pumping indian farmers out of poverty

This is the official entry of Akhila Vijayaraghavan for the Rio Blogger Prize. The winner of the prize gets to go to Rio to cover the climate talks in June. If you like what you read, please support her and like, share, comment and tweet the original on TckTckTck’s website. 

One of the biggest deterrents to achieving a sustainable future is poverty. Therefore, alleviating poverty is the best way to reach balanced economic growth and social development without environmental degradation.

Farmers in India need help to get out of poverty

In India, poverty is one of the largest reasons for social problems. As a largely agrarian economy, the country is as vulnerable to climate change like any island nation. A study by Purdue University concluded that changes in the weather patterns have direct implications on the monsoons.

Farmers depend on the monsoon rains from June to September to irrigate their crops, and bad rains means a failed crop which has economic implications. India’s farmers have the highest rates of suicides, especially following a bad monsoon.

During the fallow seasons, farmers often migrate into cities looking for work. Since the entire family moves, children’s education is frequently interrupted, keeping them in a loop of poverty. 

Read the complete article here

Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit

I'm proud to announce that GreenDen is the official media partner for The Green Business Entrepreneurs Success Summit. The Summit is a FREE virtual, week long, alternative Green MBA, featuring the visionary leaders who are defining the sustainable economy and ethical marketplace, plus marketing gurus who will help you take your conscious business to the next level.

Here are the details

The event runs from April 16-20 Earth Week 2012. To get access to the calls, please register here. This event is brought to you by Green Marketing TV.

Who Should Attend

• Change makers seeking to unite purpose, passion and profit
• Conscious or heart based entrepreneurs who believe in sustainability
• Established sustainable business owners and green business professionals
• Green marketers & green product designers
• Forward thinking entrepreneurs driving corporate sustainability initiatives
• Early stage green startup entrepreneurs
• Aspiring green and social entrepreneurs researching innovative business ideas

What You Will Learn

• Evaluating the Marketplace & Identifying Your Niche
• Developing Your Visionary Business Idea
• Raising Capital Through Business Plan Competitions, Crowdfunding & VC Investment
• Growing Your Business Without Going Crazy
• Marketing Your Business on a Bootstrap Budget

REGISTER NOW

Panel Topics

Monday April 16 | Track 1 – The Growth of the Green Economy & Ethical Markets

Here we cover the state of the sustainable economy and socially responsible markets. We are going to explore the ethical marketplace, as well as uncover the hottest opportunities for green jobs and green entrepreneurship. We’ll discuss sustainable business as a global movement and the greening of mainstream America. We will discover extraordinary companies that are solving the world’s most pressing concerns and learn how they succeeded.

• The Hottest Solar Trends & Keys to Selling Solar Online
• Sustainable Business as A Global Movement
• What Will It Take to Co-Create a Green Economy?
• Making Green Sexy: Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Small Green Businesses
• Emerging Green Career Opportunities and How to Land your Green Dream Job
• New Ways to Create Wealth and Grow the Ethical Economy through Socially Responsible Investing.

Tuesday April 17 | Track 2 – From Visionary Business Idea

This series will help you identify your unique genius, leave your day job, create a business plan, and embark on your journey to financial freedom. From business plan competitions, to online fundraising tools and social venture funding, we also look at some funding options for social entrepreneurs and what it takes to attract investors.

• Keys to Manifesting Entrepreneurial Success Using the Law of Attraction
• Hacking Social Enterprise Business Plan Competitions
• How to Attract VC Investors to Fund Your Social Enterprise
• From Hobby to Thriving Handmade E-Commerce Business
• The Art of Defining Your Niche & Attracting Your Perfect Fit Clients
• How to Launch a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Wednesday April 18 | Track 3 – To Thriving Green Enterprise

Once you’ve launched your sustainable social venture, what does it take to reach your target audience and scale your business, without going crazy? In this track, experts talk to us about what it takes to succeed as an emerging entrepreneur. Plus, we’ll cover some high impact green businesses that are coming out with innovative products to feed your creative mind and keep you inspired.

