Category Archives: Green Products

From berry to brew…

September 21, 2014Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green Products, World Opinionmpositiveone@gmail.com

Coffee was once a closely guarded Arabian secret until Baba Budan, a Sufi mystic, smuggled seven beans from Yemen and scattered them on the hills of Chikmagalur, from where it spread to the rest of India…Anurag Mallick and Priya Ganapathy spill the beans on the story of coffee, the world’s most popular brew.

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who once grandly announced, “I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless.” Sir James MacKintosh, 18th century philosopher, famously said, “The powers of a man’s mind are directly proportional to the quantity of coffee he drank.” In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, when T S Eliot revealed, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” he hinted at the monotony of socialising and the coffee mania of the 1900s. German musical genius J S Bach composed the ‘Coffee Cantata’ celebrating the delights of coffee at a time when the brew was prohibited for women.

“If I couldn’t, three times a day, be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish I will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat,” cried the female protagonist! French author Honoré de Balzac wrote the essay ‘The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee’ to explain his obsession, before dying of caffeine poisoning at 51. Like Voltaire, he supposedly drank 50 cups a day! So, what was it about coffee that inspired poets, musicians and statesmen alike?

Out of Africa

Long before coffee houses around the world resounded with intellectual debate, business deals and schmoozing, the ancestors of the nomadic Galla warrior tribes of Ethiopia had been gathering ripe coffee berries, grinding them into a pulp, mixing it with animal fat and rolling them into small balls that were stored in leather bags and consumed during war parties as a convenient solution to hunger and exhaustion! Wine merchant and scientific explorer James Bruce wrote in his book Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile that “One of these balls they (the Gallas) claim will support them for a whole day… better than a loaf of bread or a meal of meat, because it cheers their spirits as well as feeds them”. Other African tribes cooked the berries as porridge or drank a wine prepared from the fermented fruit and skin blended in cold water.

Historically, the origins of the coffee bean, though undated, lie in the indigenous trees that once grew wild in the Ethiopian highlands of East Africa. Stories of its invigorating qualities began to waft in the winds of trade towards Egypt, North Africa, the Middle East, Persia and Turkey by the 16th Century. The chronicles of Venetian traveller Gianfrancesco Morosini at the coffee houses of Constantinople in 1585 provided Europeans with one of the foremost written records of coffee drinking. He noted how the people ‘are in the habit of drinking in public in shops and in the streets — a black liquid, boiling as they can stand it, which is extracted from a seed they call Caveè… and is said to have the property of keeping a man awake.’

It was only a matter of time before the exotic flavours of this intoxicating beverage captured the imagination of Europe, prompting colonial powers like the Dutch, French and the British to spread its cultivation in the East Indies and the Americas. Enterprising Dutch traders explored coffee cultivation and trading way back in 1614 and two years later, a coffee plant was smuggled from Mocha to Holland. By 1658, the Dutch commenced coffee cultivation in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The word ‘coffee’ is apparently derived from qahwah (or kahveh in Turkish), the Arabic term for wine. Both the terms bear uncanny similarity to present day expressions — French café, Italian caffè, English coffee, Dutch koffie or even our very own South Indian kaapi. A few scholars attribute ‘coffee’ to its African origins and the town of Kaffa in Ethiopia, formerly known as Abyssinia. However, the plant owes its name “Coffea Arabica” to Arabia, for it was the Arabs who introduced it to the rest of the world via trade.

As all stories of good brews go, coffee too was discovered by accident. Legends recount how sometime around the 6th or 7th century, Kaldi, an Ethiopian goatherd, observed that his goats became rather spirited and pranced after they chewed on some red berries growing in wild bushes. He tried a few berries and felt a similar euphoria. Excited by its effects, Kaldi clutched a handful of berries and ran to a nearby monastery to share his discovery with a monk. When the monk pooh-poohed its benefits and flung the berries into the fire, an irresistible intense aroma rose from the flames. The roasted beans were quickly salvaged from the embers, powdered and stirred in hot water to yield the first cup of pure coffee! This story finds mention in what is considered to be one of the earliest treatises on coffee, De Saluberrima Cahue seu Café nuncupata Discurscus, written by Antoine Faustus Nairon, a Roman professor of Oriental languages, published in 1671.

