The Sustainability Activists

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” ― Mahatma Gandhi.

In the changed world , let me replace the world Man with human being , to avoid any feminist attack on Mahatma :) . Iam sure he does not mean it is only for a man , but he meant this for all humanity.

If we Think over, world was not facing any serious environment issues at the time when Mr.Gandhi has said this, but being the visionary he is, he would have got a sense of where the world is heading . 

During this week, I came across Two very special people who are working towards a green ,healthy , sustainable planet.  

One is working at the origin of the food chain with farmers to create a sustainable agriculture practice. The aim of  his mission is to make farmer independent of third party ( seed vendors,fertilizer/pesticide vendors, Creditors etc.. ) and focus on his farming without any worry and produce healthy food grains/fruits for a healthy society.

Iam an active member of a team called 'ECO Team' in my current organisation  and happened to be an audience to the session by Mr. GV Ramanjaneyulu from Centre for sustainable agriculture . I have given a brief description here  .

The other person is Mr.Shubhendu Sharma from an organization called Afforestt . This is not an in person experience but have come across his website , his TED Talk, INK Talk and Interview .

I was mentioning abt Mr. Ramanjaneyulu's session with my family . We were discussing on the options to start a low cost/zero cost farm related activity in our small piece of land and then chanced upon Mr.Shubhendu's work.

My immediate reaction was - Respect. The work he has done ( By 2013, Planted more than 36000 trees in 2.5 years ) and the words he use to describe and promote urban forests and the big picture he sees not for himself but for the world. Hope They are doing good in terms of the business and creating lot many forests. 

His work is aimed at creating a mini forest in any piece of land size equal to or greater than 1000 sq.ft. Benefits of this compared any lawn/garden plants

- 3 Time more greenery 

- 3 Times more CO2 absorption 

- Increased bio diversity ( he creates the forest with local species) 

- Half of the water requirement

- Increased water level

Wish best of luck to Mr.Shubhendu and Mr.GV Ramanjaneyulu in their mission and hope more and more people start practicing their methods .

Picture from the Free pictures gallery @ Pixabay.com . Many thanks to the people at pixabay for their efforts. 

Financial Planning - Part I

In the current scenario, with uncertain careers and increasing cost of living, Financial planning for every individual is very very important to lead a Happy Life.

while every one agrees that Financial planning is important, the awareness in India is at a very dismal level and increasing only recently.

What aspects should a Financial plan cover?

1) Contingency fund ( the first and foremost important) 

2) Insurance ( Life and Health insurance for self and Family) 

3) Saving ( save first and spend later ) 

4) Define your needs/goals ( Home,Car,Vacation,Child education, elderly parents' care, Retirement,Estate Planning etc..)

5) Invest your savings in line with your goals

6) Track and change course where required

Thanks to Pixabay.com for free image of a happy family used in above diagram. People who give away any thing ( money/time/food/cloths/creations like this picture) are surely contributing to the betterment of the society at large . My Best wishes to the people at Pixabay.com

Iam planning to write a separate blog on each of the 6 aspects mentioned above.

Today's Interesting News - 25 April 2015

2 Indians Awarded for Saving Toddler Dangling From Balcony in Singapore :

Two Indian nationals in Singapore have been hailed as heroes and commended for saving a dangling toddler stuck between the rails on a parapet of a second floor apartment block. Hats off to them and good luck to the kid .

Bengaluru's Chinnaswamy Stadium Goes Solar, Aims to Generate 1.3 Megawatt Power : As if to celebrate the earth day, Chinnaswamy stadium gone solar . Happy to see multiple news and events happening on solar front. Each of this contributions make a huge impact on the economy of India , environment of the world . Will write my opinion in detail in a later blog .

Weekend Special : Happiest countries in the World  : Switzerland,Iceland and Denmark take the top three places in the list and you can visit the link on CNN for the complete list and also to know why they are the happiest countries. I always , get a thought that can we have a same scale for the entire world to measure the happiness/best place to live etc.. with so many different kids of people, different cultures,different needs , how can we define the happiness/best place to live etc? I will write on that some time later.

Sustainability

As part of EarthDay activities, ECO team in our office has arranged a session on Sustainable Agriculture by Mr.GV Ramanjaneyulu from CSA ( Center for sustainable Agriculture) 

Came across startling facts about the problems faced by farmers in India , the struggles they go through in farming ( from seed collection , pesticide collection) water problems .