• The New Rules of Green Marketing: What Green Entrepreneurs Need to Know Now
• The Greening of Mainstream America
• How to Power Network Your Way to a More Sustainable World
• Online Productivity Tools Every Small Business Should Know About
• The Whole Systems Approach to Keeping Your Small Business Sanity
• Why Cradle to Cradle Will be the New Strategic Advantage

Thursday April 19 | Track 4 – Grow Your Good Business With Social Media Marketing Social media marketing is a powerful and free way to grow your business, expand your reach, and create a community of fans around your business who will promote you and buy from you over and over again. But many small businesses don’t see the ROI in social media and have a hard time getting it to work for them. In this track, we will show you what you are doing wrong, and how to do social media right.

• Your Small Business Social Media Command Central
• Cracking the Code to Profitable Social Media Marketing As a Small Business
• Your Social Media Launch Blueprint & Advanced Strategies for Savvy Marketers
• What it Takes to Build a 6 Figure Business For Good Blogging Empire
• Facebook – From Social Time Vortex to Lead Generation Machine
• Boost Your Street Cred with Self Publishing,Sell Your Book with Social Media

Friday April 20 | Track 5 – Bootstrap Internet Marketing for Green & Socially Responsible Business Small businesses have smaller marketing budgets, but this doesn’t mean you can’t compete with big brands, and even out market them. As an SMB, you have the advantage of strategic agility, while big businesses often take months to execute on a simple web strategy because of the politics and bureaucracy. This track focuses on your optimizing your website and content marketing strategies that drive organic web traffic.

• Small Business Website Essentials
• WordPress SEO Strategies for Time Strapped Small Businesses
• The Art of Turning Website Visitors Into Adoring Customers
• Why Local SEO Matters for Your Small Green Business
• Grow Your Sustainable Business with Green Affiliate Marketing

REGISTER NOW

The event includes 28 Visionary Speakers

Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director Green America & Green Festivals

Andrea Vahl, Social Media Consultant and author of, “Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies”

Bob Doyle, CEO Boundless Living & Wealth Beyond Reason, Law of Attraction and “The Secret”

Daan Elffers, Founder ELCAMEDIA Cradle to Cradle Marketing Agency

David Mihm, Co-Founder of GetListed.org & Local SEO Consultant

Elena Christopoulos, Interim President, Green Chamber of Commerce

George Kao, Holistic Marketing Coach Greg Wendt, CFP and Founder of Green Economy Think Tank and Co-Founder of Green Business Networking

Jacquie Ottman, Author of The New Rules of Green Marketing

JD Lasica, Founder SocialBrite.org & SocialMedia.biz

Joey Shepp, Founder Earthsite and Sustainable Programs Director of Dominican University of CA School of Business and Leadership

Joost de Valk, Founder Yoast.com & Creator of WordPress SEO Plugin

Karen Lee, Founder EcoKaren and Eco Etsy Team Captain

Katrina Heppler, Founder 77webstudio

Kriss Bergethon, Founder Solar Sphere

KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz, CEO & Founder of Sustainable Life Media & Sustainable Brands Conference

Kyle Rutkin, Author and Founder of Palooza Press

Lorna Li, Founder Green Marketing TV

Morgan Morris, Co-Founder Inspire Green

Nick Aster, Founder Triple Pundit, Co-Founder TreeHugger

Nikki Pava, Co-Founder EcoTuesday

Rich Brooks, President Flyte New Media

Scott Cooney, Founder GreenBusinessOwner.com

Shawn Berry, Co-Founder LIFT Business Coaching

Shel Horowitz, Author of “Guerilla Marketing Goes Green”

Tyler Gage, Co-Founder Runa Amazon Guayusa Tea Company

Tad Hargrave, Founder Marketing for Hippies

Warren Fligg, Founder Performance-Based Green Affiliate Network

So REGISTER NOW!!

afreen afreen

Today marks the death of one baby girl who has been in the headlines the past few days. Afreen who died today was three-months old and was brought in to a Bangalore hospital on Saturday by her mother. Her father who wanted a boy had physically abused her in the days before her hospital admission.

