NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development
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1. BIRD FLU returns to haunt West Bengal
2. South Australia PM seeks Indian investments in mining
3. 'India slow in implementing EU-India S&T project'
4. APEDA to develop direct contacts with EU retailers
5. India to launch weather satellite soon
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Bird flu returns to haunt West Bengal
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 0017 hrs IST
Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 0017 hrs IST
New Delhi, Mar 10 Bird flu is again back in West Bengal after intensive culling operations were completed in the state and also in the neghbouring states by January 31. This time it reappeared in Raghunathganj-II and Jiaganj blocks of Murshidabad, which is close to Bangladesh.
The animal husbandary secretary, Pradeep Kumar confirming the fresh incidence of bird flu in West Bengal said: "The Central government has received reports that the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal has found the samples drawn from Raghunathganj-II and Jiaganj blocks of Murshidabad districts tested positive for bird flu virus."
He said there were no reports for further spread of bird flu virus. Unusual mortality in poultry birds were reported in the first week of March in Raghunathganj-II and Jiaganj blocks of Murshidabad and samples from the affected areas were sent to HSADL on March 7 for testing.
Culling operations in a radius of five kilometers around the two new foci of infection has already commenced from March 10, 2008. While 22,440 birds are to be culled in Raghunathganj-II, the culling target in respect of Jiaganj is 27,200 birds. A total of 20 rapid action teams have been deployed in each of the two blocks.
As per the latest report received from the West Bengal government, the cumulative figure of poultry culled in the state up to March 9, 2008 is 40.03 lakh. The cumulative figures of eggs and feed destroyed till the said date are 14,91,307 and 80,033 kg respectively.
Earlier the incidence of bird flu took place in January 15, 2008 which rapidly spread to 13 districts of the state namely Birbhum, Dakshin Dinajpur, Nadia, North 24-Parganas, Murshidabad, Burdwan , Cooch Behar , Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, Howrah , Bankura, Hoogly and Purulia. Bird flu has not yet been detected so far in Kolkata, thiugh it has reached the surrounding districts like North 24-Parganas, Burdwan, Howrah and Hooghly .
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South Australia PM seeks Indian investments in mining
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Thursday , March 13, 2008 at 1937 hrs IST
Posted online: Thursday , March 13, 2008 at 1937 hrs IST
New Delhi, March 13: Keeping in view the proposed India-Australia free trade agreement (FTA), the visiting Premier of South Australia province, Mike Rann urged for boosting trade ties and invited Indian investment in exploration of uranium, gold, copper, zinc, zircon and iron ore.
He said that that uranium explored in Australia can be exported only to countries which have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. He informed that Reliance Industries has entered into a joint venture with uranium Exploration Australia to explore uranium in South Australia and in the neighbouring northern territory.
In an interactive session with the industry organized by FICCI on Thursday, Rann marketed his province as an ideal destination for Indian investors. In 2004 the Australian government had simplified mining laws for participation through joint ventures. He said that about 163 uranium licenses have been issue and applications of other100 bidders were in consideration.
He said that exploration expenditure in South Australia has increased almost nine-fold in five years. Canada's Fraser Institute has ranked South Australia at no 5 out of 65 global mining jurisdictions. The Olympic Dam ore body in South Australia's north-eastern desert would become the world's greatest mine, about trillion dollar in value, he said.
"This single resource is expected to become our biggest copper mine and yield 7.9 billion tonne. It will also become the world's largest uranium mine and fifth largest gold mine," he said and added that his province has 30 more mines. Mining operations were in progress to discover rich deposits of zinc and zircon apart from uranium, gold and copper, he said
Alluring Indian investors, migrant workers and tourists, he said that KPMG International has rated Adelaide as one of the three most cost competitive places for business in a survey of more than 100 cities worldwide. Private investment levels were at an all-time high and so also were the employment numbers, he said.