Flavours from Arabia

Coffee drinking has also been documented in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in South Arabia. Arabic manuscripts dating back to the 10th Century mention the use of coffee. Mocha, the main port city of Yemen, was a major marketplace for coffee in the 15th century. Even today, the term ‘mocha’ is synonymous with good coffee. Like tea and cocoa, coffee was a precious commodity that brought in plenty of revenue. Hence, it remained a closely guarded secret in the Arab world. The berries were forbidden to leave the country unless they had been steeped in boiling water or scorched to prevent its germination on other lands.

In 1453, the Ottoman Turks brought coffee to Constantinople, and the world’s first coffee shop Kiva Han opened for business. As its popularity grew, coffee also faced other threats. The psychoactive and intoxicating effects of caffeine lured menfolk to spend hours at public coffee houses drinking the brew and smoking hookahs, which incited the wrath of orthodox imams of Mecca and Cairo. As per sharia law, a ban was imposed on coffee consumption in 1511. The Grand Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el Imadi was hailed when he issued a fatwa allowing the consumption of coffee, by order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I in 1524.

Though subsequent bans were re-imposed and lifted at various points of time according to the whims of religious politics and power, coffee pots managed to stay constantly on the boil in secret, or in the open, for those desirous of its potent influence. Given the fact that Sufi saints advocated its uses in night-time devotions and dervishes and Pope Clement VIII even baptised the bean to ward off the ill-effects of what was regarded by the Vatican as ‘Satan’s drink’ and the ‘Devil’s Mixture of the Islamic Infidels’ till the 1500s, it is easy to see why coffee is nothing short of a religion to some people.

Coffee enters India & beyond

Surprisingly, India’s saga with coffee began in 1670 when a Muslim mystic, Hazrat Dada Hyat Mir Qalandar, popularly known as Baba Budan, smuggled seven beans from Arabia and planted them on a hillock in the Chikmagalur district of Karnataka. The hills were later named Baba Budan Giri in his memory. From here, coffee spread like bushfire across the hilly tracts of South India.

In 1696, Adrian van Ommen, the Commander at Malabar, followed orders from Amsterdam and sent off a shipment of coffee plants from Kannur to the island of Java. The plants did not survive due to an earthquake and flood but the Dutch pursued their dream of growing coffee in the East Indies with another import from Malabar. In 1706, the Dutch succeeded and sent the first samples of Java coffee to Amsterdam’s botanical gardens from where it made further inroads into private conservatories across Europe. Not wishing to be left behind, the French began negotiating with Amsterdam to lay their hands on a coffee tree that could change their fortunes. In 1714, a plant was sent to Louis XIV who gave it promptly to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris for experimentation. The same tree became the propagator of most of the coffees in the French colonies, including those of South America, Central America and Mexico.

The importance of coffee in everyday life can be gauged by the fact that its yield forms the economic mainstay of several countries across the world; its monetary worth among natural commodities beaten only by oil! It was only in 1840 that the British got into coffee cultivation in India and spread it beyond the domain of the Baba Budan hills.

Arabica vs Robusta

Kodagu and Chikmagalur are undoubtedly the best places to know your Arabica from your Robusta and any planter worth his beans will trace coffee’s glorious history with pride. The strain that Baba Budan got was Coffea arabica and because of its arid origins, it thrived on late rainfall. Despite its rich taste and pleasing aroma, the effort required to cultivate it dented its popularity. The high-altitude shrub required a lot of tending, was susceptible to pests, and ripe Arabica cherries tended to fall off and rot. Careful monitoring at regular intervals affected production cost and profitability.

Till 1850, Arabica was the most sought-after coffee bean in the world and the discovery of Robusta in Belgian Congo did little to change that. Robusta (Coffea canephora), recognised as a species of coffee only as recently as 1897, lived up to its name. Its broad leaves handled heavy rainfall much better and the robust plant was more disease-resistant. The cherries required less care as they remained on the tree even after ripening. Its beans had twice the caffeine of Arabica, though less flavour, which was no match for the intense Arabica. It was perceived as so bland that the New York Coffee Exchange banned Robusta trade in 1912, calling it ‘a practically worthless bean’!