She was brought in suffering from haemorrhages in her brain and retina. She also had multiple bite marks and cigarette burns on her body. She has been comatose the past two days and finally her frail body gave in today.

Earlier this year in January, baby Falak made headlines in another case of human abuse. Both babies suffered for being female and both died, tragically. Of course, reading all this in the media leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It also leaves some of us with a sense of helplessness, outrage and a keen feeling of disgust. However, what is to be done?

Violence again women is not anything new and it happens everywhere - everybody has at least heard about a case, if not being directly affected. There is also a growing apathy to abuse against women as demonstrated by the recent rape case in Gurgaon where the cops almost said that the victim was asking for it. The statements released by the police department were as shocking as the curfew they imposed. The same attitude also prevails in a domestic violence complaint.

The whole attitude towards women in India reeks of sexism at its mildest form and goes all the way up to blatant misogyny. This needs to change - but how? Women are conditioned to be submissive and passive to a large extent, and men are conditioned to expect this from women. However, now with the shift in gender balance and with more and more women becoming financially independent, men simply cannot handle the loss of traditional 'power'. This is in turn misdirected back to women in the form of violence.

However in the case of Afreen and Falak - they were defenseless infants. Attacks upon them point at a violence of a whole different level. It also speaks of the kind of society we have allowed ourselves to degenerate into. Decades of turning a blind eye have resulted in this. Every person is a product of their society and so is every action. Violence of this kind is not just abominable but it also says something about all of us as a society for abetting it in some way. Now this might be hard to swallow, but apathy is a form of consent.

There are many of us, myself included who ask themselves what can be done and in this case, there is truly nothing that can be done for Afreen. However, there are countless number of Afreens of all ages, castes, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, and places in India and around the world. For every Afreen that has come into the media spotlight, there are many more hidden from view. For them and ultimately also for us, something must be done because violence can not be tolerated.

It needs to start with educating girls that violence towards them should not be accepted. It needs to start with teaching boys not be violent against girls and to treat them with respect. It needs to start by inculcating girls with self-esteem to stand up for themselves and also teaching them self-defense against physical attacks. This government for sure isn't going to do much about it. Sisters are going to have to do it for themselves, just like we have done in the past.

on first looking at a blue whale...

In February, I headed off to Sri Lanka with Nature Wanderers to combine two of my passions - photography and travelling. The trip started off at Mirissa which is supposedly one of the best places to spot Blue whales. This is something I did not know before, but apparently Sri Lanka has a resident pod of Blue whales that never migrate out of their waters.

So we headed off in the morning on a boat and we kept going and we kept going. Along the way, we had a rare sighting of False killer whales. These whales are called because of their resemblance to the more familiar Killer or Orca whale. They are not spotted very often in Sri Lankan waters but we were lucky. We also saw plenty of Spinner dolphins, jumping and twirling out of the water. I tell you, dolphins are truly one of God's happiest creatures. According to old ocean legends, spotting a dolphin is said to be good luck and sure enough we saw a blue whale spouting away in the distance.

We quickly made it to the spot and cut our motors to watch it beautifully fluke at a distance. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the boat to get a photo of this. Then we headed off again and this time a whale came up really close to out boat - maybe about ten feet. We were supposed to keep a distance of fifty feet, but apparently he was as curious about us as we were about him!

He was so close that he went out of my frame and I could see the sucker fish stuck on his grey-blue skin as well as his markings and the sunlight glistening off of him. It was a wondrous moment to see the Earth's biggest creature this close. There was pin-drop silence on the boat except for the lapping waves and the sound of the burst mode of about a dozen cameras pointed at him. Everybody stood still and turned off their lives to simply be. In that crystalline moment, the great hum of the ocean was meshed within us.