Rann also offered to export defence industry products to India and said that South Australia was unquestionably the high-tech centre of Australia's defence industry and the Asia-Pacific headquarters of some of the world's leading defence Companies. South Australia has own $ 12 billion worth of defence contracts over the past two-and-half years, which includes $ 8 billion contract to build the giant Air Warfare Destroyers.
South Australia leads in a range of defence areas, including naval shipping, submarine support, systems integration, electronic warfare, surveillance and defence research and development.
Rann invited Indian students to opt for education in South Australia. He said that enrolments of Indian students at tertiary institutions have increased 10-fold over past five years. India was now the second highest provider, after China of overseas students to South Australia's higher education system, he said.
Regarding climate change, he said, "we have been suffering through a prolonged heat wave in Adelaide." He said that attempts have been made to implement sustainable energy options. South Australia has 45% of the country's grid-connected PV panels that produce solar energy, It has 50% of the country's wind farm operating capacity and represents 80% of all the geothermal activity or 'hot rocks' activity underway or proposed in the country.
Rann said that South Australia has attracted 99% of the total investment in geothermal exploration in the country in the past six years. He invited Indian investments in the new and renewable energy sector. South Australia has set up a permanent mission in Chennai in India, he said.
Rann invited Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath to visit Australia during May 2008 for the 11th India-Australia Joint Ministerial Commission. ...
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'India slow in implementing EU-India S&T project'
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Monday , March 10, 2008 at 2027 hrs IST
Posted online: Monday , March 10, 2008 at 2027 hrs IST
New Delhi, March 10: The European Union has rated India's participation in the new bilateral framework programme on science and technology as low and called for analyzing the reasons for this poor success rate.
The new EU-India science and technology cooperation was envisaged after the joint statement issued after the India-EU Summit in November 30, 2007 for strengthening cooperation for combating climate change and ensuring energy security. A strategic Energy Technology-Plan (SET-Plan) was adopted in November 2007 to accelerate innovation of low carbon energy technologies.
The SET-Plan would involve a number of European industrial initiatives in well targeted priority areas like wind, solar, bio-fuels, electricity grids, carbon dioxide capture and storage, hydrogen fuel and generation of IV nuclear reactors.
Speaking at the EU-India workshop on renewable energy research and technology development on Monday, the co-chair of the joint group from the EU side, R Liberali said: "The participation of India in selected proposals after evaluation is nevertheless very low and reasons for this poor success rate must be analysed together."
The co-chair from Indian side, A. Ramachandran said "because of growing concern about high oil prices, energy security and climate change has changed the focus on certain key areas of energy research around the globe. In this context this workshop is timely and most relevant in the context of India – EU framework of S&T cooperation".
He explained that energy issues have become complex as they were inextricably linked to various economic, social and environmental aspects of development. Many of these issues transcend national boundaries. There was a growing awareness among all stakeholders of the compelling necessity for the world as a whole to make a transition to clean energy technologies, he said.
Meanwhile the minister of state for water resources, Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav informed Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Parliament) on Monday that the paper of International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on - Bio-fuels and Implications for Agricultural Water Use: Blue Impacts of Green Energy - has explored the land and water implications of increased bio-fuel production globally and with special focus on China and India. The report concluded that, although of minor concern at global level, local and regional impacts could be substantial. However, nowhere in the paper, it has been mentioned that the vigorous use of bio-fuel plant can vanish the water resources in the country. Bio-fuel is one of the component of EU-India framework programme on science and technology.
Inaugurating the two-day EU-India workshop, the secretary in the department of science and technology, T Ramasami said "we have huge demand of energy whereas the supply is less and fossil fuels are decreasing. In this situation looking for renewable energy is not an option but it is necessity. Without putting any stress on environment and natural resources, we are looking forward to alternative renewable energy." ...
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APEDA to develop direct contacts with EU retailers
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 0018 hrs IST
Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 0018 hrs IST
New Delhi, Mar 10 With a view to encourage hassle-free exports of food and agriculture products to the European Union, the Agriculture and Processed Food Export Development Authority (APEDA) has decided to develop direct contacts with retailers in that continent who are willing to import Indian products.
