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

'Byte Credits (and Byte Penalties)' – Online Gateway to Social Equity? Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar With so many email solicitations, pop-up windows for shopping and online survey invitations, it is questionable whether one ever gets to the important stuff on the internet beyond glamor girls, cine awards and afternoon gossip-metamorphosed to late-evening internet chats. You know, stuff like emerging technology, social policy initiatives and documents, financial meltdown, global warming, reports from riot commissions, hygiene and nutrition, advances in medicine, groundbreaking scientific discoveries, theses, court opinions, ... the list is endless. The sad answer, for most of us internet addicts, is No! Despite immediate access, we are limited in what we surf and learn on the world-wide web. In a manner, we are deluged by the inane on the net, and left with little time for the sublime. Years back, I realized those seeking our participation in surveys on th...

Neo-Socialist Per-Capita Economics Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/ The prophets of doom have spoken. And for once, the financial meltdown did turn those prophecies true. The stock markets, banks and financial institutions fell like nine pins (and with them, the thick volumes of budget and five-year plan documents) when the big daddies pulled the plug on the bourses. They knew better than to expect 50% returns year after year. ( Now is not the time to speak of the small investor who lost his house and family to the crisis by following the 'invest and hold long' strategy. Sucker!!!!!) With the threat of an economic collapse following the financial crisis still in the air, and with the upcoming global warming negotiations already casting their long shadow on the industry, the governments of the world are groping for ideas to grow their economy. Like? Keynesian Economics? Neo-classical laissez faire? Neo-Keynesian Economy? Been there done that! So what's new? Macr...

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,...