Echoes of Eco

May, 2016

Vivekananda Kendra- nardep Newsletter

Extracts from our book Samagra Vikas

Development with a Human Face

Vol:8 No:3

In this issue:
Extracts from our book Samagra
Vikas
The Happenings

INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT

The Ruler : Rama! I am spending sleepless nights. In the forenoons,
the industrialists come to me and talk to me about economic growth,
profit, production, wealth, manufacture of goods and services
needed for the Society. In the afternoon the environmentalists come
and bother me about pollution, dwindling natural resources,
exploitation, declining employment opportunities. I do not know how
to balance their claims and demands.
Tenali Rama : Five hundred years of industrial civilization has
narrowed down our options. Now sustainability is going to tip the
scales heavily in favour of environment and against industrialization.
Especially multinational industrial corporations, their exploitative,
polluting, manufacturing processes are merely technological
extensions of colonialism. History should not blame us that we knew
of the dangers of pollution, global warming, depletion of non-renewable
resources, limits to growth, yet did not act to save our short term and
long term interests.

Visions of Wisdom:
British Legacy in the field of
Dairy
So called Development
True path of Development

Prayer to Mother Earth

The Ruler : All in all, our industries are being blamed for all
environmental degradations.
Tenali Rama : True, the industrial revolution, energy guzzling, global
warming, urbanization, slum-formation, pollution, waste (mis)
management all are interrelated problems. Ever since the Cartesian
split in man's vision of the world spliced nature into useful
components and wastes, the problems got intensified. Science, the
manipulative science of Francis Bacon, invested man with a tool, to
concentrate wealth in his hands, to exploit his brother, to create
unconscionable inequalities. Historically, science has all but ceased to
be a search for truth. In traditional societies, agricultural traditions, a
waste material emerging from one process was always used up as the
raw material for the next process. This chain closed upon itself and
there was a "no waste" productive process, the closed loop. Industrial
revolution opened up and straightened the loop and left the chain with
raw material famine at the beginning and waste disposal problem at
the end.

Great Truth, formidable

Moral Order, Vow, Penance,
Spiritual knowledge, sacrifice,
these sustain the Earth. May
that Earth, the mistress of
our past as well of our future,
make for us a wide world (for
our activity)
- Atharva Veda XII.1

If a man, day and night, thinks he is miserable, low, and nothing, nothing
he becomes. If you say yea, yea, I am, I am,, so shall you be.
Swami Vivekananda

Cow for him is not only the thing of faith and devotion, It is a living property also.
He wanted to heighten the splendor of doors and dignity of house with it

The Ruler : Who will educate the industrialists,

managers, investors?
Tenali Rama : Luckily some kind of self-educative
efforts have begun. Industrialists are required to
publicize the environmental impact of their processes
and products and give options to the investors.
Business managers are educated better in
sustainability in social and environmental spheres.
The press devotes more space on warning the
industries and educating the consumers. Far- sighted
industrialists are subjecting themselves to eco- and
social audits. Some others are opting for eco-friendly
manufacturing processes.

The "use
treats an
qualities
recycled,

Munshi Premchand (Godan)

and throw" culture has to depart because, it

object as a waste, after one of its various
gets used up. But the material can be
reused, reshaped.

The Ruler : But the costs of transition are going to be

enormous!

Tenali Rama : True, the pioneering model

industrialists will prod the laggards to speed up the
transition. Governments all over the world will give
tax concessions to the "greens" and punish and levy
heavier taxes on the polluters. "Polluter pays" is
going to be the 'Mantra' in the future tax structure.
The Ruler : But your environmentalist friends are
saying that material shortage is already troubling all.
Tenali Rama : This is where language helps, Sir! In a
narrow sense, an unwanted by-product of a process is
a waste. In a broader sense, in Nature's sense, what
is a waste thrown out of one process is the raw
material for the next productive process.

We are heading for an era of producing goods which

are for a long time use, recycling, sturdiness of the
object, buyback guarantee after the useful life of the
product is spent, repairing facilities, spare supply,
retreading it, etc. Remanufacturing is the future
approach to industry. A steel nail which loses its life
as a good nail continues to be good steel all the same.
That quality, that asset, need not be thrown away, as it
is done in the present set up!
The Ruler : And all the subsidies?
Tenali Rama : Some of the subsidies will go. Which
sane economist will subsidize petroleum products,
forest timber, water supply and encourage the users to
waste them and degrade the environment?. Much of
the subsidy-economics lacks direction. There is no
effort to reach the really targeted group. The whole
system leaks.
The Ruler : The problems of small industries?

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, May 2016, Vol.8 No: 3

The One in me is creative and harmony is the mother tongue of the soul.

Tenali Rama: In terms of employment,

manufacture and return on investment, the small
industries are most efficient. But they are not
able to withstand the onslaught of big industry
multinationals,
in
quality
control
and
advertisement. The small scale industries
preserve the artistic heritage, safeguard the
community's cohesion and pollute less. They
ensure some kind of equitable distribution of
wealth. To allow them to degenerate will be to
throw the whole social system out of gear.

Rabindranath Tagore

exchange kitties a-flush, consumer supplies

aplenty and keep all the powerful lobbies happy.
The Ruler : Anyway the cash-registers are kept
jingling, consumer goods are available in plenty.

The Ruler : What should we do to save jobs?