"We have to tackle the problem of rejection of Indian goods in European Union citing sanitary and phytosanitary norms. We have, therefore decided to develop direct contacts with the European importer-retailtors," said APEDA chairman, Asit Tripathy.
As part of the effort to link the Indian farmer to the global market, APEDA has initiated a "Direct-to-Retailer" export promotion strategy. APEDA has engaged a professional consultancy firm, M/s. KSA-Technopak, for establishing Direct-To-Retail (DTR) linkage. "We are working towards building direct sourcing relationships between the large EU based food retailers/aggregators and qualified Indian business groups/Indian service providers," he said
In order to take this initiative forward, APEDA is organizing a 2-days seminar from March 11 for highlighting the potential that India offers in both fresh produce and processed foods sector. The seminar will also provide the opportunity to for the Indian service providers and International retailers/aggregators. The seminar would coincide with the 'Aahar' exhibition which is in presently in progress in Delhi from March 10 and is focused on processed food products, being organized by the Indian Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO), a nodal agency of the Government of India for promoting trade.
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India to launch weather satellite soon
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 2009 hrs IST
New Delhi, March 11: India has planned to launch an advanced satellite, INSAT-3D dedicated to weather forecasting by the end of this year. The satellite will have six channel imager and 19 channel sounder.
"This satellite will be almost similar to GOES satellites of US. The INSAT-3D data shall provide necessary quantitative products in addition to earth imagery in six channels need for making quality weather forecast," said the the secretary in the ministry of earth sciences, PS Goel.
The new advanced satellite would provide vertical profiles of temperature and humidity, atmospheric motion vectors, outgoing longwave radiation, quantitative precipitation estimates, sea surface temperature, Himalayan snow cover, snow depth, data on fire, smoke and aerosol.. It will also monitor upper troposphere humidity, ozone layer, fog, vegetation index, flash flood.
"All these data will be used in weather forecasting by conventional methods and most of it would be assimilated in numerical weather prediction models to achieve greater accuracy. Indian Space Research Organisation is also planning to launch Oceansat-II and Meghatropique Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites which will also be used for weather forecasting purposes," he said.
Goel said that India was ready to exchange weather data with other countries and with South Asian countries in particular. The countries in South Asia have similar geo-climatic condition and the South-West Monsoon system is common to countries in the region. Keeping this in view sharing of relevant weather data is of utmost importance.
Delegates from SAARC (South Asian) countries are discussing the use of satellite products in day-to-day weather forecasting techniques at a four-day workshop which began in Delhi on Tuesday. The workshop is organized by the India Meteorological Department and is being attended by about 16 foreign delegates from SAARC countries namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, besides a large number of participants from the host country, India.
Under the aegis of SAARC cooperation programme, meteorology was one of the five areas chosen for cooperation. The knowledge and expertise in the related field of meteorology in the SAARC region is shared mostly through participation in the seminars/ workshops hosted by member States time to time.
SAARC Countries have had more than a fair share of weather and weather related disasters. Accurate day to day weather forecasting including early warnings of tropical cyclones, track prediction and associated weather, heavy precipitation, western disturbances, seasonal and long range rainfall prediction, forecasting floods, snow and avalanche are vital for the SAARC Region. The satellite data are very important for accurate forecasting and monitoring of these events especially the cyclones and floods and also other events causing severe disasters, thus proved very useful information in saving lives and property and therefore the Economy of the region.
The workshop aims at apprising working scientists/meteorologists of SAARC region with the use of meteorological data and imageries derived from the satellite in day-to-day weather forecasting. INSAT data provides earth cloud imageries in visible, infrared and water vapour bands. In addition, quantitative products such as cloud motion vectors (CMVs), outgoing longwave radiation, sea surface temperature and quantitative precipitation estimates are also derived, which are vital inputs for weather forecasting. ...
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