While our awareness about the food that we consume—where it comes from, the way it was processed—is increasing, there is still a lack of sustainable and affordable solutions that ensure our food does not cause us harm.
This is one of the primary reasons why more and more people are advocating self-farming.
Delhi based Farmstacks is an organisation that doesn’t just advocate self-farming but also recommends that you adopt sustainable methods for it.
Speaking to The Better India (TBI) about how the organisation came about, Sharad Rai, one of its founders, says, “Raghav (Varma) and I have been friends since our engineering college days. A couple of years ago, we decided to start a venture that provides fresh produce to people in Delhi. Our concern was that people don’t scrutinise their vegetables enough. Ironically, they are more careful about purchasing electronics. Isn’t it essential for us to have the same concern for the food that fuels us then?”
Raghav and Sharad were joined by Karsan Chaudhary and Vaibhav Kaushik, who were already experimenting with sustainable urban farming methods.
Together, they solved the riddle of how a person living in an urban space can grow their food sustainably, without investing too much time and money.
As intriguing and adventurous as self-farming is, it can also be confusing. How do we know the soil, amount of water and space a plant requires to grow successfully?
Well, Farmstacks is attempting to answer these questions in their day-long workshop about hydroponics.
“Hydroponics requires very less land and is perfect for urban spaces like balconies and terraces. The method is done only in water, and nothing touches the soil. Since the water runs through all the roots of the plants, it circulates the fertilisers and nutrients with near perfection. The plants absorb about 97% of the nutrients. The water is recirculated through the same pipeline, so unlike what you might imagine, the water-dependent agriculture method does not waste water or even use more than what an agricultural land might use,” Sharad says.
So, if you are interested in cultivating your food, which, in Farmstack’s words, is “even better than organic,” you should enrol in the workshop that will be held on 14th and 15th September.
Space and time is not an issue because the design that they offer is such that you can grow nearly 100 plants in a 10 ft x 10 ft x 10 ft space.
To ensure that everyone who attends the workshop is benefitted, Farmstacks will teach you about a variety of vegetables and fruits that you might want to grow.
Lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes and cabbage are some plants that they will cover, but if you wish to know about the space, water and nutrients that, for example, onions require, you are free to ask the team.
Some more things that you can look forward to in the workshop are as follows:
An introduction to how this farming method is fit for a city dweller.
How you will benefit from farming at home.
An in-depth explanation about how you can start a hydroponic farm at home.
How you can start the agriculture method on a commercial level.
The different equipment you’ll need for these methods as well as how a domestic level farm can be built using readily available equipment.
Busting any myth that you may carry about hydroponics.
This promises to be a day well spent, where you will get valuable information about how you can grow your food at your own home.
India has had its share of illustrious scientists and inventors whose talents have been seen in all fields of science. Many of them have made significant contributions to scientific research in many countries. From CV Raman, Satyendra Nath Bose, Srinivasa Ramanujan to APJ Abdul Kalam, Indian scientists have left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the scientific community.
This inventor’s name may not be known to many, but he has been quietly making his mark in the science world. Gurtej Sandhu’s 1,299 US patents surpass the 1,093 patents of Thomas Edison!
What’s more, Sandhu has also been recognised as being the seventh most prolific inventor of all time on the basis of the number of U.S. utility patents.
According to Sandhu, the urge to repair or fix things is a sign of becoming a world-class innovator.
When faced with a sticky situation, we have the capability to find a creative solution out of it. It has no bearing on education, background, or who you are. The key is to make the innovations affordable for everyone, he said in a TEDxBoise talk.
Born in London to Indian parents, Sandhu was three when he moved to India. He graduated from IIT-Delhi with a degree in Electrical Engineering and went to the United States in 1990 to pursue higher education. He did his PhD in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sandhu’s fascination for integrated circuits (electronic circuits formed on a small piece of semiconducting material) began during his PhD.
For the same, he got a series of patents to his name and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Andrew S. Grove Award in 2018.
Sandhu had two jobs in hand when he first stepped into his professional life. The first one was from the then top American computer memory maker, and the other was from an 11-year-old startup, Idaho-based Micron Technology.
Confused between the two, Sandhu sought his professor-cum-mentor’s help, who told him that a startup would provide numerous chances to learn and experiment. Taking this advice, Sandhu worked his way to the upper echelons of the company, becoming its Vice President, today.
While working at Micron Technology, Sandhu made significant contributions to the DRAM and NAND memory chip scaling.
Using Moore’s Law, the Indian-origin inventor found a way to integrate more memory cells onto the chips. This made them more efficient by increasing the overall storage capacity for data. Moore’s Law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore who noticed that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every year.
Today, Micron and its competitors, Samsung and SK Hyic, account for 95 per cent of the global DRAM market and for Sandhu, this is his biggest reward.
That’s my reward. Sitting in Boise, Idaho, and working for Micron, and everybody in the world is using your patent, using things you came up with, he told Idaho Statesman.
The list of Sandhu’s patents includes innovations in self-driving cars, forming photonics structure and self-aligned nano cells, among others. You can read his patent list here.
Sandhu has also been an active mentor to engineering majors and faculty at Boise State University.
He (Sandhu) has tremendous humility, in particular given the scale of impact that he’s had. And he has his finger on the pulse of emerging technology and emerging memory on the global scale, Will Hughes, Director of the university’s Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering, told Idaho Statesman.
Ayurveda — the 5000-year-old wisdom of herbal treatments and yoga for holistic living is now a part of the world’s beauty regime. Stories of maritime traders and navigators charting the oceans to reach India’s shores in their quest to load up on Indian beauty secrets, are common. Wanting to tap into the same wisdom of all-natural beauty regimes, Upma Kumar started her venture, Teal & Terra in 2017. Upma claims that her products are made of natural ingredients and contain no harmful chemicals.
Born and brought up in Delhi, Upma lost both her parents in a tragic accident when she was just 12. She went to live with her sister and brother-in-law but nothing could fill the void left by the death of her parents. “There is no one or nothing that can replace the love and support that your parents provide you,” she says.
Upma completed her MBA in finance from ICFAI and worked in the corporate sector for almost 15 years before entering the beauty industry.
The change from the service industry to entrepreneurship was not sudden as it was something that always brewed at the back of her mind. “My parents had faith in me. They would often tell people that I was born for big things and that I would choose it all. Had they been alive I would have gotten to this position way earlier,” smiles the 40-year-old.
A single parent, Upma says that she derives immense strength from her 12-year-old son.
Upma and her son.
She funded Teal & Terra with her savings and contributions from friends and family. “I started the company with about Rs 7.5 lakh, some of which came from my friends, sister and some from my savings. It was a huge leap of faith for me and in hindsight I can say I am glad I took it.”
Two years since its launch, the revenue of Upma’s company now stands Rs 2.24 crores!
“A majority of our customers are returning ones and my strongest ambassadors. Most of our sales happen because of the good-will that we have managed to accrue.”
Another facet to Teal & Terra is the team of 18 female workers who work with Upma. “Having gone through hardships myself, when I started and could afford to employ people, I made a conscious decision to hire women. I am pleased to be able to give them the chance to earn money.”
These members are hired for marketing and sales roles, and on some occasions, they also perform various administrative roles, says Upma. The women work from home and earn anywhere between Rs 7,000 to Rs 15,000 depending on the number of hours they put in.
Upma Kapoor
Speaking about the challenges that she has had to face, Upma says, “Initially, just gaining credibility and trust in the market was a huge task. I had to reply to a barrage of negative feedback that I found springing up on various online communities. It took me a while to see that many of them were from competitors. Having said this, I must also add that some of my most loyal customers also come from these very online communities.”
As for the production process, Upma has in place a team of lab technicians and biotechnologists to maintain the high standards she wants for her products. Every product goes through not just extensive lab testing but is also checked for consistency and quality.
Upma is most proud of the hair care range, especially the Onion and Castor oil-based hair oil. “I knew the efficacy of using onion juice for hair but the smell and the process of extracting the onion juice were things that would keep people away. After a lot of research, we have been able to come up with a method that preserves the benefits of onion oil, and is fragrant at the same time. It’s a completely win-win situation.”
Priced between Rs 500 to Rs 2,690, the products are primarily for hair and skin care. Teal & Terra is currently working on a winter care and baby care range of products.
Teal & Terra
Besides the onion and castor oil, some of their bestsellers include the kumkumadi face oil and the Moroccan argan oil. The vision for her brand is very clear in the focused female-entrepreneur’s head. “In three years from now, I wish to multiply the revenue we are making, have a wider range of products and employ more women.”
If you wish to check out the products, click here.
Employing hydroponics, where plants are grown in mineral nutrient solutions in water instead of soil, you can grow your vegetables and herbs organically at your own home. And what’s more this farming technique uses up to 90 per cent less water than conventional soil-based farming. Macro and micronutrients in the water are directly fed to the plant, helping it to grow faster, and garnering a better yield.
Want to try this in your own home? Here are eight startups from around the country that are leading the way and can help you set up your own hydroponic garden.
Rahul Dhoka, the founder of Green Rush Organics and hydroponics farming consultancy Acqua Farms, grows over 6,000 plants in just 80 sq ft of space. He grows everything from Italian basil to carom (ajwain), mint, spinach, lettuce and a host of leafy greens and herbs. Moreover, he grows these vegetables using planters made of PVC pipes.
“Besides a starter kit, Acqua Farms also provides setups for larger planter systems with 24, 48, 72, 96 and going up to 1,000, depending on what the user needs. They also have a subscription-based service to those who have no knowledge of hydroponics, where, against a monthly amount, they assign the user an agronomist who takes care of their plants and monitors it once a week,” reports The Better India.
A glimpse of Rahul’s terrace.
2. Letcetra Agritech, Goa
Founded by software engineer-turned-hydroponics farmer Ajay Naik, Letcetra Agritech in the Mapusa area of Goa is the first such indoor hydroponics farm, which grows good quality, pesticide-free vegetables. Their farm, measuring 150 sq metres, produces tons of leafy vegetables like lettuce and salad greens, besides cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and basil.
“Letcetra has expanded to include two more farms with an overall area of 2,300 square metres. The combined fresh produce from all three farms put together is about 6-8 tonnes of different varieties of lettuce and other leafy greens, per month,” reports Deccan Herald.
(Source: TBI)
“To those who have land and want it to put the same to productive use, while at the same time, solve the pressing need to produce food for the country’s bursting population, we offer comprehensive commercial hydroponic system design, operations and maintenance solutions,” says the company website.
