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olla

Cost Effective Solution to save Coconut trees during forth coming water scarcity months due to El Niño : Olla Irrigation - Ancient Wisdom for Modern Droughts. 🏺 Echoes of Ancient Clay pot Irrigation Long before the term olla entered agricultural vocabulary, ancient Tamil farmers practiced remarkably similar methods. In Sangam‑era Tamilakam, clay vessels called “ māṇ paṇai ” or “kulam paṇai” were used to store and seep water near tree roots - especially for coconut, banana, and areca palms.   These pots were often placed in earthen basins (thottam) lined with coir, husk, and leaf mulch, creating a natural moisture‑retention system. Inscriptions and temple garden records from regions like Pollachi, Thanjavur, and Madurai mention such paṇai neer vaḻi (pot‑water channels) as part of sustainable irrigation networks.  This continuity of wisdom - from ancient Tamil pot irrigation to modern olla systems -  shows how indigenous knowledge can guide regenerative farming in the...

Alcoholism, Alcohol Consumption on Rise, Human Resources going waste

BRAIN, LIVER, STOMACH, HEART, KIDNEY and almost all organs are affected by alcohol. CANCER, High blood pressure, several deficiencies and diseases are caused by alcohol. As an Environmental Toxicologist I studied about the damages that alcohol can do to the human body. So many articles on effects of alcohol and alcoholism are available in internet. Even though these many dangers exist - young people tend to drink more and more alcohol. Again due to the greediness of people , young people's life are put into danger. This year's alcohol sale in TamilNadu reached 13 crore Rs. Kerala also has equal amount of sales. Where is the youth going towards? During my last visit to Tamilnadu and Kerala, I saw so many people flocking towards the liquor stores. Whole society is turning bad, we are losing youth to alcohol monster and it is going to haunt us for long. Human resources are going waste because of the alcohol consumption. Hoping and praying to God that youngst...

Blood Boils, Hunger Death, God give Good Heart

I just read this in a Tamil newspaper. In Tamil In a city called Kanchipuram (famous for silk), one elderly person (90 years old) could not take care of his handicapped daughter because of hunger. Both of them fainted because they did not have anything to eat. The elderly person did not even know that his daughter died because he himself was not in sense due to hunger. To Politicians & Administrators of Tamilnadu: Do something SOON - You have the power to help people and please admin properly. You have got enough money to build a buiding for supportless senior citizens. This would not cost much. If you have a program for senior citizens it will create jobs and elderly people will be taken care. I pray to God to give you the right heart to do atleast some good, so we do not hear such tragedies. True leaders were there long back and they have guided you. Those golden words were never followed and these tragedies are occuring even now. Senior Citizens" But...

True Sustainable Development for growth of good society

A picture says more than lots of writing: While politicians steal (uncountable zero digits after a normal number) large amount of money, I pray to God that they do something good for their fellow mankind. One more prayer: We dont need one more senseless war. Praying to bring peace for North and South Korea brothers and sisters.

Environmental Justice

I had written an earlier blog post: Industries over Environment Just saw a program on how indusries (especially foreign industries) are built by covering dried water bodies. Even though these industrial programs have programs towards greening the environment, they have done everything against environment in building these industries in Sriperumbudur, India. Another earlier blog: Eco Vs Eco One future environmental engineer asked me the following question regarding the above blog post: hello dr.makesh, Considering your opinion on the Environment Ministry's decision on disallowing Vedanta from mining bauxite in Orissa I have a doubt. Where do you think should we draw a line between environmental importance and economic importance? Since I am new to this field I am still confused what viewpoint to take! I have an opinion that in the name of environmental protection we should not be a barrier to development (in this case bauxite is very important for us too). Please cor...

ECO vs eco

In an earlier post I had said about eco Vs ECO (eco represented environment and ECO represented ECONOMICS) and always the later won. Also was hoping that one day that tables would turn. I did not think it would turn that way this soon. Earlier Post on 07/2010 Now it ECO vs eco - here ECO is environment and eco - is economic. This time Environment is saved: Environment authorities of India rejected proposals to mine the mountain (Billions of $s), which would have affected the tribes. The government has also stopped a $12-billion steel plant proposed by South Korea's POSCO in Orissa. Earlier Post on 08/2008 What people do not consider is the economics involved in environmental disasters. Health related expenses due to environmental and ecological issues. A day will come when economics of environmental disaster will be added to overall economics. That time Environment (Eco) will take over Economics(eco). Makesh Karuppiah, PhD Environmental Scientist & Information Techno...

eco vs ECO

Sustainable Land Development Project: eco vs ECO - Title implies that lower case eco is for environmental and UPPER CASE ECO for ECONOMICS. May be one day we can change that. As our aim is to use natural resources, we tried to bring in the solar and wind power to EA Farms. However initial queries for these ended up with huge cost estimates. We contacted a company that produces water from wind. Their technology is good, but the quote for the system was above our limits. Then we contacted another company for solar and wind energy Combo unit. This cost was also high. Our power requirement will be minimum and hence we are planning to go with regular power resources (which we have several issues also :-)) rather than SOLAR & WIND Energy for time being. As always Economics take over precendence over Environment. But we will not give up. EA Farms will conform with minimal usage of power and try use renewable resource as we move forward.

