| General Motors and Rajubhagarwalla |
| Raju is ‘bhangarwalla’ (one who goes house to house and collects all kinds of solid waste by paying to scrap-provider and makes money by selling it to recyclers). He is one of the thousands of Indians engaged in such activities mainly in cities and towns. Raju, like many of his competitors, migrated from a village in another near-by state of India nearly a decade back and established his ‘bhangar’ business in open space, not used and noticed by any one in Pune. He can be termed as rag picker, waste picker, dabba-batliwalla (collector of glass bottles and tin packages), lokhand-patrawalla (collector of metal parts and sheets) |
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| Back to Nature... |
08 Jan 2013
Environmental Restoration and living with nature is turning out to be the key for reversing the trends of urban migration. The need of the hour is that youth, as entrepreneurs, service providers and wage earners should play a more active role in the sustainable development of ecosyestem and the communities in rural areas. For this, a number of projects have been initiated that encourage inclusive development and provides plethora of opportunities to arrest the urban migration, observes Rajendra Shende, Chairman, TERRE and Former Director of UNEP. |
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| Troubled Talks, Gapping Gulf and Courageous Qatar |
| Doha-round on climate change |
22 Nov 2012, Middle East
Four years ago, at this time of the year, I was in Doha, capital city of Qatar, for the 20th Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the Ozone Layer. I was leading the UNEP OzonAction Programme, which enabled the developing countries to comply with the phase out of the Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS). Though the meeting centered around the protection of the stratospheric ozone shield, that protects the life on the earth, there were serious scientific and technology discussion on the links between the climate change and the recovery of the ozone layer and vice a versa. |
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| Ozone Treaty or climate Treaty ? |
| Rajendra Shende, who retired from
UNEP as Head of OzonAction of DTIE at the level of Director, is better known as ‘ man in hurry with action-agenda ‘. After 20 years of experience in the private sector he brought the corporate culture of
management-by-results and the target-oriented-goals to build the OzonAction Programme of United Nations from scratch. He was awarded with Climate Protection Award of USEPA in 2009 for his achievement in Climate Mitigation
through OzonAction. His programme also became first ever Programme of United Nations to get USA award for the Ozone Layer Protection. Here he talks to Marco Buoni Vice President of AREA and Technical Director of CSG: |
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| Month of October |
| Mahatma Gandhi and Steve Jobs |
| The first week of month of October brought shower of thoughts about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Steve Paul Jobs.
The monsoon in India is receding but hesitatingly. The first week of October also saw thunder-showers that some times became violent. Those showers forgot that 2nd October, birth day of Mahatma Gandhi, is also declared by the UN General Assembly as ‘International Day of non-violence!
Albert Einstein Said about Mahatma Gandhi, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." I wonder had genius Einstein been alive today if he would have said it about Steve Jobs!
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| Rio + 20 Summit or Gambit? |
| by
Rajendra Shende |
| Mathematically titled as “Rio+20”, denoting 20th Anniversary of the famous landmark in the history of the civilization-called ‘Earth Summit’ ended on 22nd June 2012.
It was held in ‘Riocentre’, a conference venue on the western end ofcity of Rio De Janeiro, once a capital and famous beach-city of Brazil.
When I exited for the conference venue, I was rather dejected and also confused. ‘Was it World Leaders’ Summit or World Leaders’ Gambit? I wondered.
Last two weeks of environmental diplomacyin Rio, last two years of the preparations all over the world and last two decades of movement of sustainable development that spread in the minds of policy makers of 192 countries, finally ended. Sun was setting on Rio+20. It was time to listen to echo of all these efforts.
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| From Rhine Land to Amazon Forrest Can we see the Forest for the Trees ? |
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Rajendra Shende |
| I am on the way to Rio to participate in an event nick named ‘Rio+20’ and seize ‘one in life time opportunity’ as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described. On such Journey, as a former Director in United Nations, I should be forward looking. But I just cannot wipe out the scenes on the banks of Rhine in Bonn where the preparatory meeting on Climate Change hosted by UNFCCC concluded on 25 May 2012. The Amazon forest lies ahead of me, but I just cannot shrug of the feeling that would we be able to distinguish Brazilian forest behind Rio for European trees on the banks of Rhine? ‘Climate Crisis is not caused by the Green House Gases (GHGs) but by the Grim-faced Hesitating Governments (also GHGs)’, one of my journalist friends commented at the end of that meeting. Before embarking on flight to Rio I thought of meditating about Bonn affair. The past impregnates future. Who said that? |
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| Finally, I see some Green shades after French election, …………… but not really ! |
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Rajendra Shende |
| The frantic and some times even querulous French Presidential campaign ended on 6th May. The simple majority made it choice for the next President, though the debate that proceeded was not that simple. At the end I kept wondering if the description 'argumentative' should be applied only to Indians.
Having lived in France for more than 20 years, I did truly believe that the French is a smart, elegant and enviable diplomatic language. But during the Presidential debate I heard this privileged language of elites turning into a raucous festival of words. It made me scuttle for the French dictionaries to understand distinctive phrases of the debate. |
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| iCloud : up in the sky! |
| A Virtual Outcome Durban Climate Change Meeting |
| The world of today can best be described as a “virtual-world”! We engage in almost every thing virtual. Virtual-conferences, virtual-exhibitions and even virtual-universities! Even the huge amount of real data is stored in virtual cloud, now called as 'iCloud'. Steve Jobs gave us this virtual platform before his departure from this world. |
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| Technological Arrogance & Nature’s Might |
| 100 years on after Titanic disaster and more than one year after the Fukushima disaster, I cannot prevent myself distancing from a thought that technological arrogance of humans by undermining and underestimating the nature’s might is never ending. Addictions die hard. Our addiction for the technological prowess will go away only with us. For last few days I am traveling and crisscrossing Japan and listening to people here. The sound of waves of opinions arising from the turbulent seas surrounding Japan can be heard everywhere. |
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| “If not us, who? If not now, when?” |
| “If not us, who? If not now, when?” These words reverberated at the round table in The White House, Washington DC. Temptation to hazard a guess on who said it is overwhelming. Some may probably speculate that these words emanated from the secret meeting of the supreme military command of USA before Iraq was attacked. |
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| Lunch in Fukushima and Nuclear Renaissance |
| Other day I had lunch in Fukushima. Nothing like having nice authentic Japanese food sitting with some energy experts and debating on the future of nuclear energy. Well, some pun and drama is intended here. Though I was in Fukushima, there was no probability of earthquake, not even a tremor. Yes, I was on the banks of water
- but there was zero chance of any tsunami. Yes, there was authentic Japanese food but there was no fear that it would be contaminated by nuclear radiation.
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Climate change will lead to bumpier flights caused by increased mid-air turbulence, according to an analysis by scientists of the impact of global warming on weather systems over the next four decades. The increasing air turbulence results from the impact of climate change on the jet streams, the fast, mile-wide winds that whistle round the planet at the same altitude as airliners.
The Detail report of the Kaas Seminar - Save Kaas: Save our Heritage is now released. Will Kaas be declared as World Heritage Site by UNESCO?