3. BitMantis Innovations, Bengaluru
Based out of Bengaluru, this IoT and data analytics start-up has developed its IoT solution GreenSAGE, which allows individuals and commercial growers to grow fresh herbs throughout the year with the minimum of fuss.
Under GreenSage, you have the Micro Edition and Greens Edition kits that uses hydroponics methods for efficient use of water and nutrients.
“TheGreenSAGE Micro Edition is equipped with two trays to grow microgreens at one’s own convenience. TheGreenSAGE Greens Edition is equipped with replaceable trays to either use for growing culinary herbs, salad greens or micro-greens,” claims the company website.
4. UrbanKissan, Hyderabad
Vihari Kanukollu, Dr Sairam and Srinivas Chaganti came together to establish UrbanKissan, a company aiming to integrate the concept of ‘In My Backyard’ in sustainable farming. With help and guidance from the UrbanKissan, you can now grow fresh produce including lettuce, herbs, greens and exotic vegetables round the year.
You can grow them anywhere – from rooftops to balconies.
Vihari, Dr Sairam and Srinivas Chaganti
“The company offers a range of options, from a model kit of 18 to 36 plants. The kit consists of seeds, coconut waste and a mix of nutrients. Once you place an order according to your preference, the company will assist you in choosing the site and delivering logistics. The staff will come to your house and help you set up the farm,” reports TBI.
Once you’ve set up your farm, all you need to do is spend just a few minutes every day to water the crops.
5. Future Farms, Chennai
Based out of Chennai, this startup founded by Sriram Gopal, who earlier ran an IT firm, develops accessible and effective farming kits to facilitate hydroponics farming. “Future Farms now grows 16 crop varieties, classified under English Exotic, Asian Exotic and Indian Exotic, across 15 acres of land spread over 10 states. It recorded a $1 million turnover last year,” according to YourStory. Their primary focus is on leafy vegetables with farms spread across the country from Delhi to Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
6. Ela Sustainable Solutions, Cochin
Cochin-based teacher-student duo, Shijin VS and Amal Mathew, established Ela Sustainable Solutions to assist urban farmers in setting up hydroponics farming systems and mini-polyhouses in small spaces upto 100 sq ft. “From tomato, cabbage, capsicum, cucumber, beans, tapioca, cauliflower, carrots, radish, brinjal, ladies finger to leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, and coriander, you can grow all your veggies using these technologies. Apart from setting up your own hydroponics farms and polyhouses, you can also gift entire smart garden kits to your loved ones,” reports TBI.
(Source: TBI)
7. Junga FreshnGreen, Himachal Pradesh
Partnering up with InfraCo Asia Development Pvt. Ltd. (IAD), Himachal Pradesh-based Junga FreshnGreen runs a 9.3-hectare hydroponics-based agricultural facility at Junga in Shimla district. “Our goal is to create a model of farming. . . . under the ‘Hydroponics’ model, cultivating farm fresh vegetables that have a predictable yield, having little or no pesticides and unaffected by the weather or soil conditions being grown in a protected greenhouse environment,” they claim.
They welcome enquiries from those owning land who would like them to recreate this model for them backed by predictable returns.
8. Pindfresh, Chandigarh
“We develop hydroponics do-it-yourself (DIY) kits in varying sizes that are supplemented with replacement nutrients, organic seeds and inert mediums—precisely everything that you need to start growing your own food produce,” says Somveer Anand, who is the chief fabricator of Pindfresh, in a conversation with TBI.
The entire workforce. From left to right: Naseem Ali(sitting), Gurinder Dhiman, Nafis Ali, Somveer and Sohila Kapoor. Courtesy: Pindfresh.
With packages that help you set up minute indoor kitchen gardens requiring only diffused sunlight, Pindfresh also offers installations for inside the house. In the absence or lack of direct sunlight, they offer customised lighting solutions as well.
(You can click here to read more TBI stories on hydroponics.)
For Monica and Arvind R Vohra, it all started in 2011, when their 5-year-old son, Aaryan, fell sick. Repeated bouts of high fever led to a series of diagnosis, from viral fever, typhoid, to other infections. When his fever shot up to 106 degree Celsius, he had to be hospitalised. With his haemoglobin count down to 3 gm/dL, the test results brought horrific news to the distraught parents, their son had Leukemia (blood cancer).
Once the shock settled, the Vohras prepared for the long battle.
“The first three-four months were very tough. The chemotherapy sessions were very intense. We also learnt that the chances of recovery are as high as 90 per cent in children below the age of 14,” says 48-year-old Monica.
The statistic was an eye-opener for them. They had assumed the worst, and then they realised that if this information came as a surprise to them, what could be said of people from underprivileged, unexposed sections of the society? It was this statistic that pushed the Delhi-based couple to start Leukemia Crusaders (LC) to help raise awareness and provide financial assistance to children battling Leukemia across India.
Since its inception in November 2013, this organisation has been able to support the treatment of 1,240 children across 42 hospitals in 17 states.
The lack of funds should never be a reason why a child is not treated, says Monica, the Managing Trustee of LC.
Child supported at Srinagar
She explains that the cost of treatment varies from which hospitals the parents approach to the type of cancer the child has and the duration of treatment that one has to undergo. “The cost could range anywhere between Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 8 lakhs,” she clarifies.
What does Leukemia Crusaders do?
Children supported in a hospital in Bihar
Once the couple had decided to forward financial help to other parents facing the same situation, Monica and Arvind spoke to Aaryan’s doctor to understand the logistics. Speaking about the information they received, Monica says, “We were advised to wait until Aaryan completed his treatment before we started. However, both my husband and I were of the opinion that the sooner we started the more children we can help.”
The Vohras were told that though a number of government schemes exist to fund the cancer treatment of underprivileged children, the lack of awareness of these schemes was the biggest hurdle. “There are various government schemes available for the treatment of blood cancer, but since most parents are unaware of these, very often they either abandon the treatment because of lack of funds or do not get the children admitted at all,” explains Monica.
Health Minister’s Cancer Patient Fund Under “RAN” is one such scheme for cancer patients in India.
Till the family makes arrangements for alternate finances, LC funds the treatment for 20 to 25 days in some hospitals to upto a month in others. The organisation calls it “Bridge Funding”, and has found it an effective way to ensure continued treatment.
“In most cases the abandonment of treatment happens in the early stages and that is where LC steps in. We provide funding for the treatment to be started within 48 hours of the case being recommended to us. This enables for the treatment to start and then they can apply and get the other relief from various channels, because leukemia does not give you time, says Monica.
Celebrating Christmas with children
On an average, LC spends Rs 30,000 to Rs 75,000, depending on the case and the treatment required for each child. When asked about the source of funding for LC, Monica informs, “We had a tie-up with a mobile company initially; for every handset sold we would get a percentage. Now we approach companies who with a CSR arm.”
Also, to check whether the claims are genuine, LC pays the hospital directly. “No money is ever paid to the patient or the family, it is always routed directly to the hospital where the child is being treated,” explains Monica. LC have tied-up with 40 hospitals across India.
Criteria for providing financial assistance:
• The child suffering from blood cancer must be below the age of 18
• The assistance is reserved for underprivileged families
• Application and documents recommended by treating doctor
• Flow of financial aid is provided as per recommendation of the treating doctor
• The funds get transferred to the hospital in installments
• The hospital submits original bills regularly to the trust
A personal connect
Awareness campaign that Childhood cancer is curable
While all the children that the organisation helps is special to Monica, one that left a deep impact on her was 15-year-old Dushyant.
“One night my husband’s barber came home at night and told us that his son was detected with blood cancer. He had to bring his child home as he did not have the funds to admit him in the hospital. We ensured that they got the child admitted in the hospital to arrest the fever.”
Monica continues, “We got him admitted and even after that it was a very rough ride. He developed an infection and the doctors almost gave up on him. But, almost miraculously, his blood count started improving and he got better.”
Monica tells me that he is in 10th standard now and even today, without fail, the father sends Monica a message every week saying – Dushyant theek hai (Dushyant is fine).
While the doctors keep telling Monica and Arvind to keep their emotions aside while dealing with patients and their families, Monica says that they have not been able to do so. For them, each case is important and they build a connect with each child.
Monica and Arvind’s son, Aaryan, now 13, has been in remission for over five years now.
Monica Vohra and Aaryan
During the course of this interview, the tough and brave survivor was away at a State level Shooting Championship Meet!
Life is never a straight going. It throws us up, brings us down, twists and turns, and it tests. What matters is how you pick yourself up and charge ahead. While some people buckle in, some people take it on their chin and go on to build on their experiences and make a difference to society. Monica and Arvind R Vohra definitely belong to the latter category.
For more details about Leukamia Crusaders, do check their website here.
As soon as 5-year-old Eshan Hilal heard a yesteryear hindi song, he would run to the sofa in front of the television and sit in his favourite spot.
Eyes glued to the screen, his mind would step into a magical world, mesmerised by Meena Kumari’s facial expressions in Chalte Chalte in Kamal Amrohi’s 1972 classic Pakeezah. A little while later, the little one would imitate her and try the intricate steps of Kathak.
Though Eshan’s dance moves garnered cheers from his family when he was young, things changed once his father noticed that his eldest son stayed indoors, instead of going out to play cricket like the other boys of the society in Delhi.
Soon, coercion turned into physical harassment and shaming became an everyday ritual. “I would be beaten up because of the way I walked, sat and the soft gestures I made. The unceasing mockery and taunts from friends and family made me believe that something was wrong with me,” Eshan tells The Better India.
However, braving all odds, and staying true to his passion for dancing, Eshan now performs on stages. And standing ovations have replaced abuses.
Now 25, Eshan is considered to be the first known professional male belly-dancer in India. He created waves in 2017 when he performed belly dancing wearing a long flowing skirt in a dance reality show.
Eshan’s art grabbed the attention of the nation. Audiences and judges on the show had never seen a man perform with such aplomb and grace, a dance usually performed by women.
Eshan had nailed the torso-driven dance with precise articulations of the hips. It was probably the first time when Eshan’s art was respected and appreciated.
Formative Years and Taking The Unconventional Route
Image Source: Sagar Hasija
Growing up in the 90s, Eshan loved to watch songs of graceful actresses of the early years like Waheeda Rehman, Vyjayanthimala and Rekha; unlike his friends who only liked old hindi songs if they were remixes.