But in today’s new market economy, the inexpensive Robusta makes more commercial sense and is favoured for its good blending quality. Chicory, a root extract, was an additive that was introduced during the Great Depression to combat economic crisis that affected coffee. It added more body to the coffee grounds and enhanced the taste of coffee with a dash of bitterness. Though over 30 species of coffee are found in the world, Arabica and Robusta constitute the major chunk of commercial beans in the world. ‘Filter kaapi’ or coffee blended with chicory holds a huge chunk of the Indian market. Plantations started with Arabica, toyed with Liberica, experimented with monkey parchment and even Civet Cat coffee (like the Indonesian Luwak Kopi — the finest berries eaten by the civet cat that acquire a unique flavour after passing through its intestinal tract), but the bulk of India’s coffee is Robusta.

As the coffee beans found their way from the hilly slopes of the Western Ghats to the ports on India’s Western Coast to be shipped to Europe, a strange thing happened. While being transported by sea during the monsoon months, the humidity and winds caused the green coffee beans to ripen to a pale yellow. The beans would swell up and lose the original acidity, resulting in a smooth brew that was milder. This characteristic mellowing was called ‘monsooning’. And thus was born Monsooned Malabar Coffee.

Kodagu, India’s Coffee County

Currently, Coorg is the largest coffee-growing district in India, and contributes 80% of Karnataka’s coffee export. It was Captain Lehardy, first Superintendent of Kodagu, who was responsible for promoting coffee cultivation in Coorg. Jungles were cleared and coffee plantations were started. In 1854, Mr Fowler, the first European planter to set foot in Coorg, started the first estate in Madikeri, followed by Mr Fennel’s Wooligoly Estate near Sunticoppa. The next year, one more estate in Madikeri was set up by Mr Mann. In 1856, Mr Maxwell and Mcpherson followed, with the Balecadoo estate. Soon, 70,000 acres of land had been planted with coffee. A Planters Association came into existence as early as 1863, which even proposed starting a Tonga Dak Company for communication. By 1870, there were 134 British-owned estates in Kodagu.

Braving ghat roads, torrid monsoons, wild elephants, bloodthirsty leeches, hard plantation life and diseases like malaria, many English planters made Coorg their temporary home. Perhaps no account of Coorg can be complete without mentioning Ivor Bull. Along with District Magistrate Dewan Bahadur Ketolira Chengappa, the enterprising English planter helped set up the Indian Coffee Cess Committee in 1920s and enabled all British-run estates to form a private consortium called Consolidated Coffee. In 1936, the Indian Cess Committee aided the creation of the Indian Coffee Board and sparked the birth of the celebrated India Coffee House chain, later run by worker co-operatives. With its liveried staff and old world charm, it spawned a coffee revolution across the subcontinent that has lasted for decades.

Connoisseurs say Coorg’s shade grown coffee has the perfect aroma; others ascribe its unique taste to the climatic conditions and a phenomenon called Blossom Showers, the light rain in April that triggers the flowering of plants. The burst of snowy white coffee blossoms rends the air thick with a sensual jasmine-like fragrance. Soon, they sprout into green berries that turn ruby red and finally dark maroon when fully ripe. This is followed by the coffee-picking season where farm hands pluck the berries, sort them and measure the sacks at the end of the day under the watchful eye of the estate manager.

The berries are dried in the sun till their outer layers wither away; coffee in this form is called ‘native’ or parchment. The red berries are taken to a Pulp House, usually near a water source, where they are pulped. After the curing process, the coffee bean is roasted and ground and eventually makes its journey to its final destination — a steaming cup of bittersweet brew that you hold in your hands.

The ‘kaapi’ trail

In India, coffee cultivation is concentrated around the Western Ghats, which forms the lifeline for this shrub. The districts of Coorg, Chikmagalur and Hassan in Karnataka, the Malabar region of Kerala, and the hill slopes of Nilgiris, Yercaud, Valparai and Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu account for the bulk of India’s coffee produce. With 3,20,000 MT each year, India is the 6th largest coffee producer in the world.

