Welcome to the Proposals Library of AltKuznets Advisors Pvt Ltd., Your Sustainability Nirvana !

Buy in to the 'Green Star'! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar What does it take to turn the world green - I mean, without poisoning our air, water, and land with toxic residues that perpetuate across time, accumulate in the food chain, reduce sperm count and infiltrate in to mother's milk and foetuses? Food, vegetables, fruit, even opaquely-packaged drinks with preservatives/pesticides and colours that negate any nutritive value they might contain (despite the detailed risk-analysis prepared by the consultant who was compensated with a free 'day-old, returned' Mercedes by the industry!). Toilet cleaners that, going by the composition, smell and color, are likely to turn the Pacific Ocean barren of life. Or, cadmium-doped, brightly colored plastic bags that poison the land they litter (and turn it eligible to receive EPA's Superfund monies! Phew!). To answer the question, not much. A strong political will, a few economists who will not sell them...

NUKE THE ......WAIT!!!! THERE IS HOPE YET! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar As described by one writer, the Indo-US nuclear deal has seen a path more tortuous than the meandering of deltaic rivers. Yet, as the Bush presidency comes to a close and the UPA government totters at the precipice of inflation and mis-governance, the Indo-US nuclear deal stands out as the one hope in the monsoon of despair. Not that it has been supported within or outside the government. For once, the Left has kept its word, at least on paper. Predictably, it has backed away from the deal when it matters the most. Thankfully, that was no surprise! Manmohan Singh's government now faces the prospect of pushing the deal down the unwilling throats of the BJP and the Left by garnering support from the third-tier parties and marginalized/regional political parties and dissenting members of various political parties. So much for a national consensus on a issue that arguably ranks as one of more...

Nothing 'White' About This Milk! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Energy prices are in the news again. That's probably the understatement of the year. Crude prices have been skyrocketing. And with it, prices of petroleum products, at least of those products not controlled by the government. As it happens, this is a particularly important caveat for industries that are 'intensive' consumers of petroleum products – especially those such as the road freight where diesel is subsidized and aviation sector where gasoline is taxed. Elsewhere, as in energy-intensive sectors characterized by government-owned or -subsidized firms competing with private firms, the net impact of government control on energy prices is not immediately apparent. After years of government-sponsored monopoly, the milk market has finally opened up. Where there was a single all too familiar government sponsored- and supported regional milk cooperative, there are now a few inter-reg...

Damn Our Environmental Commons? Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar English language has many phrases. 'Necessity is the mother of invention' is one all of us have heard of. But, as necessary as environmental remediation is, there is no invention, little interest and certainly no action to speak of. Many rivers in India – choking with garbage and untreated sewage - are the dying testament to this observation. One would presume cities – the hub of economic activity of modern India – are endowed with resources sufficient to maintain their environs. One presumes wrong. In developed countries, lakes and river banks are prime property, protected either by the governing authority as parks and playgrounds or taken over by private developers to build luxury villas and residential enclaves. But, in our cities and towns, the converse reigns true. Our lakes and rivers are choked with garbage of all sorts over and above the untreated or half-treated sewage. Household waste,...

Jobs, Jobs, More Jobs! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar No matter which part of the world you are in, you hear the same refrain from politicians – Creating and sustaining employment. That they focus on jobs almost to the exclusion of anything else is understandable. Sustained employment is the source of livelihood of the masses. And the masses can be very rude at the polls if their purse is thin or they don't have a job on voting day! But much as jobs are today the visible sign of economic prosperity, should they be the only focus of our politicians? In fact, should job-creation even be on the politician's agenda? Micro- and macro-economists see jobs as part of a larger picture in which a firm or a nation produces an (array) of outputs with several inputs of which labor is but one. The demand for labor and the change in it - which is what employment and job growth/loss measure - is itself derived from demand for products or aggregate economic activity. So, sh...

Global Warming In My Mittens! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar I have had this creepy feeling about global warming for a long time. The phenomenon was recognized even in the sixties and received scant attention for decades. Then, when it did, the focus was on identifying impacts and preparing for them, not solving the problem. Which brings up the slimy prospect: what if global warming is beneficial to humans, if only on balance. No one disputes the real impacts on sea level from melting of polar ice and the Greenland icecaps. Or, for that matter, the increase in frequency of anomalous weather events. The former is likely to be slow relative to the pace of human resettlement so that it doesn't pose a problem in most countries. (Crowded islands excepted). The latter is easily anticipated and partially internalized by various calamity and agriculture insurance policies. Changes in diurnal temperature patterns are anyway dwarfed by temperature changes from day to day...

AN ONLINE MARKET FOR EASEMENTS? Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar At the rate land is gobbled up by the rich, commercial establishments and real estate companies, (and looking at the exponent on the price projection) you might be excused for putting up your neighbor's land for sale and running away with the proceeds to Tonga! But seriously, in a land of a billion people, land is increasingly scarce. After all, we need land for roads, parking spaces, parks, cinema 'complexes', stadiums, malls, offices, palatial bungalows, cottages, hotels, entertainment parks – the list is endless. Look what suburban sprawl did to the US. If we followed them, there would be no rural hinterland to talk about. Even as things stand, our forest cover and our bio-diversity is being raped by an economy that only cares for GDP growth and profits at the bourses. If things continue at this pace, India will be one vast stretch of concrete interspersed with asphalt from Kargil to Kany...

Corruption, Desi Style! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Many heads have pondered over it, much has been written on it, and many a shelves have been filled investigating it that you'd wonder what I have to add to the phenomenon of corruption - short of suggesting the use of electric eels on the corrupt with divine or better yet, satanic intervention! But seriously, is corruption merely the lubricant that turns the wheels of the economy or is it the proverbial spanner in the wheels of progress? From the farmer who must bribe the bank officer before he signs the loan papers, the widow who must borrow to bribe to receive her husband's death certificate that qualifies her for insurance, the anxious parent in two minds about bribing the Principal to secure his child's admission, to the impatient guy all too willing to part with a few big notes to the license officer to drive away with his new SUV, all are examples of how corruption pervades the daily life of c...