CSA is doing a commendable work in areas related to agriculture

1) Support the farmers with methods of agriculture without pesticides
2) Work with govt in making policy changes towards sustainable agriculture
3) Spread awareness among all to use pesticide free food

They have many farms running with pesticide free method of farming and open for visit by anybody on prior appointment.

Also, he explained the amount of water required for producing one kg of each food and explained how we can contribute to the world by just changing the eating patterns/habits .

Source : http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste

Foodstuff	Quantity	Water consumption, litres
Chocolate	1 kg	17,196
Beef	1 kg	15,415
Sheep Meat	1 kg	10,412
Pork	1 kg	5,988
Butter	1 kg	5,553
Chicken meat	1 kg	4,325
Cheese	1 kg	3,178
Olives	1 kg	3,025
Rice	1 kg	2,497
Cotton	1 @ 250g	2,495
Pasta (dry)	1 kg	1,849
Bread	1 kg	1,608
Pizza	1 unit	1,239
Apple	1 kg	822
Banana	1 kg	790
Potatoes	1 kg	287
Milk	1 x 250ml glass	255
Cabbage	1 kg	237
Tomato	1 kg	214
Egg	1	196
Wine	1 x 250ml glass	109
Beer	1 x 250ml glass	74
Tea	1 x 250 ml cup	27
Source: IME

Today's Interesting News - 23 Apr 2015

In an interesting development, while the Residential Project Launches  in large cities across India are down by 50%, there is a huge surge in the project launches in hyderabad. Good sign for India's youngest state .Wish this continues and brings back the glory of Hyderabad. The number of units launched in Hyderabad is just 30% lower than Bangalore now.. wish Hyd beats Bangalore sooner:)

AP's new capital to have a massive man made lake , Twice the size of Iconic Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad : What ever may be the reason behind this move, happy to know that a large water body is being created after a very long time in human history . Best wishes for the new capital and wish it thrives on all aspects and will not become like existing cities in India where basic necessities - good roads, drinking water , smooth travel are big luxury.

While the large Oil companies across the world are brain storming on the strategies to beat the oil price slump - TATAs, India's most respected Business house have come up with a Solar car prototype which can reach a max of 60KMPH

On this earth day, lets learn some good habits from this lady , who lives a zero waste life . The waste/trash she generates in half year is much lesser than the waste generated in half day by most people . Hats off  Ms.Shreeves : Hear you go

OLX - Wow!

We live in Alkapoor township . Currently staying in a rented place and will be moving to our own flat in next one month .

To make the shifting easier, i started cleaning up , getting rid of un used cloths,items,toys in my home.

As part of this, posted an Advert to sell cooler in OLX. what happened after that created a lot of respect for OLX.

Many people called me to find out the details and negotiate on the price. All the calls are genuine .

One of the person agreed for the price and said , he will take it if its in good working condition, which i accepted.

He came to my home around 730 PM . By then, this family ( he was driving along with his wife) has collected another 2 items ( refrigerator and TV ) from other sellers on OLX and my cooler was the third item for his family's comfort .

After couple of checks and test runs, he paid money and went away and told me ' Bhai, today i have bought 3 items through OLX for my family ' and both the wife and husband were happy with the deals they got and are really excited to use these products for the benefit of their family.

if i imagine a time, back when there was no OLX , families with certain financial constraints could never aspire/enjoy the comforts of many gadgets/household things as the new items are beyond their budgets and there were no used items available.

Of course, the advantage for the sellers is get rid of old items, make shifting easy , replace old items with any new variants of choice. Win Win - for the buyer , seller and facilitator - OLX. 

I would say, OLX is a social entrepreneurship kind of a venture , not sure what was the founders' intent though:)

Today's interesting news @ Hyderabad - 22 April 2015

Telangana industries face no power cuts for first time in 15 years : Proving the proponents of Telangana formation right, the newly formed state has achieved an excellent credit  within an year of coming into existence. No power cuts for industries,households - generating business confidence and the state is poised for a phenomenal growth . Lets wish all the Telangana a great success.