Recent initiatives to increase coffee consumption in the international and domestic market prompted the Coffee Board, the Bangalore International Airport and tour operator Thomas Cook to come together and organize coffee festivals and unique holiday packages like The Kaapi Trail to showcase premium coffees of South India. Coffee growing regions like Coorg, Chikmagalur, B R Hills, Araku Valley, Nilgiris, Shevaroy Hills, Travancore, Nelliyampathy and Palani Hills are involved in a tourism project that blends leisure, adventure, heritage and plantation life.

At the Coffee Museum in Chikmagalur, visitors can trace the entire lifecycle of coffee from berry to cup. In Coorg and Malnad, besides homestays, go on Coffee Estate holidays with Tata’s Plantation Trails at lovely bungalows like Arabidacool, Woshully and Thaneerhulla…
The perfect cuppa

Making a good cup of filter coffee traditionally involves loading freshly ground coffee in the upper perforated section of a coffee filter. About 2 tbs heaps can serve 6 cups. Hot water is poured over the stemmed disc and the lid is covered and left to stand. The decoction collected through a natural dripping process takes about 45 minutes and gradually releases the coffee oils and soluble coffee compounds. South Indian brews are stronger than the Western drip-style coffee because of the chicory content. Mix 2-3 tbs of decoction with sugar, add hot milk to the whole mixture and blend it by pouring it back and forth between two containers to aerate the brew.

Some places and brands of coffee have etched a name for themselves in the world of coffee for the manner in which coffee is made. The strength of South Indian Filter coffee or kaapi (traditionally served in a tumbler and bowl to cool it down), the purity of Kumbakonam Degree Coffee, the skill of local baristas in preparing Ribbon or Metre coffee by stretching the stream of coffee between two containers without spilling a drop… have all contributed to the evolution of coffee preparation into an art form.

With coffee bars and cafes flooding the market and big names like Starbucks, Costa, Barista, Gloria Jean’s, The Coffee Bean, Tim Horton’s and Café Coffee Day filling the lanes and malls in India along with local coffee joints like Hatti Kaapi jostling for space, it’s hard to escape the tantalising aroma of freshly brewed coffee. And to add more drama to the complexities of coffee, you can choose from a host of speciality coffees from your backyard — Indian Kathlekhan Superior and Mysore Nuggets Extra Bold, or faraway lands — Irish coffee and cappuccino (from the colour of the cloaks of the Capuchin monks in Italy) or Costa Rican Tarrazu, Colombian Supremo, Ethiopian Sidamo and Guatemala Antigua. And you can customise it as espresso, latte, mocha, mochachino, macchiato, decaf… Coffee is just not the same simple thing that the dancing goats of Ethiopia once enjoyed.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Supplements> Sunday Herald / September 21st, 2014

Son Of The Soil

September 18, 2014Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green Products, Leaders, NRI's / PIO'smpositiveone@gmail.com

Mehmood Khan, Unilever’s global innovation head, goes back to his native village with a plan to turn it around.

Nai Nangla in Haryana’s Mewat district could be just another Indian village, ridden with the usual problems of a people trapped in poverty: Lack of healthcare and clean water, low productivity, high unemployment and illiteracy. But Haji Siddiq Ahmed, a local farmer in his late 60s, sees a different vision. “I want this village to be an adarsh (model) village. Others should look up to this village — that this is what an ideal village should be like,” he says.
The image Ahmed sees is actually taking shape in this quiet village with a majority Muslim population. What’s more surprising is the way the change is taking hold. It may be difficult to imagine the humble folk of Nai Nangla as business executives, but the cool concepts reviving the economy of the village are no less professional.

Take dairy farming, which engages nearly 80 percent of the villagers. Earlier, all they could get was Rs. 12 for a litre of milk; today they can get as much as Rs. 25. Three years ago, female literacy was at 2 percent; today, almost 85 percent of the female population can sign their names and 86 percent of the children in the district are enrolled in schools. Some women are also learning to sew and are setting up their own tailoring units. Companies like insurance provider Aviva, ICICI Bank and Larsen & Toubro are beginning to look at Mewat both as a market and as a field for recruitment. They have hired locals, offering dramatically higher incomes.

Image: Amit Verma / CHARGING UP: Memhood Khan's plans changed Ramzaan's life for the better. The young man treats Khan to a ride on his new motorcycle — Image: Amit Verma /
CHARGING UP: Memhood Khan’s plans changed Ramzaan’s life for the better. The young man treats Khan to a ride on his new motorcycle

The man behind these changes is a Nai Nangla native, someone who left the village nearly 40 years ago in search of an education and a career. His name is Mehmood Khan. Now 54, he is Unilever’s innovation head.