Everytime he would see these actresses dancing on the screen, he tried and matched their rhythm; pirouetting and making his face expressive. Emoting the lyrics of the song came naturally to Eshan. And it was during one of these moments that the Delhi boy realised he had found his calling.
Image Courtesy: Eshan Hilal/Facebook
But, with his need to pursue his heart’s desire came the barrage of humiliating and abusive words from his family. In fact, during one of the family gatherings, his grandmother even went to the extent of calling him a prostitute for dancing while playing antakshari, a game of singing.
“I did not know the meaning but I knew that it meant trouble. I was once again beaten up by my father. Words like hijra and tawaif (courtesan) became common for me during my teenage years”, he reminisces.
Despite the backlash, Eshan’s fascination for classical dances continued. He even saved his pocket money and decided to enroll himself in Kathak class. When he finally managed to arrange enough money, he told his mother about the same.
And once again he was beaten up and called names, “My father threw out my ghungroos and thrashed me for hours until I got a hairline fracture on my ankle.” Eshan felt suffocated in his house.
One day, upon learning about dance auditions for a popular reality show back in 2008, Eshan ran away from the house.
Image Courtesy: Eshan Hilal/Facebook
“I was very naive to leave the house without any money. I reached Nainital and worked there in a hotel as a cleaner for a couple of months until my parents found me through police. The next few days after I returned to Delhi were very traumatic for me,” shares Eshan.
To keep his family’s honour and save himself from the drama, Eshan quit dancing when he was in 12th standard. He changed his way of living and forced himself to be a person he was not. Just when he felt he was losing his identity, a conversation with his mother came as a ray of hope.
“My mother said I was only accountable to God and I should be scared of Him. That piece of advice removed all my fears. I decided to get back to dancing.”
Breaking into the Female Bastion
Image Courtesy: Eshan Hilal/Facebook
It was while learning Kathak that Eshan came across belly dancing. He saw Mehr Malik, a well-known belly dancer and was bowled over by her moves and dancing style.
Wanting to pursue the same, Eshan contacted a class teaching the artform. But little did he realise that a gender stereotype awaited him as the instructors turned down his request. Not one to give up, he did the next best thing. He followed YouTube tutorials to follow his quest to learn the dance.
His father was further angered at Eshan’s choice of belly dancing. Questions like ‘why are you acting like a girl’, ‘why are you insistent on bringing shame to the family’ were thrown at him again.
But this time he neither quit nor ran away from the questions. He made multiple attempts at convincing his father; sadly all of them unsuccessful.
In 2013, he moved to Mumbai for his studies and completed a course in Fashion and continued with his YouTube lessons.
The breakthrough finally came when he was accepted at a belly dancing class in Delhi after he had completed his college studies. “The moment I stepped in the studio, I found myself again.”
However, the rigorous practice sessions made his life more difficult but fortunately he enjoyed the pressure.
“It was like a slap across my face. There were several reality checks. Belly dancing is more than just moving hips. It has a rhythm that not everyone can match. I had to shed my fears, inferiority complex, reservations. Basically, I had to get over my past and start fresh,” he says.
While the world of belly dancing gave him a new identity, it also taught him life-changing lessons. There have been praises, nasty comments on social media and some bad experiences.
Image Courtesy: Eshan Hilal/Facebook
Sharing one of the positive experiences, Eshan says:
After one of my performances in Bengaluru, a 70-year-old gentleman came up to me and told me how he regretted coming to a fusion of classical and belly dance in the beginning. But seeing a male belly dancing so gracefully it changed his perspective. Through my art I was able to shatter a stereotype that too of a person from the older generation. Now, people have stopped looking at my gender, they look at my art.
Today, Eshan is an accomplished performer, choreographer and teaches belly dancing in Delhi.
As for his family, they have still not accepted Eshan and his art whole-heartedly despite all the praise and fame he has accumulated.
But Eshan hopes they will come around.
He just has one piece of advice to anyone out there who fears rejection from the society or is scared to be themselves and pursue their dreams.
“It is important to accept yourself the way you are. Do not get succumbed to pressures, you know yourself. In a world where every person is living with a facade, be yourself,” says Eshan.
Image Courtesy: Eshan Hilal/Facebook
Growing up in an environment that constantly looked down upon him, a family that never supported his decisions and the bizarre conceptions of the society is no mean feat. Today, the little boy with stars in his eyes has come a long way in a journey that epitomises courage.
Check out Eshan’s brilliant performance:
You can follow Eshan’s epic journey of belly dancing here.
“Ilham is the medicine to my wound. I am blessed and happy to be a part of it,” says Farida (name changed) a refugee from Afghanistan who sought asylum in India after losing her husband to the militant outfit-Taliban, a couple of years ago.
She presently works with Ilham, a catering startup in Delhi. Just like her, seven other single mothers from Afghanistan have attained financial independence and are living better lives, all for the efforts of Aditi Sabrawal.
Ilham was started by Aditi, under the UNHCR Self Reliance and Livelihoods project, in 2015.
Aditi, founder of Ilham
Aditi, who currently works at UNHCR, used to work with Dastkar, an NGO working with local artisans to help revive their traditional skills. Due to the experience she had gained from the NGO, Aditi knew that the best course of action for the Afghani women was to give them a source of earning which they can manage themselves.
She soon came up with the idea of starting Ilham to preserve local tradition and provide livelihood opportunities.
Speaking to The Better India, she says:
At Dastkar, I handled the bazaars in which I managed the Food Court and hence the idea of tapping into culinary skills was born. The sole thought behind forming the group was giving the women a new hope, income, livelihood and to spread awareness among the people living in Delhi about the refugees.
“Understanding and assessing the skill levels of the refugee women was very crucial to tap into their enthusiasm toward work. We ensured that they are constantly motivated and worked toward capacity-building and exposing them to the market,” she adds.
Ilham: A Ray of Hope
Aditi met these women at an NGO, where they would visit with the hope of finding a dignified job. Most women at Ilham are unlettered and due to language barriers, were struggling to find a job.
The women found themselves on their feet with Ilham – a social enterprise which is now entirely managed by these Afghani women who have have the authority to make decisions. In 2017, they started managing the expenses on their own, thus becoming self-sustainable.
Ilham made its debut by setting up a two-day stall at Dastkar few months after its inception. The traditional delicacies like Nargisi and Shami Kabab, Kabuli and Noranj Pulao, Manthu and Baklava saw people coming back for seconds.
Since then, the enterprise has made its mark through various exhibitions like Jashn-e-Rekhta, Delhi Food Truck Festival, Bikaner House Sunday Market, Kukdookoo Festival and fests at different Delhi University colleges.
Apart from this – the Centre for Policy Research, European Union, Finland Embassy, US Embassy and many other embassies have placed regular orders with Ilham. It is also available on online food delivery portals.
For these women, preparing true Afghani delicacies is akin to reconnecting themselves with the homes and culture they had to leave behind.
For instance, cooking the mouth-watering Kabuli Pulao reminds Farida of the pleasant memories with her late husband, “He would always praise my cooking skills and even encouraged me to open my own restaurant. Making pulao is very special as it was my husband’s favourite dish.”
Meanwhile, Shabo enjoys making Ashak (Afghan dish made of pasta dumplings) – her daughter’s favourite. And Shazia is called the ‘Dessert Queen’ for making luscious desserts.
Impact
“Impact has been huge – in terms of their confidence level, interactions with the customers, and learning the local language (Hindi). Now, instead of us telling them about exhibitions, they inform me about the exhibitions they want to be a part of. These women are very courageous,” shares Aditi.
Aditi roped in Pankaj Nanda, an enterprise consultant, who worked extensively with the group and taught them IT skills to scale up their operations. As a result, the women can now make presentations about their food and operate WhatsApp for food orders.
“I have seen their journey from the beginning. They are extremely hard working. Their never-say-die attitude has helped them come this far. They are an example for other refugee women,” says Pankaj.
Moreover, the women are now capable of meeting their monthly expenses like house-rent and food and have also enrolled their children in schools.
The social enterprise’s progress can also be measured by the recognition they have received in their journey.
In March 2018, Ilham received the ‘Best Women Entrepreneurs’ by Delhi Food Walks and American Centre and their work was appreciated by the United Nations World Food Program on World Food Day (October, 2018).
From shedding their fears, anxieties and trust issues to making sincere attempts at learning Hindi and spreading their food culture in India, the Afghani women refugees have come a long way since 2015.
Across India, flowers mean and signify many things—from romance and abundance to wealth, beauty and purity, to even knowledge and enlightenment. We use them to decorate our living spaces and adorn our bodies. So it’s natural that they would make their presence and aroma felt in our food.
And being part of nature’s roster of nutrition, India’s rich and diverse culinary history features flowers from various plants.
Virender Singh Datta says, “Edible flowers were always part of our cuisine; it is we who forgot about them!” An iconic chef and hotelier, he has held important positions in some of the most well-known hotels in India and abroad in a career spanning 50 years.
In 2005, he retired to set up the International Institute of Culinary Arts in Delhi, to pass on his knowledge and groom the next generation of world-class Indian chefs. He tells us about banana, pea, onion and moringa flowers, which are extensively used in South Indian and Bengali food.
“Rose is one of the most versatile flowers widely available in the market today,” says Varun Bhatia. He describes himself as a ‘sustainable chef’; he had completed the culinary programme at the International Institute of Culinary Arts in Delhi, the one that Virender Singh Datta founded.
Varun’s culinary journey began very young, when he was just 16. Since then, he has grown as a chef, managing several food and beverages businesses in the country, including his own project, Pier 38, in Gurugram.
He also reminds us of flowers in tea. After all, are you considered a millennial if you haven’t gushed about the restorative properties of jasmine, hibiscus or chamomile tea?
We also catch up with Saptarshi Chakraborty, one of the brains behind the popular food channel, Bong Eats, as we recreate their dish mocha ghonto or banana blossom curry.
Check out the full episode 5 of Bite On This to find out what you have been missing!
Using fabrics like Pashmina, sheep wool, yak wool and camel wool, and traditional techniques like thigma (resist tie-dye) and motifs that reflect Ladakh’s exquisite flora and fauna, Stanzin Palmo, a 26-year-old fashion designer, is bringing the region to the world with her unique label, ‘Zilzom.’
Earlier this year, she unveiled her latest collection ‘Between the Earth and Sky’ at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai.
