Organic Farming

Organic Farming: Sri Lankan Experience

It was a refreshing journey to Galaha and a rejuvenating experience to visit the farm of Gami Seva Sevana, an NGO in Sri Lanka's Kandy, run by Ranjith De'Silva. He not only uses bio-gas from cow dung, but also has an organic farm by preparing compost and bio-pesticides and fertilizer and also vermi wash. He trains NGOs and government officials alike in Sri Lanka on the art of organic farming.
"The soil has become tired and fatigued. The only way of rejuvenating it is with natural manure," he strongly believes.

http://www.hindu.com/seta/2007/08/09/stories/2007080950251600.htm

http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/08/02/fea14.asp

Ranjith De' Silva explaining the process at his organic farm in Galaha.

All Work...

... and no space to play

A life where there is no space to move one's limbs freely. Growing up in a city where there's absolutely no place for a cheerful game of hide and seek, catching, lock and key, kho kho, wild running, cycling without fear of being knocked down by a trailer or just walking briskly on the pavements without bumping on a tree trunk or a telephone pole or an electricity pillar box.
These situations are a luxury to dream of in Chennai, particularly a far fetched dream for residents of North Chennai.
The idea behind highlighting such issues in the newspaper is not because, the very next day, Governments will swing into action (I'll be only too happy if that is the case!) or because people will immediately realise the importance of happy feet, lithe bodies and a dynamic mind that sports, physical exercise and workouts can endow, but because - somewhere in the few minds that read this - the seeds of awareness will be sown and take its own time to germinate when the environment is conducive.
So I wait to see that day when I can walk on the road, as if it were my home, rest under the shade of a tree in a bench as if I were sitting down a while in my drawing room, walk without fear down the avenue with tree-lined pavements as if I were walking through a thicket in my own backyard and greet people on the road with a smile - as if I were meeting my own family, friends and relatives. Like James Michener said in his autobiography - I wait for the day the world sings along with me - The World is My Home.
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Meeting Personalities

Interviews for Meet

The Meet column on Sunday in The Hindu has been my favourite space where I have pursued several intersting people for an interview. It has been in a wide and varied field beginning from Prof. Sultan Ahmed Ismail, the Managing Director of the Ecoscience Research Foundation. A champion for the cause of vermi-composting of organic wastes, he is an advocate of segregation of wastes at source and organic farming.
There have been interviews of the Veena maestro Kalpakam Swaminathan - who at around 86 years of age now - stands a lone sentinel for Veena, the National Instrument of India. Then there has been another interview of P.S. Ramamurti, Secretary of The Egmore Samskrt School, for his efforts in conducting Bhagavad Gita chanting competitions for the past 50 years.
Cooks Sanjeev Kapoor of Khana Khazana fame, Prof. of Nutrition Chandra Venkatasubramanian and much recently Jacob Aruni for his research on ancient Kongunadu and other recipes of India, have been featured on various occasions.
Prof. Ramani Narayan of the Michigan State University, had appeared in one of the Meet interviews for his pioneering research work in introducing bio-degradable plastics in the Harita-NTI in Chennai.
Bordering on the area of spirituality and human resources management have appeared interviews of Sunanda Parthasarathy and Swami A. Parthasarathy who frequent Chennai to give their lectures on the Bhagavad Gita.
I stumbled on Rev. Jegath Gaspar Raj as a Catholic priest who had a penchant for studying the Tamil Saivaite text of Tiruvasagam and that was a meet interview that appeared much before the release of an audio album titled Tiruvasagam in Symphony by Isaignani Illaiyaraja. There was also an interview of S. Tatwamasi Dixit, founder of the Ojas Foundation on the occasion of his winning the Maharishi Badarayan Award.
The meet interview that appeared today was on Dr. Asana Andiappan who was recently in the news for demanding the appointment of trained Yoga teachers.
There may be many that I have left out and many many interesting personalities that I still look forward to meet and write about.