Now, thanks to him an experiment in introducing market economy is taking shape at Nai Nangla and the district of Mewat. An impossible feat for an outsider, but something the people of Nai Nangla have welcomed from one of their own. “Focus on education and use enterprise to bring change by leveraging resources in villages,” he says.

Khan has worked and lived in many countries over the years, making London his home for the last nine. But his link to his roots always remained alive; he would visit his village two or three times a year. He still remembers trudging a couple of kilometres to school everyday and taking cattle out to graze.
“I somehow landed a seat in university and then got into IIM-Ahmedabad. I was ejected by the system,” he says.
For the last five years, Khan has been hard at work to change “the system”.

He is converting a local resource, livestock, into a productive enterprise. He roped in the National Dairy Development Board’s Mother Dairy to spur Nai Nangla’s milk output and break the stranglehold that milk vendors had on local dairy farmers. At one time, these vendors — middlemen really — would lend money to farmers to buy milch animals.
In return, they would demand milk supply at low fixed prices until the loans were repaid. For most farmers, their income was too low to enable them to repay the debt. The result: They remained trapped in debt.
Khan was troubled by this age-old exploitation. He spoke to Mother Dairy and ushered in a new system to break this debt trap. Debt-laden farmers were given loans from institutions so they could repay the vendor and start selling direct to Mother Dairy. “Almost 25 people got loans to buy cattle, without having to pay any bribes,” says Ahmed.

Others who could repay on their own, did so and started selling to Mother Dairy for a better price. This competition forced the milk vendors to match market prices. Overall, incomes improved.
In July 2008, Mother Dairy set up milk collection centres in Nai Nangla and six other villages. In the first week, it got 70 litres of milk. Today, Nai Nangla alone gets 250 litres a day. “Gross income from agriculture has gone up from Rs. 80 lakh to Rs. 1.2 crore,” says Khan. “Milk (has become) a constant income source in a village which has seasonal income due to Kharif and Rabi crops.”

source: http://www.forbesindia.com / Forbes India / Home> Features – Beyond Business / by Neelima Mahajan-Bansal / June 05th, 2009

Call of the Jungle

September 15, 2014Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Products, Leaders, Travel & Tourismmpositiveone@gmail.com

At Saad Bin Jung’s luxury eco-tourism lodge in Kabini, Karnataka, villagers and tribals work together to conserve the forest and the big cats that inhabit it

Image: Shaaz Jung A new calling: Saad Jung believes in eco-tourism that conserves more than animals — Image: Shaaz Jung
A new calling: Saad Jung believes in eco-tourism that conserves more than animals

As the last rays of sunlight filter through the leaves, a shadow slinks out of the thick foliage with an unmistakable feline elegance. “There,” whispers 27-year-old Shaaz Jung from his perch atop a jeep. Immediately, seven pairs of eyes turn to the clearing ahead. Under the rapt gaze of the tourists, a male leopard emerges from the foliage. A flurry of clicks from SLR cameras breaks the silence of the waning dusk. But the leopard makes an indifferent model. He was aware of the jeep the moment the vehicle entered his territory, deep in the jungles of Karnataka. For the tourists, however, this sighting is a privilege. The shy animal deigned to make an appearance on the last of the five game drives organised by Bison Wildlife Resort near Kabini Lake, Karnataka. The resort, started by Shaaz’s father, 53-year-old Saad Bin Jung, lies between two national parks, Nagarhole and Bandipur, and is a two-hour drive from Mysore. It is also a labour of love, one in which villagers and tribals work with the Jungs to conserve and preserve this ecologically vibrant zone.

Though the eco-resort opened five years ago, it took over a decade to come to fruition. Consider its back story.

Like his uncle Mansur Ali Khan—the late nawab who is remembered by his moniker ‘Tiger’ Pataudi—Saad Jung started his career as a cricketer. A descendant of the royal Pataudi family of Bhopal and the Paigahs of Hyderabad, he acknowledges and accepts the popular portrayal of Indian nobility as hunters. “I now realise the mistakes we made while addressing wildlife conservation within the forests that belonged to our family,” says Jung. “The rulers, to a large extent, permitted community usage of forest produce. Locals were asked to manage forest land, but were banned from hunting. That was the sole prerogative of the royals. There was control, but there was also inclusion.”