“Ms Stanzin Palmo…takes inspiration from Ladakh, it’s culture, tradition and beauty and gives a contemporary twist through digital art and embroidery…I sincerely appreciate her innovative skills and dedicated efforts to promote the cultural identity of Ladakh in this fashion world,” says Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, Member of Parliament, Ladakh.
After graduating from NIFT-Delhi, she worked with various designers and brands including Sonal Verma of Rara Avis and Supreme Overseas.
However, it was her stint with Looms of Ladakh in 2017, where she was a design mentor, that inspired Palmo to venture out on her own.
Stanzin Palmo
“I began with an orientation programme where I made them understand the value of the raw material (Pashmina), and their skill, which they initially used just to develop products for personal consumption, selling the excess inventory of pure wool products in the market at a cheap rate. Later, I made them understand the importance of design, size standardisation and finishing,” says Palmo.
She admits that before this stint, she did not understand the real value of Pashmina for the local economy.
“Working at Looms of Ladakh was like looking through a window. Today, when I do embroidery work on Pashmina, I have the option of doing it on the finer fabric and get it made in Kashmir. But I choose not to do it because the idea is to give Ladakhi pashmina its own identity. It does get expensive because everything is handmade, but only then will people realise its importance,” she explains.
Handling 40-50 women artisans older than her without any prior experience and working in extreme climatic conditions, she fine-tuned the art of distributing work and managing conflicting options.
Having said that, Looms of Ladakh wasn’t the only place where she learnt these skills, but it offered her another step in the learning process.
“I just saw so much potential that wasn’t yet explored. There are designers like Jigmet Couture, who have done fantastic work in preserving local traditions, but I wanted to carve out my own niche. I saw so much inspiration in terms of fabric, raw material, techniques and the exquisite natural beauty of the place,” says Palmo.
In August 2018, Zilzom came to life.
Handspun, handwoven & hand embroidered “Ladakh Pashmina Shawl” teamed with our “Golden Zari Sulma”. (Source: Zilzom)
What is fashion?
Fashion isn’t just about creating clothes, but also about weaving a story, says Palmo.
“For my summer collection, inspiration comes from a beautiful set of clouds I saw or the sight of apple and apricot blossoms are in full bloom when spring dawns. These visuals stay in my mind, and I start sketching these on my diaries. But I do not make an exact copy. I incorporate traditional designs and innovate,” she explains.
Her ‘Between the Earth and Sky’ collection, for example, captures the flora and fauna of Ladakh with motifs inspired by the sea buckthorn plant, apple blossoms, clouds and native birds.
“Once I draw out the inspiration onto my diary, I finalise how I want the motif to be presented, following which I do some tessellation (multiplying the motifs), creating a unique print. Once I know what I want on my fabric, I source it (silk or other natural fibres) from Delhi and get them printed at my digital lab there. Each fabric has a story. The moment you see my print, you’ll see where the inspiration comes from,” she adds.
However, it’s her winter collection, where the local fabric comes to life. She attempts to incorporate as much of the natural fabric available in Ladakh like Pashmina, Nambu (made of sheep wool already available in yarn form to make traditional dresses known as gonchas) and Yak wool.
“It’s hard to print on Pashmina, since the fabric is thicker, and in Ladakh, we haven’t quite tried embroidery on it. I wanted to experiment with Zari (weaving threads made of fine gold or silver) and dabka (a spring type of thread or a thin coiled wire which is sewn in to create intricate patterns). Thus, you have a different kind of product that you don’t see in the market. The embroidery done on the Pashmina shawl incorporates the same inspiration—the flora and fauna of Ladakh,” says Palmo.
An inspiration taken from Ladakh’s Flora : Apple and Apricot blossom to Seabuckthorn. (Source: Zilzom)
There is also a story hidden how the fabric travels.
She sources the fibre from the Pashmina Dehairing plant of Changthang Pashmina Cooperative Society in Leh and gives it to spinners in Zanskar Valley, who are considered among the best in the world. But spinning only takes place in winters when the women are not busy.
“I visit their homes personally, weigh the fibres and give it to them to run their magic. It takes them a little over a week to spin 250 grams of the fibre. I work with more than 20 spinners in the winter season, after which the yarn is given for weaving. For weaving, I work with the established weaving units in Ladakh such as Utpala and Superb Ladakh. It’s a combined effort. However, we don’t do embroidery in Ladakh but employ karigars in Delhi, who are from Odisha and West Bengal. My design travels places,” she recalls.
(Source: Zilzom)
“The fibre is collected during spring moulting, and one goat generates anywhere between 80-170g of fibre. For one woven shawl, it takes around three goats’ wool… Through my interviews, I also try to challenge some misconceptions about the fabric like how it does not need not be as fine as passing through a ring. Pashmina can be thick, as well,” she adds.
Talking about Palmo’s work, Urban Asian, a lifestyle publication, writes, “For her collection…Stanzin brought in hints of oriental details and then worked with digital art and thread work. Her fabrics were obviously handmade Ladakh pashmina, Ladakh wool, silk, cotton, linen and rayon. The silhouettes were feminine and fluid but the base was the Ladakhi traditional dress called the ‘Goncha,’ which featured gathers and wraps as the basis of construction.”
Does Palmo feel that she is empowering local artisans?
“I empower the already empowered women by giving them some work. See, all this work is season based. The Zanskar spinners, for example, aren’t willing to work for us during the summers because they earn more from labour work. I also work with weaving units like Utpala and Superb Ladakh in Leh. I buy Nambu from here, convert them into jackets and Kos (traditional outfit for men). I add leather detailing into the products. Utpala, founded by a distant relative, helps me dye my shawls with walnut dye. Basically, I incorporate a lot of people in my work, particularly those with their own expertise,” she argues.
At the Utpala Weaving Unit. (Source: Stanzin Palmo)
Challenges
Working with local fabrics, however, has its challenges. Take the example of yak wool, which is both very fine and coarse at once because there is a lot of hair.
If you buy one kilo of yak wool, half of it wasted with hair. Working on it is a tedious affair because there is so much hair, and removing it is an arduous process, and thus more expensive than conventional wool. However, the outer coat, which is coarse and heavy, is used by nomads to make Rebo tents. It’s the inner coat, measuring 21-25 microns in fibre thickness, which is fine and possesses excellent insulating properties.
Zilzom at the Lakme Fashion Week. (Source: Zilzom)
“I work on the yak fibre with similar processes as the pashmina shawl. After weaving, it is converted into yak fabric or yak wool shawl. The fabric is then used for making jackets and coats. The challenges of working with camel wool are similar,” says Palmo.
Besides fabric, there are other challenges in working out of Leh.
You can count the number of fabric shops on your fingers. There are very few good stationery stores where you can find good scissors and other materials.
“Recently, a scale I was using broke, and we couldn’t find a replacement here. I could only get a replacement on a trip back from Delhi. Fabric sourcing is a major problem here. Also, Ladakh is closed for five-six months during the winter season, making it impossible to do any business. Transportation in expensive and takes time. Without an adequate heating system, it’s uncomfortable for our workers. Outsiders own a majority of the garment market here in Leh, and they return home during the winters, making tourists or locals think that the market is shut even though I’m open,” mentions Palmo.
Nonetheless, she harbours real dreams of expansion despite being open for just a year. After the Lakme Fashion Week GenNext, she went on a roadshow with other designers from around India where their clothes went to a couple of multi-brand shops like Anahita and Ensemble, among others.
Zilzom at the Lakme Fashion Week. (Source: Zilzom)
After Lakme Fashion Week, she earned recognition, and there are a lot of other multi-brand stores across cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi who are keen on getting her clothes on board.
“There is so much potential in the region for fashion. It has to be explored. I want to take Zilzom to more fashion shows, more prestigious platforms and get the chance to showcase abroad. I want Ladakh’s story to travel around the world through my label,” she says.
The wait is over for the millions of devotees who look forward to the festival of Navratri spanning nine days. The fervour and excitement that one feels upon entering a pujopandal cannot be described in words – it’s an experience. Each committee goes to great lengths to ensure that their pandal is unique and attracts the maximum footfall. This year, in a move that will certainly leave the environment happy – committees across the country have resorted to adopting eco-friendly measures in setting up and celebrating this festival.
Here is a look at some of the innovative green pandals across the country.
1. Delhi/NCR
The Kashmere Gate Durga Puja is one of the oldest and considered to be a traditional one. Given that the Pollution Control Board has prohibited the immersion of the idol into the Yamuna, the organising committee has created an artificial pond in Burari, 10 km away from their pandal for their 15-ft idol. To ensure that the bhog that is served is also done in an eco-concious manner, they have switched to bowls made of leaves, in place of thermocol ones.
The pandal at Chittaranjan Park, also extremely famous in the national capital, will immerse the idol of the goddess within their premises in a 20 x 8 ft pit. According to this report, the Durga Puja pandal by the Indraprastha Matri Mandir Nirman Society at Aradhana Park in IP Extension has gone further and used recycled items sourced from junkyards and scrap dealers. With gas cylinders for heads and steel scrap for bodies, the idols are decorated with used bulbs and soft drink cans.
In Gurugram, at the Sushant Lok pandal, celebrating its 20th year, women have decided to take charge of all the preparations. In an attempt to reduce their carbon footprint, the women have resorted to using cycles while stepping out to procure all things needed for the pandal.
A rough estimate suggests that there are currently about 2,652 Durga Pujas in Kolkata. A city, which celebrates Durga Puja with immense joy, has also taken into consideration the strain that a celebration of such proportions can have on the environment.
According to this report, at Khidderpore 25 Palli, on the western fringes of the city, around 5 lakh plastic bottles are being used to embellish the pandal and generate awareness on global warming.
Debashish Kumar one of the key organisers of the Tridhara Sammilani, a big-ticket Durga Puja in South Kolkata, claims to have shunned plastic. “The entire arena of our Puja is a plastic free zone. We take this very seriously. Apart from working with KMC for waste management, we also take extra care to ensure that our festival does not flout any green norm.”
The Maddox Square Puja Committee will be using sal leaves and earthern glasses during the bhog distribution.
3. Meghalaya
With around 42 committees organising Durga Puja across the city, the Central Puja Committee (CPC) has issued strict guidelines that each committee must adhere to.