North Chennai

The Neglected North

My career in journalism began with an article in the Indian Express about the woes of North Chennai. My first byline story was on how lorries and trailers were being repaired on the road, abutting residential buildings at Royapuram. And since then North Chennai has had an abundant presence in my articles in The Hindu also. Several issues - the public campaign on not allowing Kattupalli, a verdant ecosystem in Minjur to be converted into a petro products park, the sea erosion at Ennore and Royapuram, the problems of environmental pollution from coal and iron ore dust, the dumping of garbage along the north Chennai coastline, the need to remove encroachments, the changing face of North Chennai when a Corporation Commissioner M.P. Vijayakumar spearheaded an initiative when J. Jayalalitha was the Chief Minister, to green and beautify pockets of the city.
But neglect of a place is a vicious circle that no amount of writing or an external force can break. The desire for a change has to come from within the people. The change can happen only with a certain self-realisation of the situation one is caught in, a realisation of one's rights and demanding it and also a realisation of one's responsibilities. And so a revolutionary change is possible only when the residents of North Chennai rise together in one voice and force to demand their right to better livelihood.

Ecology

Solid Waste Management

I have covered many topics in The Hindu and my pet area of writing has boiled down to Solid Waste Management. If there is any single solution to the problems of health and hygiene that the country faces, it is so simple - source segregation of wastes by the individual and efficient SWM by the Government. I practice it at home myself and there can be nothing simpler and convenient than this - drop all the day's bio-degradable wastes in a container, paper, plastics and glass separately. These are all individual wastes that can be thoroughly recycled. The only wastes that will finally go to the dumping ground are the non-recyclable hazardous wastes.

But it is also my realisation that the simplest are the most difficult to practice. The reason I discovered, the human mind likes to put in a lot of effort to achieve something. It can settle down for simple and cost-free solutions. The Indian mind finds it the most difficult habit to surrender to the rule of law. And the politicians want their votes in tact. So they do not want to step forward to take any creative measures to solve problems such as garbage management as imposition of rational ideas might make them lose the favour of the masses. And so the vicious circle continues.

It took a tsunami and destruction of hundreds of human lives to know the important of protecting the coastline against the vagaries of nature. I do not think the country should wait for a similar catastrophe, till it addresses the most important issue of composting its bio-degradable wastes and recycling the non-biodegradable ones.

One of my articles on lack of solid waste management that appeared in The Hindu.

Photo: The mangroves of Pichavaram have served as a natural protective cover in breaking the waves of the tsunami and weakening its force.

Yoga and Humanity

Yoga in the Media

Yoga has fascinated me for many years now and has been the subject of many articles in The Indian Express and The Hindu. My personal touch with Yoga, began when I wrote about how a programme by the Isha Yoga Centre transformed the lives of prisoners in the Coimbatore Jail.

Later I met around 70 prisoners in the Coimbatore and Madurai Jails, with permission from the State Governments to see for myself, the transformation that Yoga can cause.

I began to personally practise Yoga, by the turn of this millennium and I have continued to this day. I can't think of a life without Yoga anymore.

With several articles in The Hindu about several aspects of Yoga including Pranayama, Asana, Meditation, for stress relief, concentration, for students, for efficient administration, road safety - I discovered that there is not a field of life that is not touched by Yoga. I personally believe that practice of Yoga at the individual and the collective level is one stop solution for all problems ailing society.

While many countries abroad have made it a multi-billion dollar industry, in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, its usefulness is not understood fully.

The Tamil Nadu State Yoga Association today staged a novel protest. Led by its president, the 80-year old Hatha Yoga master, Asana Andiappan, the Association wants the State Government to appoint trained Yoga teachers in its proposed project to teach Yoga in Government schools from the next Academic year.

They also want a Council to be set up to grant accreditation to Yoga therapists and practitioners.

- Swahilya.

Caption: Members of the Tamil Nadu State Yoga Association standing in Ekapadasana or Vrikshasana, pressing their demands on Saturday morning.

Something more

Something more to say...

With an experience of writing for the past 15 years in leading newspapers of the India - The Indian Express and now The Hindu, there's quite a lot that I have to say on issues - Education, Environment, Civic Awareness, Solid Waste Management, Art, History, Culture, Politics, Tourism, Human Resource Development.
Awards in Animal Welfare Journalism from Exnora International and the Rotary Award for Vocational Excellence given for my coverage on Environment and Ecology in the State of Tamil Nadu, have come by my way. Here is a space for me to plumb deeper into the ocean of journalism and publishing.

It is all in that's fit to print of course, but the printed space is limited and so I shall explore into cyber space with photos, stories and links to my articles in The Hindu. - Swahilya, Senior Reporter, The Hindu.