Image: Prasad Gori for Forbes Life India The village: The resort maintains a rustic look and feel, although it houses luxurious facilities — Image: Prasad Gori for Forbes Life India
The village: The resort maintains a rustic look and feel, although it houses luxurious facilities

Saad began taking an active interest in conservation in 1986. He started with Bush Betta Resort at Bandipur and an angling camp on the Kaveri river soon after. In 1997, he acquired patta (registered) land outside the protected forest area and worked with locals to build a luxury resort, one that doesn’t intrude on or disturb the ecologically sensitive zone. The Bison Resort, made up of African lodge-style stilted, elaborate tents and decks that overlook the forest and Kabini lake, is the result. Most of the building material for it was sourced locally. Rather than alienating tribals and villagers from the land, Saad brokered a symbiotic relationship between resort and village.

The Bison, which opened in 2009, has succeeded because it combines luxury with inclusive growth. Saad and Shaaz, who is the resort manager, create a rustic yet opulent experience. From sunken showers in bathrooms to bars that overlook the lake, the resort delivers a unique kind of grandeur—one that typically costs more than Rs 10,000 a night for Indians and Rs 24,240 ($400) a night for foreign nationals. Most employees are locals and their intimate knowledge of the land heightens a visitor’s experience.

source: http://www.forbesindia.com / Forbes India / Home> Forbes India/Live / by Shravan Bhat / August 16th, 2014

G.B. Pant University honors U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator Ambassador Islam A. Siddiqui

September 13, 2014Education, Green Products, NRI's / PIO's, Science & Technology, World Opinionmpositiveone@gmail.com

The G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology in Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, today honored its former student, United States Chief Agricultural Negotiator Ambassador Islam A. Siddiqui, with an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. The degree was conferred upon Ambassador Siddiqui in recognition of his contributions to agricultural research and development, as well as agricultural trade policy development and his work’s influence on world agriculture.

“I feel humbled and honored at the same time to be receiving this honorary degree of Doctor of Science. Thousands of agricultural scientists, engineers, and veterinarians graduating from Pantnagar and sister universities provided the foot soldiers to make the Green Revolution a reality. This massive technology transfer of modern agricultural practices – combining education, research, and extension — turned India from a net food importing country to a food exporting nation. As a student of the first batch of this great institution when it opened its doors 51 years ago, I had not imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I would receive this prestigious award.”

Ambassador Siddiqui was born in Haldwani, Uttar Pradesh and attended G.B. Pant University before taking a scholarship at the University of Illinois in the United States. Throughout his career, he has advocated for international cooperation, technology transfer, capacity building, and new technology development to achieve food security in the 21st century.

source: http://www.newdelhi.usembassy.gov / Embassy of the United States, New Delhi, India / Home> News & Events> Press Releases / New Delhi – May 20th, 2011

A lone woman’s crusade against the sand mafia

August 4, 2014Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green Productsmpositiveone@gmail.com

Jazeera along with her children protesting in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. Photo: Kaavya Pradeep Kumar / The Hindu

Jazeera is on a silent campaign, in defence of the Neerozhukkumchal beach in Kannur

The so-called sand mafia of a little taluk in Kannur rues the day Jazeera returned home. Dismissed as an insignificant voice of protest against the rampant exploitation of a stretch of shoreline near Pazhayangadi town, this woman has soon come to be known as a force to be reckoned with. All the way from the northern district of Kannur, she has brought her silent campaign to the State capital, as she sits in front of the Secretariat with her three children — protesting without loud sloganeering or politically coloured flags or leaflets.

Entering the fifth day, Jazeera’s protest has thus far been eclipsed by a far more populous Left protest.

Now that they have left, the presence of this family has become more conspicuous, leading the Chief Minister to meet them briefly on Monday afternoon on the issue of sand-mining in her hometown. For Jazeera, the cause is intensely personal, as the Neerozhukkumchal beach is the canvas all her childhood memories are painted upon.