Some of the highlights are:
• Abstain from using plastic in any form
• No chemical paints to be used on the idol
• Eco-friendly decorating items to be used
• Use energy-saving lighting
• Depositing all flexes which can be recycled and reused
While the artists at the Nayapalli Durga puja committee in Bhubhaneshwar found the idea of ditching the plastic challenging to begin with, they have substituted it with inedible wild fruits from forests to design the pandal. They are also using other biodegradable items like sea shells and conches to build a replica of Rajasthan’s Padmavat Palace.
According to this report, Narayan Mohapatra, who is also a member of the Shaheed Nagar Durga Puja committee, said that they will be taking every possible step for a plastic-free country.
“We will not use plastic flowers for decoration. If devotees come up with plastic bags for prasad, we will be dumping those in the eco-friendly dustbins that have been installed in the pandal. Also, we will be serving prasad in plates made of leaves and bamboo.”
5. Ranchi
Rajendra Singh, President OCC Club & Puja Committee, according to this report, said, “There will be no use of plastic in and around the pandal premises. Special attention is being paid to ensure that the entire ground is clean at all times and nothing is littered. Separate dustbins will also be placed for dry and wet waste. Even the food stall owners will be urged to make minimum use of plastic and instead opt for paper plates and cups.”
Bamboo, coconut rope, and hay are the primary materials being used this year. In order to ensure that the garbage doesn’t mount up at the pandals, a garbage collection van will be doing the rounds every few hours.
In the spirit of everything around us going green, the pandals in the country have outshone themselves too. Here’s hoping that all festivals and huge celebrations go plastic-free too.
If you have visited a pandal that you are particularly impressed by, do write to us.
Come Diwali and our houses light up with dozens of pretty earthen diyas. Generations have passed but these lamps have not lost their significance to the everchanging waves of time. Yes, we have electric or battery strings of lights but even those haven’t been able to replace the simple oil lamp.
Awareness about sustainability and our pleasures of enjoying chai in kullads have somewhat kept the art of pottery alive. But even then, the best bet for potters is to strive during the Diwali months to make and sell as many diyas as they can, so the rest of the year passes comfortably.
This Diwali, why not pay the potters’ home a visit and get to know how the wheels of their occupation turn? Spin Monkey, an eco-tourism organisation based in Delhi is organising a heritage tour to teach you the age-old art of pottery.
Gaurav Sharma, whose heritage walks are popular in the city, will be leading the tour and you get the opportunity to meet the National Award Winning potter, Harkishan Prajapati!
Anchit Deogar is a passionate cyclist from Delhi. Over the past few years, he wheeled through the narrow and densely populated streets of the national capital, exploring nooks and corners of the city that would go unseen in a car. He soon realised that the Delhi that one normally sees is a tiny fraction of the city that hides away from the glamour.
And so, along with his friend Nishita, who is also a passionate explorer, he decided to start an organisation that allows more people to cycle or walk through the lesser-seen parts of Delhi. Therein lies its soul, he realised.
Anchit tells The Better India that this is a one-of-a-kind art that is dying a slow but sure death. The occupation that was born in the prehistoric ages needs to be revived for the sake of the craft and the thousands who earn their livelihood through it.
“Kullads and earthen pots are diminishing in their numbers because of a very low demand. As a result, this craft is going extinct. We need to revive it and this is one inspiration behind the walks we have arranged. The other reason is that we need to understand how difficult the craft is. It does not come easy. Harkishan Parajapati and the other potters will give the demonstration,” Anchit tells TBI.
Gaurav Sharma adds that the potters, although humble in their accommodation and lifestyle, are anything but ordinary. Some display their pots in exhibitions across India while others have displayed them in Dubai, London etc. Prajapati himself has been on government sponsored tours to Germany, Japan, Spain and the USA. “These are extraordinary people doing what seems like ordinary work. But their products are anything but mediocre. Only when you visit their workplaces can you get the real essence of the occupation,” the history teacher adds.
The four hour tour will take you through the potters’ colonies in Delhi, introducing you to the men and women who sculpt the diyas, brightening up your Diwali. Gaurav Sharma will walk you through the history of the place and tell you how these hundreds of potters came from Rajasthan and Haryana to settle in Delhi.
You will also meet Harkishan Prajapati and learn the techniques of pottery from him. Informs Anchit, “Just to give you a glimpse of how difficult the craft is, each attendee will be given 15 minutes to make their own pots. Prajapati will guide you on how much water to use and how to shape it. But the objective is to see how perfect a pot you can make in a limited time period.”
You’ll be walking the streets just before Diwali and so, this will give you the perfect opportunity to do your diya shopping – straight from the potters’ wheel!
Founded in 1969, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is India’s space agency with its headquarters established at Bengaluru. Since its inception, ISRO has had several successful launches – Chandrayaan amongst them. ISRO’s vision is to “harness space technology for national development, while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration”. The agency is now working toward getting their astronauts into orbit by 2021.
And for those who dream of joining this esteemed organisation, ISRO Centralised Recruitment Board examination is the gateway. In this article, we bring you an interview of ICRB exam AIR 4 and an overview of the exam itself.
Let’s meet Ashish Ranjan, All India Rank 4 in the 2018 ISRO examination.
Born and bred in Ranchi, Ashish moved to Sikkim to pursue higher education from Sikkim Manipal University. It was here that Ashish developed an interest in Mechanical Engineering. He says, “It was during this time that I started thinking about my future. I knew that merely a good CGPA would not take me anywhere.”
Having attempted the ISRO examination twice before, Ashish has a fair understanding of what worked and here he shares tips on what aspirants could consider doing while preparing and when appearing for this competitive examination.
What was different in the third attempt?
“The first two times that I failed did not mean that I did everything wrong. In my first attempt in May 2017, I scored 111 while the cutoff was 137, in my second attempt, in December 2017, I missed out by 4 marks. I got 116 while the cut off was 120. So obviously I did something correct the second time around.”
• ISRO examination is conducted in government schools, where even the benches one uses to attempt the paper can be rather uncomfortable to sit on for a long duration. Keep this in mind while you enter the hall, says Ashish.
• There is no rough sheet that is given to the candidate during the examination. Therefore even while preparing, factor this in so that during the examination you are not at a loss. “The first time I attempted the paper, I panicked a little as I did not get a rough sheet,” he recalls.
• During the time you are preparing, Ashish emphasises on the need to keep time. He says, “Always time yourself while attempting mock papers. It will help when you are finally giving the paper. For my 2nd attempt I timed myself while giving the mock papers.”
• Be mindful of the type of questions that the paper carries. Do not spend too much time on the short questions, get them done quickly and move on to the conceptual questions, which requires more time from you, says Ashish.
• Do not enter the examination hall with any preconceived notions about how the paper will be. Ashish shares, “In my second attempt I found that the entire pattern had completely changed. With the cut off dropping, the number of difficult questions increased.”
Ashish says that while he did not do anything wrong during the first two attempts, he lacked in practice which he made up for during his third attempt.
An important tip before you attempt the paper
Ashish Ranjan
“Attempt the paper in two phases, for example, if you have 80 questions that are asked, go through all of them in order before you start. Begin by attempting the ones you are 100 per cent certain about, and gradually move on to the tougher ones. Keep the ones that require maximum work and time for the end,” he says.
This will give the aspirant a sense of how the paper is. Just looking at the first 10 or 20 questions and making up one’s mind about the paper will not help.
If you are preparing for the ISRO Centralized Recruitment Board examinations, here are some important dates you ought to keep in mind.
Starting date for online application – 24 September 2019
Closing date for application – 14 October 2019
Last date for fee payment – 16 October 2019
ISRO exam date – 12 January 2020
Education Qualification:
• Candidates must have done B.E/B.Tech or equivalent qualifying degree in first class with an aggregate minimum of 65 per cent marks or CGPA of 6.84 on a scale of 10. ISRO is strict about the CGPA or marks and doesn’t consider anything less than the given criteria. The average of all semesters will be considered for the purpose of CGPA and not one single semester.
• Candidates in the final year are also eligible to apply, provided their final degree will be available by July 31 and secure an aggregate of 65 per cent marks or CGPA 6.84 on a scale of 10.
• Candidate with Diploma+B.E/B.Tech (Lateral Entry) are also eligible provided they have passed their degree in first class with an aggregate minimum of 65 per cent marks or CGPA 6.84 on a scale of 10.
The internet seems like a never-ending library to get information about anything under the sun. And yet, when it comes to practical occupations like farming, it may not always be adequate. “The fact is, if you genuinely want to understand what farming is all about, you need to get your hands dirty and try it yourself. More importantly, you need this first-hand experience to know where your food comes from,” says Neha Bhatia, the brains behind Prodigal Farms, a Delhi-based agro-tourism organisation. “A school student visiting my farm asked me where the potato trees were. We may giggle, but most children know of potatoes as the vegetables that they get in markets. How will they connect them as produce grown by the quintals in a farm?” she remarks. Wanting to bridge this distance between consumers and the cultivators is what prompted her to start Prodigal Farms. The organisation not only helps you understand the basics of natural farming but also empowers farmers to give up chemicals and go organic with their produce instead. When they had started out on a farm in Noida, only two crops were growing in the 2.5-acre plot of land. Today, when you visit their sites in Noida, Bhimtal and Muzzafarnagar, you will be greeted by healthy earthworms, bees and butterflies that nourish a field that grows 150 varieties of 40 different crops! Want to learn the techniques of natural farming? Click on this link to book your slot for the workshop in Noida, NCR.
What can you expect from the workshop?
Neha and Puneet, her husband, have arranged for you to connect with the farmers who grow your organic produce. In the 6-hour workshop, you will get demonstrations on how to farm without chemicals as well as the opportunity to get in the field and try your hand at farming. The couple welcomes adults and kids on their farm, and the chance to learn is open to all. “In our experience, this becomes a lovely bonding outing for the family. We have something for everyone—from children to their grandparents. There’s farming and tasting authentic organic food but also an opportunity for you to keep the city away and relax in the green outdoors,” explains the economist-turned-farmer. For more details about their Noida address and price, click on this link.
The inspiration behind Prodigal Farms in Noida:
Before she left for London to pursue her Master’s degree, Neha was working with an educational NGO and as part of her job, would regularly interact with farmers across India, and discuss government policies with them. When she returned three years later, she could see a stark difference in the outlook of farmers. Most of them were under crippling debt, and as a result, did not want to continue with the occupation. “That was one reason. I also lost two young friends to cancer, and I am sure that the harmful pesticides, fertilisers and preservatives in our food were responsible in some capacity,” she says.
