departure from Recent Variability — is the first of its kind which pinpointed when global warming will become the norm in the world's major cities.

The complete global list of cities is available online at the University of Hawaii website. It shows that the Indonesian cities Manokwari will reach its tipping point as early as 2020 and Jakarta by 2029, whereas Maldives capital Male will reach there by 2025 in the business-as-usual scenario.

The statement also referred to the fact that countries first impacted by unprecedented climates are the ones with the least capacity to respond. Co-author Ryan Longman said, "Ironically, these are the countries that are least responsible for climate change in the first place".....................................................................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDEzLzEwLzExI0FyMDA1MDU=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Israel to increase its agro footprints in India in coming years ...it's time to learn from them and grow

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Israel to showcase its agro excellence in 10 Indian states by 2015

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 9, 2013, 04.08PM IST 

NEW DELHI: Israel will have its footprints in 10 Indian states by 2015 as it plans to set up various centres of excellence for floriculture, fruits and vegetables. Emboldened by the success of two such centres — one for vegetables in Karnal and another for fruit orchards in Sirsa - in Haryana, both the countries have decided to have 26 similar set-ups in different states under Indo-Israel agriculture cooperation agreement of 2008.

Objective of such centres is to demonstrate Israeli agriculture technologies and know-how to local farmers on use of protected cultivation which allows growing of crops beyond seasonal barrier through efficient use of water and controlling of temperature using poly-houses\canopies.

Calling it the best example of cooperation between the two countries, Israeli minister of economy Naftali Bennett, who visited the Centre of Excellence for Vegetables in Karnal to see its functioning on Tuesday, told TOI that the idea of this step was to increase productivity through efficient use of water and other resources and made the entire agricultural activity less expensive for the farmers not only in Haryana but also in other parts of India.

The concept of cooperation behind these centres is to create a platform for joint Indian and Israeli agriculture research and development (R&D) on the ground that will benefit both the countries in the long run. Each centre will be focused on specific fruit and vegetable crops.

Israel - world leader in agriculture technology - will provide seeds and technologies to help grow new variety of vegetables\fruits like cucumber, capsicum, mango, dates and herbs.

Maharashtra will have the maximum number (four out of 28) of such centres that are to be set up in Nagpur, Rahuri (Ahmednagar district), Dapoli (Ratnagiri) and Roha (Raigad). The centre at Nagpur will be exclusively for citrus fruits, while Rahuri and Dapoli for pomegranate and mango, respectively. A post-graduate harvest college is being established at Roha.

Other states that will have such centres include Tamil Nadu (Hosur and Krishnagiri), Rajasthan (Bassi near Jaipur), Punjab, Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.

Hosur in Tamil Nadu will see intensive vegetable production whereas Krishnagiri will have a canopy management training centre of traditional old mango plantations. Three centres will come up in Rajasthan that will be meant for floriculture, vegetables, fruits and dates.

Israeli ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz, who accompanied Bennett to Karnal, said his country was in the process of setting up such centres in different states in India. Six to eight centres, which are at various stages of development in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab and Karnataka, would be inaugurated by the end of this year, he added.....................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMTMvMTAvMTAjQXIwMTUwMg==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Will this whistleblower finally get government act against the wrongdoers?

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Centre comes to Haryana whistleblower’s rescue

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 5, 2013, 03.46AM IST 

Sanjiv Chaturvedi’s persistent move to challenge the decision of the Haryana government went in his favour when he submitted representations before the President through environment and forest ministry.

NEW DELHI: In a decision that may prove to be a big moral-booster for upright All India Services (IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service) officers across the country, the Centre has quashed the Haryana government's departmental chargesheet against whistleblower, Sanjiv Chaturvedi, who had to face the wrath of BS Hooda government for blowing the lid off several forest scams in the state.

The state government had charged Chaturvedi — 2002-batch Indian Forest Service officer of Haryana cadre — and wanted his termination from service on the basis of fabricated charges against him.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had, however, intervened and got the chargesheet against him quashed on Thursday by ignoring the Hooda government's plea.

Chaturvedi's persistent move to challenge the decision of the state government went in his favour when he submitted representations before the President through MoEF.

The quashing of his chargesheet will give a sense of security to all upright officers who want to go against the wish of respective state governments while exposing corruption within the system. It will also send them a message that the Centre may come to their rescue under the All India Services (AIS) Rules if they stand against graft.

Though the rules existed since 1969, the Centre rarely used this keeping in mind the wish of state governments. The Chaturvedi's case has, therefore, presented an unprecedented example of the Centre's intervention in support of the IAS officer.

The order will also have a direct bearing on the Haryana cadre IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who, too, is facing disciplinary inquiry and an impending chargesheet for exposing a multi-crore land scam in the state. Whether the Central government acts in Khema's favour would depend on who comes to power in Delhi next year, but Chaturvedi's case will act as precedence if such officers decide to challenge it under the AIS Rules or move court against states' decision.