Chicken sales crash 80% in Hyderabad due to bird flu  : effect of the bird flu, causing lot of damage to the poultry industry which generally has a poor summer . 

Irrelevant' HMDA may get scrapped : The govt of Telangana, taking note of the gross mis handling by HMDA across the board is mulling to overhaul the HMDA. Hopefully, another good news for the Hyderabadis


Koti Women's College gets 1 million pounds for conservation : Giving another boost to the Hyderabad's Heritage city tag ( central budget has identified 7 tombs as one of the major site for tourism) the Koti Women's college has got one million pounds of donation for  preservation and restoration. For many, who has not visited this college, this is a building seen in many movies with wide steps and two Huge Lion statues on both sides:) 

Andhra Pradesh plans entity to oversee future investments : in a well thought out plan, the AP govt is setting up an empowered committee to over see the industrial investment in the state. Best wishes to the AP state for an all round development.

Advertising - why should it be Sex(nsu)al ?

was driving towards JNTU from HiTEC city and took the fly over to avoid traffic jams and gain some time :) .

Happened to see a huge hoarding of calvin klein jeans :

Product : Jeans for men and women
Photo on the hoarding: Guy wearing a CK jeans is lying down with bear chest and a girl is falling on him while unbuttoning his CK jeans, showing of his inner wear , wondered why the inner wear is not showing CK brand name :)

The purpose of an advertisement is, to let the people know about existence,differentiation of a particular product . so what are these guys telling the people ?

Watching TV after a long time. ( since Vibhav handles the remote, it only Chhota Bheem for us ) and got a chance o watch some music channels.. happened to watch a deo/perfume ad

Product : WildStone ( is it !! ) 
Video : Tapsee pannu is busy in flying the kite along with her kid brother, the guy on the next building has a Wildstone deo , so his strong muscular perfume attracts this beatiful lady and she loses her kite. the kid brother shouts the same. In a very desperate attempt, she sends her kid brother down stairs and jumps on to the next building to cut the muscular guy's kite and attracts him by a naughty show off of her back.

Not only these , barring handful of advertisements ( dairy milk,cadbury's horlicks ) etc.. majority of the advertisements use the theme of sexuality ...

I would say , they definitely get the brand re call but not a sustainable way for the business and happens to create  negative culture in society ..

Alkapoor Township - Hyderabad

Alkapoor township is a residential area in Hyderabad .~ 8KM away from both HiTec City and Gachibowli making it a suitable place to live for IT professionals.

This is a very good residential area developed in ~ 300 Acres . The colony has very wide roads ( 40" and 60" ) . main roads are 100" and has foot paths

the township is a peaceful area with very less traffic ( only the residents and no passers by) , and has 5 parks , each park is larger than 3 Acres..

The residents association is very active and have developed 3 parks with all facilities for kids play along with walking tracks.

best part of this colony is quality of the flats available at a very competitive price .. the builders aryamitra , anuhar  have done an excellent job and we see good quality apartments with proper setbacks and landscaping.

This is area is seeing rapid growth with a lot of new projects under construction and in my opinion, it will get at least 1500 - 2000 new families in next one year.

This area needs govt support in terms of public transportation and betterment of roads .

The township is close to Golconda fort, 7 Tombs, Taramati Baradari and Gandipet . Shamshabad airport is just 30 min from this place .

Iam trying to put the distance to major IT work places from some of the residential areas  and also the price/sft for a flat in these areas.

Distance from major residential areas to the IT areas :

	HiTEC City	Gachibowli	Adibhatla
Nizampet	11 KM	15.7KM	60.8KM
Miyapur	10.4KM	15.1KM	57.6KM
Chandanagar	9.8 KM	10.5KM	58.2KM
Alkapoor township	10.2 KM	11.1 KM	44.8 Km

Daily Travel time to IT areas:

	HiTEC City	Gachibowli	Adibhatla
Nizampet	36 Min	42 Min	78 Min
Miyapur	30 Min	33 Min	69 Min
Chandanagar	28 Min	22 Min	65 Min
Alkapoor Township	29 Min	23 Min	47 Min

Price/Sft in all these areas:

	Price/Sft
Nizampet	2580/-
Miyapur	3164/-
Chandanagar	~3000/-
Alkapoor Township	2300/-

Given the shorter distances to all 3 major IT areas and shorter travel times to these places, Alkapur township should be the best place to stay for IT people. In addition, this place has a very healthy atmosphere with less traffic and lot of greenery .