As someone who is passionate about feeding people, she decided that growing and serving organic food was her duty. With the support of her husband, Neha interacted with several young farmers and convinced them to give up using chemicals. “It was a tough ordeal because they were so used to adding chemicals. But over time, we could persuade 25 farmers to join us in our cause. Now, since the farmers rightfully focus on the monetary benefits, we offer them twice the amount of Delhi’s minimum wage guidelines. We also upskill them, so they are not merely cultivators but also add value to their crops with culinary practices and such. When you visit their farms and workshops, you are adding to their income. Today, they are a group of happy 25 farmers associated with The Prodigal Farms.” Are you excited about meeting the organic farmers in Noida? Head to our shop to book your slot now.
The term government school conjures up images of decrepit school buildings, non-existent infrastructure, and students who come into the school more because they want to escape their life than for any real learning experience.
However, the Delhi government-run Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, (RPVV) in Dwarka, has smashed the ‘government-school’ stereotype by bagging the top spot in the India School Ranking 2019 for government-day schools in the country.
Established in 2003, RPVV has achieved this feat by giving equal importance to student and teacher development programmes.
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Here are some of the reasons why the school has clinched this position.
1. Teacher Training Programmes
The school encourages the staff stay abreast with the latest innovations in the teaching methodologies and digitised learning aids. Principal R P Singh, explains in this report, “Earlier, it used to happen if a teacher wanted to innovate a new teaching-learning method by purchasing some instruments, most of the time, they had to bear its expenses from their own pocket first. Now, the government is allotting a budget based on student strength in the school. Here, a teacher is free to propose any innovative idea to benefit the classroom with the approval of School Management Committee (SMC) or school system.”
2. Parent-Teacher coordination
Smooth and flawless Parent-Teacher communication is imperative for better coordination. Parent Teacher Meetings are a way for the invested parties to talk about students. So to increase participation, parents have been invited to join the School Management Committee (SMC). Though a trickle at first, parents soon joined the SMC and have been actively involved in troubleshooting the problems their kids face.
As you walk into the school, the entryway is filled with posters and bright charts espousing the virtues of sustainable development and Swachh Bharat. The school also has also withdrawn dustbins from classrooms to help students be mindful of the waste they generate.
Under the Kishori Yojana, the school staff distributes free sanitary napkins and also teaches girls and boys the importance of personal hygiene. The school has also installed a sanitary pad burning machine in the girl’s toilet.
4. Top quality labs and libraries
With a teacher-student ratio of 1:35, RPVV boasts of excellent language, science and computer labs, upgraded auditoriums, and well-stocked libraries. According to this report, the principal said, “As far as the quality of the result is concerned, 78 out of our 134 students scored more than 90 per cent. While 437 out of 500 was the average score in Class 12, 441 out of 500 was the average score in class 10 at our school.”
RPVV places a lot of emphasis on the well being of the students. The school has a stress-free learning and teaching environment. Students are encouraged to talk to counsellors to help them through any problems they might have.
The school focuses on holistic education by including meditation, value education, and mental exercises. The school also implements a ‘no detention policy’, thereby giving each child the chance to grow at their own pace.
6. Encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation
RPVV is also grooming its students to be successful entrepreneurs from its budget of Rs 2,78,000 allotted by the government this year. Under this scheme, class 11 and 12 students will receive a seed capital worth of Rs 1,000 which they can invest in their innovative ideas. “We believe our students should become a job provider rather than being a job seeker,” said Principal RP Singh. “So, at the very early stage, we are trying to inculcate mindset in our students that they should do something on their own.
This Dwarka branch of RPVV is definitely writing the success story of government schools if they are run with heart and a single-minded goal of their students’ overall development.
UNESCO reports that children spend 87 per cent of their time at home and with the broader local community, while only 13 per cent of their time is spent in school. It then stands to reason that for children to fulfill their potential at school, they genuinely need a healthy, supportive and stimulating environment at home as well. And Saarthi Education, a Delhi-based non-profit is innovatively addressing this issue.
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Many initiatives aimed at improving learning outcomes for children often neglect parents—the major stakeholders. This is particularly the case when dealing with students from financially-challenged households. However, the concern in many of these households is that although parents understand and appreciate the value of a good education, they often lack the resources, awareness and capacity to engage effectively with their child’s education.
Saarthi works with over 6,000 families across seven low-income communities in Delhi across areas including Mithapur, Jaitpur, Badarpur, Tughlakabad, Sangam Vihar, Dakshinpuri, Madangir, and Khanpur. Their objective is to raise the quantity and enhance the quality of parent involvement in a child’s academic progress. These are households with an annual income ranging between Rs 1.5 lakh – Rs 2.5 lakh per annum, whose work ranges from vegetable vending to cab driving.
Delhi-based Saarthi is educating under-educated mothers participate in the education of their own children. (Source: Saarthi)
One of Saarthi’s success stories is Ruchi Maurya, a homemaker and resident of Ekta Vihar, Mithapur, Delhi who has a five-year-old son.
“The outcome has been really good for both myself and my child. Earlier, I had concerns about how I could teach my child because I didn’t know any techniques. The activity kit Saarthi gives us has very simple material that we can teach our children with, and easy instructions as well. Once I got the hang of it, I could even help my child with his homework from school. My confidence, that I could help my child with his studies, grew. Besides, I get to do all sorts of fun activities with my child, and he treats these learning activities as games. Since I started with Saarthi 7-8 months ago, my child looks forward to learning at school everyday,” says the woman who studied only upto middle school, but now feels equipped to teach her child.
Saarthi’s inception
Saarthi was founded in 2017 by Ankit Arora, an engineering graduate in Delhi who gave up a shot at a lucrative career to first teach young children in the slums of Faridabad, Haryana, alongside his college friends. It was the sight of young children working odd jobs at a railway station during college, which inspired him to start teaching underprivileged kids.
Ankit Arora
In 2012, he became a Teach for India Fellow, and taught a class of 51 girls in primary section in a South Delhi urban village government school for two years. He then worked at a philanthropic investment organisation called Central Square Foundation for the next three years where he assisted entrepreneurs working in the ed-tech sector before starting Saarthi.
“Saarthi supports parents across low-income communities in their role as their child’s first teacher. We provide parents with learning resources, coaching and support through an innovative blend of technology and offline components, so that they can provide an environment of excellent early learning and care for their children at home,” Smruti Savkur, who leads Strategy and Communication at Saarthi Education tells The Better India.
Why the focus on parents?
“For children between the ages of three to eight, parents are among the most important stakeholders in improving their learning outcomes. In many ways, they lay the foundation for future success in their child’s respective careers. Multiple studies have established a positive correlation between parent involvement and a child’s life-long career achievement outcome,” says Ankit.
It is critical mothers get involved in their child’s education. (Source: Saarthi)
He further informs that in India, unfortunately, there haven’t been enough interventions to focus on improving the capacity of parents as someone who can be involved in their child’s education.
“Besides, the number of instruction days in Indian schools is very low (around 190 days in a year), and even then the instruction hours range from 4-4.5 hours in a day. You find 40-50 students in one class, and these children need individual attention. But at home you can create that environment very easily because a mother is already invested in her child’s development and can offer individual attention,” he adds.
Problem Statement
To get parents more involved in their child’s academic development, Ankit argues there are two elements that need fixing—material resources, and awareness and confidence among parents, particularly mothers. On the question of resources, children in these low-income communities do not have access to story books, jigsaw puzzles or other resources that may assist in better learning outcomes. Studies have shown that hearing stories aloud is a scientific way to improve language skills and cognitive ability of a child.
“But we have mothers ask us, ‘how do we do a read aloud’? Getting married at age 17 and 18 in villages, moving to an urban setting and the pressures of managing a life there have drained their energy and confidence, leaving them with the thought that it’s only the school’s job to educate. These mothers don’t believe they are equipped to perform this role. Nonetheless, when we give them the right resources, coaching, and build their confidence you start seeing change very quickly,” he adds.
It can be a daunting task for parents to participate in their child’s education. They have most probably had poor educational experiences themselves which leaves them feeling incapable of fulfilling their child’s needs; they feel that only a teacher or tuition teacher can, adds Smruthi.
“Global evidence and our experience show otherwise. Parents need the right resources, they need to understand the importance of their role in their child’s early learning and they need to feel confident about their abilities. With these inputs, parents from low-income families, regardless of their own level of education, can actively participate in their child’s education,” argues Smruthi.
Parents need the right resources to build a conducive environment for their children. (Source: Saarthi)
Solution
The Saarthi model has three components:
1) They provide an activity kit to mothers so they can build the foundational literacy and numeracy skills of their children. This activity kit is developed by early-childhood practitioners and experts. Every month, mothers receives a new age-appropriate activity kit, which has 15-20 activities in it, delivered right at their doorstep.
2) They offer instructions on how to facilitate activities. Every other day, the team at Saarthi sends mothers activity instructions on their phone through automated calls, WhatsApp and YouTube videos. The organisation also has a mobile app which parents can download and use.
3) They hire women from the same community, who are either mothers or young graduates and train them in early childhood content, parenting and counselling. These women, known as “relationship managers” are assigned families in the area to whom they provide support through calls and home visits. Every week, they visit each mother personally, speak to her for 30 minutes, demonstrate what activities have to be done and build the mothers’ skills.
The field team at Saarthi, Delhi assisting mothers in different colonies across Delhi. (Source: Saarthi)
How does Saarthi approach these mothers?
“We make inroads into a community by partnering with existing anganwadi and schools, hold orientation sessions and invite parents of children of 3-8 years there on the same day. Here, we discuss the key aspects of our programme and ask them to sign up. Interested parents do sign up, and we assign trained relationship managers. Within a week of the orientation event, they deliver these activity kits. Parents start receiving calls and videos for these activities simultaneously. One such activity, for example, involves a picture book with no text and all a mother needs to do is narrate that story to her child. Following this, she asks her child three questions from the story. In answering these questions, her child’s oral comprehension starts to build,” says Ankit.
Outcome
And the results have been great.
Children have shown marked improvements in foundational literacy and numeracy. Saarthi claims that there has been a 27.1 per cent increase in the literacy rates for children who have undergone their programme over a course of four months. “We conduct these tests adopting EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment), an international test adapted and contextualised to Hindi. We now have a third party onboard who will conduct these tests over a longer duration,” adds Ankit.