WATER FOR EA FARMS

Water for the farm. As water is one of the key elements of farming, and our land has no water resource we were all praying for the help and guidance from heaven. The prayers were always there in the back of my mind even though I was involved in other activities. 14-06-2010 Finding water points at the land. I spoke to Ravi aka captain on finding the water points at the land. This is an amazing exercise. Few humans are blessed with this power of locating the water points. Their body reacts to the ground water. Different people have different techniques, some use wooden sticks, some use metal rods, while some use water in a plastic pot. The water pot jumps around when they carry it around at the location where there is water beneath. Though Ravi himself has this capability he did not want to try for a huge land, as he has done only for building plots, which is much smaller in size. But he recommended one Mr. Ramasamy, an aged man; I guess he should be in his late 50s or early 60s who ...

India Visit

I recently visited India. Positives I noted: Highways between cities - were good. Road travel is getting better ( Still improvements are needed such as Direction Boards, Solar lights, more trees on the side of the roads etc. More work needs to be done inside the cities regarding traffic and roads. It is ultimate chaos inside the cities). Businesses are blooming. Business buildings are excellent with International standards. Negatives: Unfortunately, I had to attend a funeral. The burial ground was horrible. It was not at all walk able. Cleanliness was never there. The last ritual should be done in a clean place. Here it was opposite. There are so many rich educated people living in each and every town (especially this town), I am not sure why they left the burial grounds like this. Also, I saw so many young people standing in long lines in liquor shop. I was so much worried how many resources are going waste. Already so many people's health are deteriorating be...

EA Project - Moving Forward - Hats off to Brother

Next step in EA Project. We have the main person in the project area now. He sacrificed the following things for EA Project: PR from a foreign country. Senior level job at a bank IT department. Comfortable life - to look after EA Projects, Farming activities and To development an environmental research area which is even without power as of now. Hats off to my brother Karuppiah Chandrasekar (KC). Healthy Activities - Healthy Lifestyle

IPL BIG MONEY - WHY NOT PROVIDE TO POOR CHILDREN PLAYING CRICKET

In 2008 I wrote the following in my blog: My View: With all the profits IPL made, they should atlease provide shoes, gloves and equipments to the underpriviliged children who play cricket in villages of the corresponding teams. RICH-POOR INJURY DUE TO PLAYING CRICKET WITHOUT SHOES: It is the third successful IPL season (moneywise)- IPL has become second to NBA based on first-team salaries on a pro-rata basis (Global Sports Salary Review). I read in news only about - main IPL cricket people fighting for millions and billions for cricket franchises. News: Pune was bought by Sahara Adventure Sports Group for $370 million, the Kochi franchise was bought by Rendezvous Sports World Limited for $333.3 million We were offered $50m to quit - Kochi franchise WIKI ON IPL Never ever read that these teams provided any shoes or cricketing materials (may cost only thousands for them) to any village school children playing cricket.

EXPIRED DRUGS MAKING BACK TO MARKET WITH FRESH LABELS

How can people do this: Bringing back Expired drugs into the retail market by fixing fresh labels bearing new manufacturing and expiry dates. As a person who loved studing Toxicology, I was astonished to see how people could do this. How many people would have been affected by this. Drugs would act differently after expiry date. It sure would have killed so many people and would have created toxic reaction to various people instead of treating them. Is money that important for these people above the health of the other person. Will this person give expired medicines to his mom, dad, children and dear ones? Please people never do these type of business. Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, India should perform regular test on random samples from market to eliminate this type of business. We have visionary leaders who wanted to take countries forward. Think about their sacrifices. Even if you cannot do 1% of Good that they did, do not do anything bad. I am sorry ...

Natural Calamities - Needs Monitoring & Alerting Systems

We are in 21st century and still facing enormous amount of deaths due to natural calamities. We know about the plate tectonics several years before. We know several countries lie in the Earth's fault layers. We have excellent structural engineers and several quality institutes conducting geological, civil and structural engineering, environmental and monitoring research. Authorities who work for welfare of World such as United Nations should provide monitoring devices to countries that mandatorily require monitoring systems. These systems can monitor future natural disasters and can signal or alert people to move to safe zone. Builidngs should be built with earth quake resistance capability. Several studies have been made for earth quake resistance capability building with minimal cost. These information needs to be provided and implemented in all countries atleast along the fault lines. This type of work should have been started in 20th century even. Better Late than Ne...