She is an autorickshaw driver, a profession she has struggled to be part of, in a conservative society. She does not let herself to be affected by such taboos and continued working until after her marriage in 2004, when she moved to Kottayam with her husband.

She has found the new district far more accepting. It was only one and a half years ago, when she returned home during the final month of her third pregnancy, did she see to her shock the daylight robbery of a natural landscape.

Countless visits to the Kannur collectorate and police stations have proved futile.

And for the past one and a half years, her silent protest has involved a sit-in, along with her daughters Rizwana, Shifana and her son Mohammed. The two girls, aged 12 and 10, know everything about the case and have flanked their mother every step. Her husband, Abdul Salaam, is a teacher at a madrasa in Kochi.

While he has not been a visible part of Jazeera’s protest, his support, despite pressure various quarters, has been a huge boon for her.

She is clear about her objective despite the obstacles strewn before her in terms of muscle and money power. Even the police, she says, have pleaded with her to give up. “Their greed is despicable. In broad daylight they commit this heinous crime of emptying our lands, oblivious to the fact that there are so many creatures that depend on it. The sudden depth of water is dangerous as well,” she says.

She is glad to have met the Chief Minister personally and she said he assured her that he would ensure that the vehicles carting away the sand would be immediately dealt with.

She will leave once she obtains something in print promising a complete halt of the activities.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Kerala / by Kaavya Pradeep Kumar / Thiruvananthapuram – August 08th, 2013

These mango trees date back to Tipu’s era

May 12, 2014Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green Products, Leaders, Travel & TourismBada Bagh’, Kirugavalu farmer, Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, Syed Ghani Khan impositiveone@gmail.com

LUSCIOUS: Syed Ghani Khan in his orchard at Kirugavalu village in Malavalli taluk of Mandya district. / The Hindu

Kirugavalu farmer has 116 mango trees which are 200-year-old

This farmer from Kirugavalu village in Malavalli taluk of Mandya district has preserved 116 mango trees dating back to the times of the then Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan.

Carbon dating and other scientific assessment by the Genetics and Plant Breeding Department of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, have shown that these trees are more than 200 years old.

This 20-acre orchard, popularly known as ‘Bada Bagh’, is said to have been raised by those in the palace of Tipu, who was a great lover of fruits, especially mangoes. The orchard was later gifted to a farmer by Tipu. Syed Ghani Khan (39), who has inherited this from his forefathers, is preserving it with care.

According to Mr. Khan, the trees yield exotic varieties of fruits. “While some trees yield fruits that taste like sweet lime, others produce fruits with cumin flavour. There are some trees that yield fruits resembling the shape of fish,” he said.

In great demand

Till recently, his family used to sell the fruits locally. But from the last two years, he has been selling the fruits at organic outlets in Mysore apart from exporting them to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where they are in great demand and also fetch a premium price.

In fact, Mr. Khan, who was passionate about becoming a curator at an archaeological museum, he did his graduation in archaeology and museology. But he had to return to his native village from Mysore to take care of his farm and support his family after his father became bedridden due to an ailment. “I then decided to turn my exotic farm itself into a live museum and started working on it,” he said.

Paddy varieties too
Mr. Khan also pursues another avocation passionately. He collects native varieties of paddy and grows them mainly to preserve those rare varieties. “Presently, I have a collection of about 600 native varieties of paddy, including ‘rakta dham’, ‘naadikeli’ and ‘jugal’,” he said.

His efforts paid off as his farm caught the attention of Delhi-based Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, which has started registration of the exotic varieties of mangoes in the garden. He will get legal right over the plant species after the registration.

Mr. Khan was also honoured with the ‘Plant Genome Saviour Farmer Recognition’ award by the authority in 2012.

Mr. Khan now wants other farmers to grow these rare varieties of mangoes. He, however, is unable to take up propagation of these rare varieties systematically by constructing a poly-house as it requires big investment. As none of the government agencies offered him any help, Mr. Khan himself started an organisation to train farmers and students about local varieties of crops.

