Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Cummins India Ltd bags BG Deshmukh CSR award

Cummins India Limited has bagged the BG Deshmukh Award for exhibiting effective corporate social responsibility (CSR). The company will be presented with the award by the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) on Sunday at the SM Joshi auditorium in Navi Peth.

Working on three different fronts, the company first set up a rice mill for villagers in Padarwadi (about 100 km from Pune), provided scholarships amounting to Rs 35 lakh to 55 needy students and gave away 700 stoves to village women.

In the rice mill project, the mill works on a generator... Read more..

India's solar power capacity to surge

If all goes according to plan, India's solar power capacity will grow six-fold to touch 300 MW by the end of this year, even as several enthusiastic states are commissioning solar power plants. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra are among states where solar projects are set to be commissi oned in the latter half of 2011.

NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), the nodal agency to purchase solar power from independent producers, had last October signed MoUs with 16 developers to set up 84 MW capacity solar projects under the migration scheme to Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar... Read more..

'Gujarat to start generating 100 MW solar power in 6 months'

3 firms in race for recycling waste water in Ahmedabad

The standing committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has decided to recycle waste water and reuse it. It has given in-principle approval to hand over three sewerage water treatment plants located at Vasna, Pirana and Vinzol to three private companies - Essel Infrastructure, Jindal Manila Water Development Company and Doshion Ltd for the project.

The trio of private companies was short-listed from a total of 11 companies that had signed MoU with the civic body during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit 2011 in January.

The civic body plans to recycle... Read more..

Himachal to experiment Power Tube Technology

The Himachal Pradesh government will consider experimentation with Power Tube Technology which is low cost, non-polluting, silent power generation system, and will operate from the heat of the earth geomagmatic source.

This was revealed by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal yesterday after a meeting with the chief executive officer of Power Tube India Incorporated, Houston, Texas, United States, in New Delhi last evening, who invited the Chief Minister to visit the US to visit the project sites as also interact with the inventor Doyale Brewington and other experts.

Prof Dhumal... Read more..

India aims for global leadership by 2015 in renewable energy – Efforts to increase RE to 25% of total production

The 10th edition of two-day Green Power Conference cum Exposition on Renewable Energy organized by CII in Bangalore today under the aegis of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India and Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd (KREDL) called for increasing the proportion of green power in our overall energy requirement.

The conference called upon the industry, which is the major consumer of the energy, to mark up some percentage of their total energy consumption to come from green power. This will not only decrease the over dependence on fossil fuels... Read more..

India to let market curb emissions

With four times the population of the United States, an economy growing 8 per cent to 9 per cent a year and surging energy demand, India’s race to become an economic power has propelled it to No. 3 on the list of top carbon polluters, after China and the United States. 

 
India’s greenhouse gas emissions are very likely to keep rising as the country tries to lift millions out of poverty and connect nearly half a billion people to electricity grids. But India is also trying to curb emissions growth in its own way, fearing the effects of climate change and spiralling energy... Read more..

NN, public cooperation must: AZZ

A2Z, the company handling the solid waste management (SWM) project in the city, considers that until the Varanasi Nagar Nigam completes its share of work, people will have to wait for positive results of this project. Talking to media persons on Sunday, AZZ vice-president Kaushalendra Pandey, corporate social responsibility (CSR) head Abhishek Kumar and deputy general manager AM Jose said the main approach road for reaching SWM project site in Karsada had not been constructed so far. Until this road is completed, taking heavy machines like weighing and segregation machines will be... Read more..

Farm mechanisation essential to improve agriculture: CII

Considering the limited availability of land, industry lobby Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has recommended intensification of agriculture through increased farm mechanisation.

'Identification of farm mechanisation needs and development of need-based farm implements are of prime importance,' CII National Council on Agriculture chairman Rakesh Bharti Mittal said in a statement.

CII stresses that the policy framework should encourage farmers to move towards greater use of farm equipment, which will lead to higher agricultural productivity and thus higher farm income and... Read more..

Climate change to have large-scale effect on NE biodiversity

The impact of climate change is likely to result in large-scale changes in the biodiversity of the Northeast, a study has revealed.

The study, sponsored by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), has warned that change in temperature, quantum and intensity of rainfall coupled with extreme weather conditions would have a long-term impact, particularly on the structure and composition of forests in the region.

The impact is likely to be more severe in areas where other pressures are deemed to be high, including stability of the natural systems affected due to socio-economic... Read more..

Green zone turns toxic wasteland

A laboratory on the premises of the Shibpur botanical garden has been dumping waste in a corner, turning the compound into a toxic wasteland.

The chemical waste is polluting the soil and water bodies of Asia’s oldest and largest botanical garden, taking a toll on its biodiversity.

In a recent visit to the garden, Metro found a vast dump of toxic waste from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) laboratory in a secluded corner.

There were hundreds of partly full glass bottles and other containers, many of them containing toxic chemicals.

An expert team that... Read more..

Momentive and Targray to Bring Photovoltaic Materials to the Indian Market

Momentive Performance Materials, a pioneer in silicones and other advanced materials, has extended its global distribution agreement with Targray Technology International, one of the world’s leading suppliers of silicon and advanced materials to the solar industry.
The expansion will bring photovoltaic (PV) materials such as silicone adhesive, sealant and potting material solutions to the Indian market.

Targray’s Vice President of solar division, Dan Murray stated that the Indian PV industry is a strategic market, which offers potential opportunities in the future. The... Read more..