Tenali Rama : Both capitalism as well as
communism, have centralised the economy, haw,
narrowed down the social and political power
base, have concentrated on heavy industries with
all the attendant side-effects. Unless the government protects the small industries with strict
laws reserving certain manufacturing sectors for
them, and restricting the bigger industries to
infrastructures, heavy engineering, etc. keeping
a very strict vigil on the pollution curve, we are
in for a big tragedy. A highly decentralised,
localised, industrial set-up which will absorb all
idle man hours is our only hope for a peaceful
and properly occupied society.
The
Ruler:
But
international
financial
institutions offer cheap credit for starting
industries in developing countries. And much of
the money goes to big industries!
Tenali Rama : Arab oil money and Japanese
profit-income are being deposited in the banks
of the Western countries. These institutions
have to earn their keep only by investing the
money where cheap raw materials and workers
on lesser wages are available. Governments of
the poorer countries oblige those bankers by
relaxing labour laws, creating or cheapening
infrastructures, closing their eyes on pollution
problems, sacrificing the forests and mineral
deposits. These keep inflation rates low, foreign

Tenali Rama : When a house is being, burnt down,

there is always a little extra warmth. But then soon
the show is over. Exhaustible raw materials are
finished. Pollution shoots up. Unemployment
soars. Purchasing power plummets; stocks do not
move. Recession starts. Nobody is happy then.

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, May 2016, Vol.8 No: 3

I am a child of the Earth. The touch of the Earth is always reinvigorating to her
children. There is a science of cosmic harmony, sanity of the whole, waiting to be
recovered
Yogi Sri Aurobindo

Happenings this month:

Sustainable Agriculture

Happenings this month:

Shelter

Happenings this
month:
Green Health Home,
Renewable Energy
Green health home which is very
popular with the local communities
worked for 7 days and treated 187
patients.

Training programme "Cost effective BioTraining

effective
Biomanure" programme
was held at "Cost
Technology
Resource
th at Technology Resource
manure"
held
Center was
on 24
May. 21 participants
Center
24th
May. Shri.S.Rajamony
21 participants
attendedonthe
training.
attended
the
training.
Shri.S.Rajamony
was the resource person.
was the resource person.

Training
programme
on
Biomethanation Plant Multiple Usage at
Technology Resource Center on 28th.
06 participants attended the training.
Shri.V.Ramakrishnan was the resource
persons.
Shri.V.Ramakrishnan
addressed
50
participants on 10th May 2016 at National
Institute of Technology, Trichy. The
subject was Waste to Energy.
Receiving Memento from the NIT faculty

Women participants on NPK rich Biomanure training

Training programme on Terrace Garden

was held at Technology Resource Center
on 28th May. 33 participants attended
the training. Smt.S.Premalatha and
Shri.S.Rajamony were the resource
persons.

Training programme "Green Construction

Technology for Family Members" on 18th to
21st May. 42 participants attended the
training. Shri.V.Ramakrishnan was the
resource person.

Participants visits the houses of a few

beneficiaries as a part of training
programme

Construction of Bio- Methanation

Plants
Portable type 3 cum 1
Participants visiting our Terrace garden
at Vivekanandapuram

Shri.Ramakrishnan interacting with the

participants

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, May 2016, Vol.8 No: 3

One of creativitys main tasks is to heal. Our one-eyed, soulless technology

cannot do that

Sisirkumar Ghose

Visions of Wisdom
Gross National Happiness
is important than Gross
National Product
By HM.Jigme Singye Wangchuk

British Legacy in the

field of Dairy
The best Gir herd in existence
today is in Brazil. The next best is
in Florida, U.S.A. Why then do we
call the Gir an Indian Breed? It is
of great significance that the
Government of Brazil feature the
Gir cow in both its paper and metal
currency. They even have a series of
postage stamps featuring the noble
characteristics of the Gir. Surely, if
they find economic stability in the
Gir, we could do the same. And yet,
we persist in our foolish cross
breeding
programme,
importing
more
and
more
stock
and
systematically wiping out our own
indigenous breeds.

S.A.R.Acharya
Former Director,
Vishvaneedam,
International
Sarvodaya Centre,
Bangalore

So called Development
The progress of the developed
countries consists in urbanization,
industrialization and motorization,
which are at the same time a source
of benefit and of the main calamities
of industrial civilization. The latter
include over population of cities and
industrial centres and concentration
of the population in areas with
specially great pollution. Food and
water contamination, air pollution,
noise and vibrations, radiation and
microwaves,
household
chemical
agents,
mal-nutrition
are
a
consequence of this over population.
All this causes in addition to
noxious health effects, eg, a
decrease in endurance and early
ageing manifestations of nihilism,
social abnegation, vandalism, social
maladjustment, etc.

Napoleon Wolasinki
Former Head of the
Dept. of Ecology, Polish
Academy of Science,
Poland

True path of Development

The pancha-tattvas can be ignored
only to be misguided by Ignorance
and Mother Nature may be mocked
at only to commit suicide. It is
unwise to think that patch-work may
solve to conserve wild life here, and
simultaneously killing animals in the
laboratories or by deforestation in
the name of scientific or economic
advancement. The West taught the
importance of the Standard of
Living, the Indian culture urges the
importance of the Standard of life;
We do not need the Alexanders but
Platos, the Aurangazebs but the
Buddhas, not the Kauravas but the
Yudhishtiras, the exploitation of
Nature but the worship of Nature,
not
development
only
but
development with conservation, not
treatment
of
wastes
causing
pollution, but the stopping of
pollution.

Dr.S.B.Verma
Scholar, Thinker and
Writer,
Formally
Prof. in Hindi, D.A.V
College, Delhi

Echoes of Eco - Newsletter, Vivekananda Kendra nardep, March 2016, Vol.11 No: 13
Vivekananda Kendra nardep, Kanyakumari-629702 Phone:91-4652-246296 www.vknardep.org