Chaturvedi had become a thorn in the side of the Haryana government when he had unearthed a multi-crore plantation scam in January 2009. Posted as divisional forest officer in Jhajjar, he exposed that funds from international donor agencies were embezzled. He unraveled the scam when he found that the plantation existed only on paper and got 40 field staff, including five forest range officers, suspended.

The move had, however, put him in trouble as most of those — involved in the plantation scam — had their protectors inside the government. He had to face numerous charges. In his representation to the MoEF, he alleged that the charges were fabricated to harass him.

The ministry had got all such claims verified through independent inquiry and found Chaturvedi innocent. He was subsequently brought on deputation to the Centre where he is currently posted as deputy secretary and chief vigilance officer in AIIMS, New Delhi.

But, it was not end of his trouble. The state government had initiated disciplinary proceedings against him and served him a departmental chargesheet — a prelude to his termination from service. He, however, challenged the move and presented his case before the cabinet secretary.............http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JUFUvMjAxMy8xMC8wNSNBcjAxODAw&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Clean energy is need of the hour ...... step to counter Climate Change

http://t.co/qfQuSHS6jC

Govt gets tough on states to meet its clean energy target

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 3, 2013, 10.25PM IST 

NEW DELHI: In what may be a significant step to turn states aggressively to clean energy sources, the Union ministry of new and renewable energy has written to the power ministry suggesting it to make it mandatory for states to fulfill their Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) if they want to get central support for financial restructuring of their electricity distribution companies.

Once the power ministry agrees to the suggestion, states will have to meet certain percentage of their energy requirement from clean (solar or wind) sources. If they fail to do that, they will not be able to get concessions from the Centre to make the state-owned ailing distribution companies financial viable.

The move will help the government not only to achieve its clean energy target under the National Action Plan on Climate Change but also to promote renewable energy generation in a big way. India is supposed to increase its share of renewable energy in the total energy mix to the extent of 15% by 2020.

The Electricity Act, 2003 mandates the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions across the country to set targets - known as RPO - for distribution companies to purchase certain percentage of their total power need from renewable energy sources.

"The ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) has written to the power ministry which will, hopefully, take a final call on this soon", said Sanjay Jaiswal -- Lok Sabha MP and convenor of the Climate Parliament (forum of legislatures working worldwide to combat climate change) - referring to a letter written to him by the Union new and renewable energy minister Farooq Abdullah.

The move came in the backdrop of the recent decision of Maharashtra to crack the whip on electricity distribution firms to meet their obligation of buying renewable energy in the past four years.

In a strongest ever move taken by any state or central authority since the launch of the RPO programme in 2010, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) had in July ordered over 90 entities -- including government distribution companies and large private consumers -- to attain their renewable purchase obligation targets by March 2014 or face stiff penalty.

It is believed that the MERC's decision will go a long way in pushing Maharashtra achieve its target. Besides Maharashtra, Punjab is the only other state which has, so far, issued similar direction to its distribution companies and other large entities.

It is believed that the decision, along with couple of other moves, will push the country go green way under a well-defined path, considering huge solar and wind power potential. Except for renewable power-rich Gujarat and Rajasthan, all other states had failed to comply with their RPO targets last year.

Abdullah in his letter to Jaiswal said that his ministry, in close coordination with the ministry of power, has been making concerted efforts to put in place a "robust RPO compliance regime". His ministry has recently requested all the states to ensure RPO compliance and also monitor the same, he added.

IPCC AR5 ..... more to come in March ... Climate Change is as real as it can get

http://t.co/hqQfAg1nwK

Monsoon to get longer in India: IPCC

Vishwa Mohan,TNN | Oct 2, 2013, 01.48AM IST 

North India is likely to heat up more than the southern parts of the country while the entire Indian subcontinent may see longer rainy seasons in second half of the century, the UN's report said.

NEW DELHI: North India is likely to heat up more than the southern parts of the country while the entire Indian subcontinent may see longer rainy seasons in second half of the century, the UN's climate body has predicted in its latest comprehensive document on climate change.


The conclusion, showing variation in temperature and rainfall in South Asia, is part of the lengthy technical details of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which made its comprehensive report — Climate Change 2013, The Physical Science Basis — public in Stockholm on Monday.

The findings of the report show that the northern part of the continent is likely to witness winter temperatures rise of up to 0.4 to 0.8 degree Celsius during 2016-35 as compared to the 1986-2005 average, 2 to 3 degree Celsius during 2046-65 and up to 3 to 5 degree Celsius by the end of the century (2081-2100), under different scenarios of action to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Though the UN body's report on region-wise "impact, adaptation and vulnerability" will come out in March next year, the technical details comprising 14 chapters and Atlas of Global and Regional Climate Projections in its annexure carry indications of these changes in South Asia.

Krishna Kumar Kanikicharla, climate scientist at Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and one of the drafting authors of the IPCC report, told TOI there was "growing evidence" of the impact of the climate change on monsoons in South Asia and the tropical cyclone system in the Bay of Bengal.