Making a difference.
In fact, the demand for these activity kits have increased so much that Saarthi has recently started charging families Rs 50-100 per month for them. Earlier, these activity kits came for free.
There are mothers who had partnered with Saarthi that now want to become relationship managers themselves. Take the example of Neha, the wife of a cab driver, who lives with her two young children in Badarpur, Delhi. “My child studies in a private school. With Saarthi’s assistance for nearly a year, my child’s capabilities in academics has grown significantly. More than my own child, I feel like studying. I’m a homemaker and studied till Class X. I have aspirations to become a Relationship Manager, where I can help other mothers,” she says.
The process of improving learning outcomes starts early.
Saarthi has ascertained that the best way to make it happen is when you empower parents to create a conducive atmosphere for learning at home. For a vast majority of children who struggle through our under-served education system, including parents into the learning process gives them that much-needed head start.
On 2 October 2019, the Prime Minister declared India open defection free and yet every day, while on the way to drop my son to school, I see at least three men relieving themselves on the streets. This, when the government has installed public toilets. This is certainly not an uncommon sight; whether in urban or rural India.
To address this issue, 28-year-old Ashwani Aggarwal, a Fine Arts graduate from Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, came up with a workable and affordable solution–Basic Shit. His friends Himanshu Saini and Karan Singh joined him in this venture.
What is Basic Shit?
Plastics galore!
Ashwani answers, “Basic Shit started as a college project in 2014. The aim was to find a viable, low-cost solution to urinating in the open.” When asked why he chose this space, he says, “I saw that the problem before us was huge and did not see much work going into finding solutions, so I decided to take it up.” Ashwani was 24 when he started working on this idea. Initially, he participated in awareness drives, where he met people and spoke to them about the perils of urinating in the open. However, he soon realised that the solution did not lie in the campaigns but in finding a way to address why people urinated in the open. The answer to that, he says, was in building toilets.
Speaking about his first toilet installation, he says, “It came into being after many rounds of interviews with people who were urinating on the streets. The prototype, PeePee, made from single-use plastic thrown into the garbage, was set up outside AIIMS Hospital.” Ashwani used 20-litre pet bottles to design the urinal. The response prompted him to get into it full-fledged. One of the key reasons that people refrain from using public toilets is their poor upkeep and low hygiene. Ashwani considered these factors while working on his model.
Plastic waste to make urinals
Setting up the urinal.
Using approximately 9,000 plastic bottles, which is 120 kg of plastic, Ashwani created one eco-friendly toilet. And the best part is that there is no foul smell or the need to be cleaned with water. One unit costs approximately Rs 12,000 and can be installed in about two hours. “I convert trash into urinals,” says Ashwani. He adds, “The toilets are two integrated urine carriages, each with a capacity of 200 litres. Each carriage collects 150 litres of urine per day on average. This is then later stabilised and purified with activated carbon to remove toxins from the urine.”
Because of this purification process, the urine does not contaminate the groundwater. But do the urinals need to be cleaned often? Ashwani says that the filter needs to be changed every six months or so, depending on the usage. He elaborates, “These are basic urinals which have a filter through which urine is passed and collected.”
Challenges?
Busy at work!
The biggest challenge, says Ashwani, was convincing and getting the required permissions from the government bodies. In the same breath, he says, “It was also difficult to get people to use them. Given how accustomed they were to urinate in public, this was a big mindset change.”
To set up these urinals, Ashwani had to do several rounds of various government bodies. “Eventually, I realised that seeking permission was not an issue. I found that people were urinating in properties that did not belong to anyone, and therefore, I started placing them in such places.”
Basic Shit urinals are also installed in several police stations in the city. Ashwani says, “While all the police stations have a toilet, they do not necessarily have urinals, and so, we have been setting up PeePee at various stations. It is easier to do this because permission needs to be sought only from the Station House Officer (SHO) and not too many other channels.”
Also, the unit remains secure if it is within the station premise. Team Basic Shit identified almost 30 walls in Delhi on which more than 500 people urinate each day. With permission to cover almost 20 such walls, the team is busy installing these units across the city. With 30 of the PeePee units installed across India, Ashwani is hopeful of reaching many more cities soon. C
With climate change and rising heat waves, the demand for energy has increased substantially. Take the example of Delhi. As per a recent study by the Centre of Science and Environment called ‘A Midsummer Nightmare’, on an average, 25-30 per cent of the electricity consumed in the city is because of what experts call thermal stress.
“During peak summer, when energy demand soars, it is as much as 50 per cent of the energy consumption. Cooling energy consumption in buildings is likely to double in the next decade and become nearly four times in the next two decades compared to 2017–18 baseline,” it says.
Another troubling facet of peak power demand in Delhi is that it happens at midnight when most commercial establishments are closed. It’s not offices or other commercial centres that are responsible for peak power consumption, but our homes.
However, Delhi-based architect, Monish Siripurapu, and his architectural firm Ant Studio, are well on their way to reduce our dependence on air conditioners. Using terracotta and water, the studio has innovated the ‘CoolAnt’, an advanced version of a passive design employing traditional cooling methods and systems still in existence across the world in India, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Monish Siripurapu
“It is the re-adaptation of traditional methods, combining ancient systems with modern technologies. We are opening buildings to nature instead of building installations for conventional urban structures that shut their inhabitants into these closed boxes,” says Monish, in conversation with The Better India.
Thanks to their projects, they have also been working with potters from around the country. In Delhi, however, they are generating revenue for potters in the Uttam Nagar area of West Delhi, who have struggled in recent times because of plastic products flooding in from China. With their installation, Ant Studio is also looking to give this craft a new lease of life.
The Design
Monish, a graduate from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi, and post-graduate diploma in Robotics Application from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Spain, says, “At Ant Studio, we do not have architects only, but also artists, engineers, scientists and designers from different backgrounds. We are a collective from different backgrounds who are interested to work at the intersection of art, nature and technology (ANT).”
The team incorporates two major components in the design—water and earth in the form of terracotta.
“Traditionally, earthen pots have been used for cooling water. We are using the same principle of evaporative cooling, but in reverse order, wherein we are pouring water on top of these pots and circulating it. The air passes through these pots shaped as cylindrical hollow tubes (through both the inner and outer surface), cools the room, comes back out and does not release hot air. It’s a very simple process, which we have customized using advanced computational analysis and modern calibration techniques,” informs Monish.
Working on the design, the Delhi-based Ant Studio team felt that a beehive suited their needs. The team found the geometry of a beehive structure very efficient. They use cylindrical cones for a larger surface area to maximise the cooling effect. So instead of giving out waste heat, it consumes existing heat around it.
“We must provide water and keep it sufficiently open to ensure that the air is continuously flowing. We arrived at the beehive design based on extensive research testing various configurations. The current shape, inspired by the geometry of a beehive, turned out to be the most efficient,” says Satyaki Ray, a design engineer at Ant Studio, who is overseeing the technical aspects of the ‘CoolAnt’.
Besides helping homes and commercial establishments reduce their power loads, there are other major advantages of using this installation.
“The use of locally available eco-friendly materials and recycled water along with re-usable steel makes it a cost-efficient solution. This system requires minimal electricity (for water pump) and water requirement, since it’s circulated and pumped over and over again when the installation is in use. The water tank can be topped up monthly, or as per the capacity of the tank. No regular topping up is required,” says the Ant Studio website.
The inspiration for CoolAnt came from one of the projects the studio had been working on for Deki Electronics in Noida in 2015.
“I was initially asked to do an art installation in front of a diesel generator (DG) set. When I went to the site, I saw workers exposed to the radiator of the DG set releasing massive amounts of hot air at high velocities when they were working/passing by in the driveway of the factory,” says Monish, a native of Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, who is now based in Delhi.
As the local temperatures were above 55 degrees Celsius, the team felt a need to come up with an economical solution to ease the discomfort of the workers. So instead of merely putting up an art installation they chose to create something that would give relief to the employees.
“We just wanted to change the working environment of employees at Deki, but what we found was a unique cooling solution made up of close to 800 pots. We used terracotta to build cylindrical cones. It was an obvious choice because of its high resistance to heat, robust structure and ease of manufacturing. It’s a traditional craft that has existed for thousands of years,” he adds.
Though the amount of heat that these structures reduce depends on external temperature, water temperature, humidity, and environment, in their tests through the summer, Ant found that this structure can comfortably reduce the temperature up to 30 degrees Celsius. It also depends on the water temperature.
“At the factory, we reduced the temperature from 45-47 to 32 degrees Celsius because the water temperature was 26-27 degrees Celsius,” informs Monish.
“Terracotta absorbs water really well and possesses a certain structural strength. It absorbs the water, more evaporation happens and cooling is improved,” adds Satyaki.
The number of terracotta cylindrical cones one can use for a particular installation depends on the size of the room. Ant arranges these cones like a wall, although it can be the size of a window or the entire building itself.
Their first installation was an outdoor one. They are proposing that these installations become a part of building facades and elevation, wherein you can cut down the heat coming in from outside besides reducing the load on ACs.
Replacement for ACs?
“Our emphasis is on reducing the impact of air-conditioning on buildings and not replace them. For example, the coolant can reduce the temperature to around 30 degrees Celsius (depending on the surrounding temperature and relative humidity). It can pre-cool the air entering the buildings and thus the AC only has to reduce it further to 22 degrees. Currently, with temperatures hitting 45-46 degrees Celsius in the summer, ACs are taking up all the load of reducing it to 22 degrees Celsius,” says Monish.
The studio can build a CoolAnt wall in a day or two. In the future, Ant Studio is looking to employ digital fabrication and robotic fabrication methods in their structures for complex geometries on their respective mediums of construction which is earth and clay.
Today, they have CoolAnt installations in Noida, Bengaluru and Lucknow, besides upcoming projects in Hyderabad and for a music festival called Serendipity.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which has recognized the work of Ant Studio says, “For now, he (Monish) is focusing on outdoor cooling systems, but he is also interested in using his devices to purify air, a bonus the team discovered during development. They used to use chlorine to remove the moss that grew on the terracotta cones. But then they realized that the moss could actually clean the air by extracting carbon particles.”
It was UNEP that came up with damning statistics on the quickening pace of urbanisation in the country and, in the developing economies of South Asia.