Lot of training centers ( sports/music/dance/painting) are  available for all age groups. so parents can plan all round development of their kids.

Also, the price for sft is very reasonable and much lesser than cost in many major towns in Telangana and AP .

The new additions coming up in this area are : direct connectivity to ORR , reduces the distance from Township to Gachibowli by ~ 2km , so you will be just 7 Km away from Gachibowli.

Iam living in Hyderabad from 1998 and lived at more than 4 areas in this great city . Here you can check my view on Gachibowli area where i lived for 2.5 years from June 2008 to December 2010.

Update on 9th Sept 2015 :
Alkapoor township is seeing a rapid addition of residents and multiple gated community projects.
Floatilla,in, bezonia.com  are some of the examples. I would expect , this township to lose the cost advantage faster and become a premium locality in hyderabad

Update on 18 Mar 2016 :
Biggest gated community in this locality, Floatilla is almost full with around 160 families and many more gated communities coming up .
lot of action in terms of development , rather development efforts .. road work started to connect to ORR , Water Pipeline work is coming up for multiple discussions but no concrete action yet ...


Update on 14 Jun 2016:
This locality is catching up fast . Per Sft price has gone upto 2800/- . It will definitely go up further given the locational advantage of being close to many parts of the City  Jubilee Hills,Mehdipatnam,HitecCity,Gachibowli, Airport) . In a way this is a connecting point for the new city being developed around ORR and the existing hotshot areas.

Update on 23 Jan 2018 :
this township is now among one of the best residential areas in Hyd..all utility,healthcare ,recreational facilities are available now within arms length..

grocery : Ratnadeep,Heritage,Dileep and many more loal stores
health care : 3 dental clinics, galen multispeciality clinic,Elite Diagnostics
recreational : many Gyms, Indoor badminton courts, well developed sports parks

Update on 13 Mar 2019 :
This area is well known now and the cost difference is no more in favor of this area :) ..increased population and lot of commercial activity made this area one of the costliest in Hyd..
the quality of living , with the greenerey, parks etc..is much better than many places in Hyd

Health – Surya Namaskar/ Sun Salutation

Simple and very effective physical exercise

In the present day, majority of us are having a very busy schedule. Stressful jobs coupled with nuclear family structures are causing lot of health problems.

In this scenario, some positives are – growing interest in the physical well ness of self and family members. Though there is intention, many of us are unable to pursue a routine of physical activity (be in walking/running/yoga/ any other exercise)

Reasons for this are – lack of time, lack of aware ness on simple and less time taking activities.

Some of us many not be able to go out every day for a walk. Some us may be not in a position to do running or take part in any sport.

For people with any of these restrictions, Surya Namaskar can act as a very good and effective solution giving much needed exercise to whole body along with good breathing pattern.

12 Positions make one cycle of Surya Namaskar, shown as below :

Doing one cycle of Surya Namaskar takes 30 – 45 seconds and by spending just 10 minutes in a day, we can complete 10 cycles easily and the benefits are felt immediately. It is a complete workout for whole body, without any need for equipment.

Major benefits of Surya Namaskara are:

-        it strengthens your back, your muscles

-       This asana, apart from improving one's posture, also gives a proper workout to the body and so helps in losing unwanted flab.

-       The postures in Suryanamaskar stretches our muscles and makes our body very flexible.

-       The moves and postures of the asana regulates our blood flow, benefits the digestive system and makes it more efficient.

-       It helps combat insomnia as it relaxes the body and calms the mind.

-       It helps regulate menstrual cycles and makes childbirth easier.

-       This asana is known to facilitate blood circulation and thereby help hair growth and prevent hair problems.

-       It reduces anxiety and restlessness and enhances our strength and vitality.

-       Suryanamaskar benefits not just adults, but kids above 5 years as well.

ReStart ! will it be ?

its been a very long time i wrote any thing ( years ) ... and its been a long time ( months ) i am thinking about starting again.

was thinking of many aspects - Finance,Career,Parenthood, business .. and will try to write atleast one blog per week ...

hope this blog will definitely act as a restart for me :)