He is looking forward to getting government assistance to take his mission forward and ensure that these exotic varieties of mangoes are grown in the orchards of many more farmers.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Karnataka / by B. S. Satish Kumar / Bangalore – May 12th, 2014

Under his broad brood, swifts ready to fledge

March 27, 2014Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green ProductsSaleem Hameed, Saleem Hameed - Wildlife, Saleem Hameed - Wildlife Expert, Saleem Hameed - Wildlife Rehabilitatormpositiveone@gmail.com

With little expertise, wildlife expert Saleem is trying to give them a new lease of life

The city wildlife team is facing an unusual challenge. They have to pull off what is considered a one-in-a-thousand rescue and rehabilitation of young house swifts (Apus nipalensis), which experts term is a touch-and-go situation.

Despite lack of expertise in rehabilitating the house swifts, which are very delicate, the six young ones are being cared for round the clock with great diligence by wildlife rehabilitator Saleem Hameed.

The birds were rescued from the HAL campus on Friday. At present, Saleem feeds them 24 times in 12 hours, once every half an hour.

This is what Saleem said:

“They were eight birds when they came here. They were rescued after a fall from a hangar. The good thing is, they were rescued along with the nest. Sadly, two died soon, but six are alive.

”They are very difficult birds to raise. With a high rate of metabolism, they have to be hand-fed every half an hour and they need attention round the clock at least till they fledge. The feeding starts at 7 in the morning. They are fed an insect diet, Mazuri, shipped down from the US. They are responding well. They need great care and attention, predominantly between 7 am and 7 pm.

”Unlike most birds, these are very sociable and live in huge colonies. In most birds, we find the territorial fight and new ones are not easily accepted. But here, they are accepted soon as they are sociable. As nothing much is known about swifts, we hope these birds which are roughly about 3-4 weeks-old would take a week or two to fledge. Some birds fledge within a month. Sparrows fledge within 14-15 days.

”An interesting thing is that one of them, probably the oldest of the lot, has already started jumping and is trying to fly. He jumps about 2-3 feet. As they fledge, they have to be launched into air to ensure they can join other swifts that are in a colony.”

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Chetan R, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / March 27th, 2014

Actor in a Tractor

March 20, 2014Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Green ProductsKerala Actor, KM Hilal, Mammootty, Mammootty - Kerala Film Star, Mammootty - Malayalam Super Starmpositiveone@gmail.com

Mammootty takes up farming in a battle against chemical fertilisers

SAYING NO TO CHEMICALS Mammootty has turned to natural paddy cultivation.

Mammootty has played farmer in many films. Now, dismayed by the use of chemicals in farming, he has taken the tractor wheel in his own hands. Busy with his main vocation, the actor had given the 17 acres of land he owned in Cheepungal, near Kumarakom in Kottayam district, on lease for paddy cultivation. This season onwards, he says, he will cultivate the paddy himself. Mammootty insists that his renewed interest in farming is not just a hobby or gimmick and reminds sceptics that he hails from a peasant family.

“When I leaarned about natural farming, I got interested,” he says. “This is very natural paddy cultivation by using only natural manure like green leaves, cow dung, etcetera.” Mammootty has no plans of turning to organic farming. He thinks it is not viable.

It was a pleasant surprise for Cheepungal locals when the superstar appeared on the farm last Wednesday in a traditional white dhoti, brown shirt and his favourite sunglasses. Appu, his childhood friend, and KM Hilal, a former Left-wing student leader and now a natural farming proponent, accompanied him to the paddy field. The actor drove the tractor and assisted the workers in transplanting the saplings. Mammootty, who has won the National Award for best actor three times, hopes he can inspire others to turn to natural farming. “For paddy, chemical fertilisers are absolutely unnecessary. Cow dung and cow urine are the best manure,” he says.

Mammootty is keen to protect varieties of paddy seeds that are diminishing due to chemicals and is seeking experts who can guide him. “Our ancestors had 3,000 such seeds and at present only 60 exist,” he says. “These seeds succumbed to pests and pesticides.”

Mammootty seems to have been inspired by the concept of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) popularised by agri-scientist Subhash Palekar. This promotes crop rotation, mechanical cultivation, biological pest control and green manure. Earlier, Malayalam actor- director Sreenivasan and director Sathyan Anthikkad were in the news too for similar agricultural ventures.

source: http://www.openthemagazine.com / OPEN Magazine / Home> Open> Regulars / by Shahina KK / July 23rd, 2013