Then we were snapped out of our trance when he decided to submerge, and whilst doing so created a whale-sized vacuum on the surface of the ocean. It was as if someone had poured some oil onto the waters, as it was perfectly calm only in this spot. With a collective startle we realized that we could actually feel all the water being displaced.

I think the enormity of what I had witnessed on that day is just now sinking in, as I'm writing this. It stresses again, the importance of conservation and the work that needs to be done for our fragile planet. After Mirissa, we headed on to Yala to spot and photograph leopards but that's another story! The trip has left me with some unforgettable encounters, incredible memories and a whole bunch of new friends.

Photo Credit: Top - Pod of False Killer Whales. Bottom - Blue Whale. Akhila Vijayaraghavan ©

my entry for the rio blogger prize

I know, I know its been ages again. But I have news and have been rather busy. GDC had her first major outing last month in Mumbai where we got to meet several companies and we received positive feedback all around. I recently wrote a piece for the Rio Blogger Prize by tcktcktck and if I do get selected I have the chance to go to Rio for the climate summit in June.

I wrote a simple piece about a very innovative man that happens to live in Coimbatore and how he is changing the lives of rural women through his unique sanitary pad. This is the article on Triple Pundit which you can also read here.

The real heroes of environmental and social change are the ones that don’t get talked about often and don’t want any accolades. One such man lives very to near my town and he makes sanitary napkins for a living. A high-school dropout by the name of A. Muruganathan is the inventor of a machine that can churn out 120 pads an hour. It costs about 1 rupee (0.02 USD) for each napkin and the machine itself costs about Rs 66,000 (USD 1500).

Major brands only make up 7% of market share for sanitary napkins, which means that the playing field is wide open for this type of social enterprise. Muruganathan has sold his machines to women entrepreneurs all over India, thereby leading them to become business owners themselves. Several of them have been able to make a substantial income for themselves by selling the sanitary napkins to nearby villages as well schools and colleges.

The core material that makes up the napkin is wood fibre which is procured from waste wood, making the product relatively eco-friendly. Muruganathan wants to experiment with other materials and also bioplastic as a protective sheet.

Muruganathan has single-handedly tapped into the rural market for sanitary pads and caters exclusively to those women with no access to menstrual hygiene. Rural Indian women often use pieces of cloth and other unhygienic protection during their menstruation. In many areas in the country, women are ostracized during this period. Many teenage girls end up missing several days of school a month and eventually drop out due to inadequate menstrual protection. Muruganathan has obtained a patent for his machine with the help of India’s National Innovation Foundation and has received accolades for his product and business model from many business leaders.

However, a new government scheme of making sanitary napkins available free of charge for women below poverty line will likely threaten Muruganathan’s business. The government will have to procure the napkins at a much higher price from companies like Proctor & Gamble, Johnsons & Johnsons and supply them at reduced costs. This will cost the government approximately $400 million to cater to 200 million rural women. However, 100,000 units of Muruganathan’s invention can be bought for less than half the cost and provide employment to over 1 million women.

With Indian villages becoming the hotspots for decentralized power generation, the sanitary napkin machines can work in conjunction with them providing a local industry as well as a sustainable, hygienic alternative for many rural women. Many companies are taking interest in Muruganathan’s technology as part of their CSR; Jindal Steel has sponsored two units. Dupont and Moserbaer have also sponsored a unit each. As the machine runs on a combination of power and mechanical energy, the cost of running it remains low. This input power can easily be renewable energy, with the right set up.

There are several organizations in Africa that use similar models to tackle the dual problem of waste as well as female hygiene, while creating employment at the same time. However in India, Muruganathan seems to be the only one around. As for the man himself, he remains as humble and unassuming as ever. He has even refused a blank cheque from a multinational for his machine and wants to keep it as a social enterprise through and through.