Kanikicharla, responsible for drafting the chapter comprising details of monsoon systems, said: "There is strong hint that the duration of the rainy season would increase due to early onset of monsoon. The quantum of rainfall will also increase during the later part of this century."

He said though the Indian summer monsoon circulation will weaken, rainfall will increase due to higher atmospheric moisture resulting from a rise in temperatures.

In its projection for South Asia, the technical summary of the report clearly points at "enhanced summer monsoon precipitation and increased rainfall extremes of landfall cyclones on the coasts of the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea".

What is the confidence level of these predictions? Prashant Goswami, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, admitted that these conclusions were based on climatic projections that were not as firm as those made at a global level.

"These uncertainties increase as you go to smaller scale (from global to regional or from regional to sub-regional levels). But one has to have an element of faith in these conclusions which are based on well defined scientific methodology," Goswami, chief scientist at Bangalore's CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, told TOI.

The impact of temperature rise and rainfall variations on the region's agriculture that's highly dependent on monsoon, will be considered in the report on impact, adaptation and vulnerability, to be released next year as part of the IPCC's fifth assessment report (AR5).

As far as global temperature is concerned, the summary report said it was likely to rise by 0.3 to 4.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Sea levels, it said, could rise by 26-82 centimetres by the end of the century.

A S Unnikrishnan, chief scientist of the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, said policymakers would have to rely on the global sea level rise projections to draw up their strategies to deal with the emerging scenarios.......................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JUFUvMjAxMy8xMC8wMiNBcjAwMzAy&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

IPCC AR5 ...... Climate Change issues on policymakers' table ... What,Why, Where, when and How to be discussed in Warsaw in November, 2013

http://t.co/TGXeuLjvAu

UN panel 95% sure humans causing global warming

Vishwa Mohan & Amit Bhattacharya,TNN | Sep 28, 2013, 01.27AM IST 

IPCC raised the likelihood of human activities causing global warming from "very likely" in its 2007 report to "extremely likely" — moving from being 90% sure to 95%.

NEW DELHI: There is more certainty than ever before that earth is warming under "human influence", said a report compiled by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warning that only "substantial and sustained reduction" of greenhouse gas emissions will limit the disaster of climate change.

IPCC raised the likelihood of human activities causing global warming from "very likely" in its 2007 report to "extremely likely" — moving from being 90% sure to 95%.

Releasing the Summary for Policymakers, the first part of its fifth assessment report in Stockholm on Friday, IPCC scientists said global warming had resulted in an average sea level rise of 19 cm since 1901 and an increase in surface temperature by 0.85 degree Celsius between 1880 and 2012.

As compared with the fourth assessment report released in 2007, the report tones down its temperature rise projections for the end of this century from the earlier range of 1.1-6.4 degree C to 0.3-4.8 degree C. But scientists associated with IPCC said the two ranges were not comparable because they were based on very different sets of scenarios.

In what may help India's position in climate negotiations, the report put the blame for warming on the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) more than gases such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) and black carbon — which are present in smaller quantities in the air and exist for much shorter periods.

The developed countries have been pressuring emerging nations such as India to cut emissions of these short-lived gases while the latter have been demanding that the West undertake more meaningful cuts in its CO2 levels. The issue is sure to be raised when policymakers from across the globe gather in Warsaw in November to discuss finer points of the report, which will be the basis of a new global climate deal in Paris in 2015.

Though the IPCC report summary blamed methane and nitrous oxide too for the global warming, it named CO2 as enemy number one. "The carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrialized times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emission (such as deforestation)," it said.

Stating that the atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years, the IPCC summary report statement said, "The largest contribution to total radiative forcing is caused by the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 since 1750".

"Cumulative emissions of CO2 will largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond," said the report, a compilation of the latest research from across the world.

The most optimistic of four warming scenarios in the report sees an average temperature rise of 1 degree C by 2100 over 2000 levels, ranging from 0.3 to 1.7 degrees C. This is the only scenario that can safely meet a UN target of 2 degree C, which also factors in warming from the start of the Industrial Revolution to 2000.

The report also highlighted that each of the last three decades had been "successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850 in the northern hemisphere and the period 1983-2010 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.

It also observed that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide and Arctic sea and northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent over the last two decades.

The report asked policymakers to take urgent action to handle greenhouse gas emissions. It said, "Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate change system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emission".

Reacting to the summary report, the Centre for Science and Environment - a Delhi-based research and advocacy group - said the report called for urgent action on reducing greenhouse gases.

CSE deputy director general Chandra Bhushan said, "There are not many surprises. What this report, however, has done is to say in no uncertain terms, more than any report before, that climate change is happening because of mankind".

The Greenpeace, on its part, demanded governments across the world to take action on climate change. "The only logical response to a warning of this magnitude is immediate action", it said in a statement........................http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=Q0FQLzIwMTMvMDkvMjgjQXIwMDIwMQ==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

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