“The building sector in India consumes about 40 per cent of generated electricity and this is expected to rise to 76 per cent by 2040. Refrigeration and air conditioning account for a major part of this (consumption). Growing demand for air conditioning in the world’s emerging economies—such as those in Southeast Asia—could spur a 64 per cent increase in household energy use and produce 23.1 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2040,” says the global body.
In such a scenario, Monish and Ant Studio are finding interesting solutions and looking to help make Indian cities more bearable to live in at a time of rising climate change.
Cooking is what enabled the evolution of the human race and contributes to its survival. But over time, we stopped eating purely for sustenance; food also had to taste well and look great.
Today, in its highest form, food must appeal to all five senses.
So in this episode of ‘Bite On This’ we ask the question—is food art or science?
For art, we are joined by iconic chef and hotelier Virender Singh Datta. In a career spanning 50 years, he has held important positions in some of the most well-known hotels in India and abroad.
He says, “Cooking was always an art. If you give the same ingredients to two different cooks, they will come up with very different variations of a dish.”
As for the science, we speak to Ganesh Bagler, a professor and scientist at the Centre for Computational Biology, IIIT Delhi. His lab has been researching the unique elements of Indian cuisine that make it so delicious.
He says, “Cooking and culinary art are considered generally as artistic endeavours and rightfully so, but computational gastronomy quantifies various aspects of food and cooking, by integrating data and application of computational techniques, like statistical analysis, pattern mining, machine learning, etc.”
We also hear from two youngsters, making food art, literally!
Shilpa Mitha makes food miniatures with clay under ‘Sueno Souvenir’ and Oorjitha Dogiparthi uses all kinds of papers for food miniatures under ‘Oorugami’.
Scores of students dream of entering the hallowed grounds of an IIT and making a name for themselves and the country. The Indian Institutes of Technology have given the world many pioneers in their respective fields—CEOs, scientists, politicians, young entrepreneurs, authors, and unique entertainers.
Interestingly, many IITians wear the tag of game-changers and changemakers who take a different path to pursue their passion.
In this article, we look at six successful IITians who quit their high-profile job and carved a niche for themselves serving humanity.
1. Bipin Dhane
Bipin Dhane
After graduating in 2013 from IIT-Kharagpur in Naval Architecture, Bipin landed a job at a multinational company in Singapore. However, not one to tread the corporate path, Bipin soon found himself looking for something more. In an interview with The Better India, he said, “I never wanted the corporate life. There was no fulfillment in working there. For nearly a year and a half, I had thought about quitting. One day, on social media, I connected with a friend who was working in the remote river island of Majuli on the Brahmaputra River in Assam as a teacher for underprivileged children. I aspired to work in the education sector, and she told me there were opportunities to teach there. I finally mustered the courage to quit in October 2015 and made my way to Majuli.”
While it was naturally a tough decision, which almost no one understood, Bipin stood firm. In November 2017, he founded a trust called Ayang Trust, which runs a community library serving children from five nearby villages and is also working to improve livelihood opportunities for the locals by promoting a producers’ collective and working closely with rural women weavers of Majuli.
2. Shashanka Ala
Shashanka Ala
An ex IIT-Madras, Shashanka is an IAS officer today. Looking back at her years as an IIT-student, she recalls, “My biggest take away from the Institute was the confidence that I will make it no matter what. Even though I didn’t have the best academic record in IIT, I learned critical skills like logical thinking and the ability to make quick decisions. Cracking JEE in my first attempt and studying at a premier institution through five years without major hiccups gave me both the ambition and confidence to eventually crack the Civil Services.”
This Deputy Commissioner, posted in Mizoram, is credited with helping fight malnutrition in her district. Shashanka and her team designed a unique solution—’Kan Sikul, Kan Huan’ (English translation: ‘My School, My Farm’), wherein “Every school and anganwadi will have a small kitchen and nutrition garden in their own premises. Since there is no plain land available, all the gardens are made on terraces. These schools and anganwadis source their fruit/vegetable seeds and compost from the district administration. They can now cook their mid-day meals using the food they have grown themselves instead of waiting for a truck from Silchar or Aizawl.”
3. Arvind Saraf
Arvind Saraf
An IIT-Kanpur graduate, Arvind started off on the conventional and moved to the US in search of better opportunities. During the time he was at MIT, researching computer architecture, he says, “There, I got involved in a lot of development organisations related to India. I wanted to come back and do something, which would directly impact people. I didn’t want to be coming up with ideas from so far off.”
On a trip to India, Arvind decided to stay back and continue working here. It was this move that triggered the birth of Swasth India in Mumbai, an NGO that provides sustainable health systems customised for specific communities. Having topped the JEE examinations in 1997, Arvind decision to work in India in the social sector, left many shocked. But this IITian feels finally at home with a career where he gets to make a real difference.
4. Dr H Harish Hande
Dr H Harish Hande
An IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and the winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award, Dr Hande is a social entrepreneur who co-founded SELCO. This social venture works towards eradicating poverty by promoting sustainable technologies in rural India. In an interview, he speaks about how it is important to have a passion for the cause you are working on.
He feels that if people have a passion for making a difference rather a romantic idea of making a difference, they will succeed. “Romance can die quickly but passion survives. The best space to pick is the one you are passionate about. For me it was solar energy. In the beginning, I would recommend not seeking too much funding. You first need to learn what the business is all about. Working with little or no funding will help people think in innovative ways and that innovative thinking is critical for social entrepreneurs. Be prepared for a lot of challenges,” he said.
It was at IIT-Kharagpur, where Devendra was pursuing a Computer Science degree when he discovered his talent for photography. Subsequently, he won a contest in 2010 that got him a chance to shoot a top model and Bollywood actress—Deepika Padukone.
For almost six years after he graduated from IIT, Devendra worked at a regular desk job, all the while pursuing photography as a hobby whenever time permitted. In this interview, he says, “The toughest part about leaving a job is the fear that money will stop flowing . . . the biggest task is to convince yourself that you can earn money out of what you are going to do.”
He gave himself a year to make it on his own and had confessed that he would have looked for another job if he didn’t succeed. It’s been nine years since he stepped out into the unknown, and hasn’t had to look back.
Parodying TV news anchor Arnab Goswami is what made Biswapati an online sensation. The Viral Fever (TVF), a web series that shot Biswapati into the limelight has nearly 10 million views on YouTube. The show has featured celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh, and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. While all his other classmates from IIT-Kharagpur chose conventional career paths, Biswajit decided to tread the path not taken.
In this interview, he says, “I was in Class V or VI and one of my maternal uncles was from IIT-Kharagpur, we went for a (family) wedding and my mother said to me ‘he is from IIT, touch his feet; if you become 1 per cent like him, then that’s a big thing.”
As I conclude this article, the words of Confucius come to me, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” These people have proved that the work satisfaction that you get when you turn your passion into work is incomparable.
There is no question that the construction sector massively contributes to global warming.
In India itself, the industry emits 22% of the total annual CO2 emissions. And then there is agricultural waste—the country produces more than 500 million tons of it every year. While some of the waste is used as fodder, approximately 141 million tons are burnt every year.
Evidently, all this pollution takes a heavy toll on the environment and human health.
Fortunately, architects Priyabrata Rautray, who is also a PhD scholar in IIT Hyderabad’s Design Department, and Avik Roy, an Assistant Professor at the KIIT School of Architecture, Bhubaneshwar, have come up with a unique solution.
They have developed bio-bricks for construction from agricultural waste products. This innovation addresses both waste management and development of eco-friendly, sustainable building materials.
Guidance for the project came from Prof Deepak John Mathew, Head, Design Department, IIT Hyderabad and Dr Boris Eisenbart from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.
Ar. Priyabrata Rautray, PhD scholar, Design Department, IIT Hyderabad, with the ‘Bio-Bricks’ at International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED-2019) at TU Delft, Netherlands. (Source: IIT-Hyderabad)
“Bio-bricks or agro-waste based bricks act as good heat and sound insulators and also have an overall negative carbon footprint. Additionally, they are also a deterrent to stubble burning, prevalent in northern India, which causes severe air pollution. Due to their low density, they reduce the dead load in high rise structures, thereby making RCC construction more economical,” they claim in a recent paperpublished by the Cambridge University Press.
Why not use clay bricks instead?
“Clay bricks not only use up fertile topsoil, but their manufacturing process also emits significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” explains Priyabrata.
How are these bio-bricks made?
“The process of making bio-bricks starts with careful selection of the dry agro-waste like paddy straws, wheat straws, sugarcane bagasse and cotton plant. The team decided to use dry sugarcane bagasse for the first sample. The bagasse is first chopped to the desired size. A lime-based slurry is prepared, and the chopped agro-waste is added to the slurry and mixed thoroughly by hand or mechanical mixer, to create a homogenous mixture. This mixture is poured into moulds and rammed with a wooden block to make a compact brick. These moulds are left to dry for a day or two, after which their sides are removed, and the brick is allowed to dry for fifteen to twenty days. It takes approximately a month for these bio-bricks to attain its working strength by air drying,” says a recent press release issued by IIT Hyderabad, via email.
The ‘Bio-Bricks’ developed from Agricultural Waste Products by IIT Hyderabad and KIIT Bhubaneshwar Researchers. (Source: IIT-Hyderabad)
To make a single block, 900 grams of sugar bagasse is used, but if this waste were to be burnt, it would release 639 grams of carbon dioxide, they claim. Moreover, the lime content in each brick allows it to absorb 322.2 grams of CO2 from the air during the curing process.
“Bio-bricks are not only more sustainable than clay bricks, but are also carbon sinks because they fix more carbon dioxide than they produce during their lifecycle,” adds Professor Roy.
Admittedly, these bio-bricks aren’t as robust as their clay counterparts and are nonviable for structures that would carry massive amounts of load.
Nonetheless, the researchers believe that they are ideal for low-cost housing alongside a structural framework comprising of either steel or wood.
For the time being, both architects are looking to address design concerns to enhance its load-bearing capacity.
Fire testing being done on the bio-bricks. A 40 mm brick can register fire above 900 degrees and once the flame is removed the fire extinguishes within seconds. (Source: IIT-Hyderabad)
“Other than as bio-bricks, this material can be used as panel boards or insulation boards and designers we could explore such applications for this sustainable material,” adds Priyabrata.
By 2030, about 590 million people in India are expected to live in cities, and we will need massive investments in the field of housing.
Additionally, studies indicate that India’s raw material requirements are expected to be near 15 billion tonnes by 2030. Thus, we must find eco-friendly solutions.
