India Summer Visit 2017

I had a chance to visit India this summer - 2017. (Previous Trip).

As usual wonderful time spent with family and friends.

Morning - attended cricket nets 

Me and Coach 

if the monsoon rains were not there.

Then visited friends, had lunch with them and had lots of discussions (Quality Time).

Mainly visited EA Farms.

After 7 years of hard work by my brother, it has shaped up very well.
He has planted more than 1000 trees and plants.

-

Monsoon this season has slightly helped. Praying for more rains.
It is shaping up as we envisioned. Still waiting for agricultural (utility - Power) current (We still did not get it after 7 years).
Solar power has cut the power dependency into half.
Agro-Forest area has some trees grown tall.
We have added VanaRaja and GrahmaPriya Chickens to the farm. They bring aesthetics and clean up worms that forms flies.

They are good addition to the farm apart from cows and goats.

Still planning to plant more trees. My brother is also playing an important role on
Organic Farmers Cluster

which includes a girl with MBA degree doing agriculture. I spoke to some of the members and they were very keen to produce chemical free pure agriculture products. I discussed about value added products. How they need to sun dry the products and make it as powder or oil, which can survive for longer period and fetch them more money.

Also my Scientist friend Dr. Hatha visited me and we went to the farm. He had brought some trees and we planted them.

During the middle of the vacation, we had a road trip to great historic temples such as Kanchi Kamatchi, Thiruvanamalai and Chidambaram Thilai Nataraja Temple. Great temples.

During this visit saw Cauvery which has the name Aganda Cauvery (Wide Cauvery) but it was Varanda Cauvery (no water Cauvery). Felt bad.
Still saw lorries queued up for getting the river soil (sand).
Most of these parts are covered by Karuvelam trees (Prosopis Juliflora) and plastic bags strewn across the land.

Highways were good. Some of them were even good as American Highways.
However the interior villages are still bad. Big pot holes in the road, No proper street lights and fundamental infra structure.
Indian villages are considered as backbones of India. So they must have all the basic infrastructure by which it will become the country envisioned by Dr. Kalam.

I wish and pray when I visit India next time these Villages will Shine brightly and I would say without hesitation that India has grown and developed as Dr. Kalam has told.

Until then we will do our part.

Rainbow at EA Farms

Prayers, EA Farms, Modern Environmentalism, EA IT Data DEN

Let me start by saying from bottom of my heart

  Les prières sont avec vous, chers frères et sœurs de France

 Praying, Praying, Praying for these type of violent acts not to happen again. As environmentalists we are worried about small creatures including plants and could not comprehend the human deaths that happens due to violence. All we can do is to pray to the almighty, so these does not happen again in the face of Mother EARTH.

 Again we had some hurdles on our projects, but came up with positives with the help of prayers from friends and family. We had good rain in the EA Farms area. So it is positive for us. Swale had increased the ground water plume as we envisioned. Hopefully we will have good results soon. Hard Positive Work pays off, for sure. EA Farms - From barren chemically induced land to Sustainable Organic Natural Agricultural Land. EA Farms Agro forestry area should also benefit from these rains.

 One negative I see from these rainy days in Tamilnadu, is we are still not ready in Water Management field. We all learn from mistakes, Hopefully we will be ready before the next one.

 Another dream of mine is coming close. In 2011, I wanted to start writing a book on Environmental Topic. I wanted to give my experience and my journey as Environmental Scientist to the World. Finally I have completed it titled - Modern Environmentalism - I have send it to my friend to write foreword. Hopefully it will be available soon as an eBook at enviroapps websites.

Modern Environmentalism - eBook

In this book I have reinstated that we have come to a point that we cannot avoid pollution, however we need to take action to reduce it, counter act by doing positives such as planting trees for the benefit of future generations.

On the Information Technology side, with my experience and our team's experience  in Data, Data Analysis, Databases and other IT areas, we created EA_IT_DATADEN website where one can learn databases and IT topics.

Learn Database - website

Hopefully people interested and want to enter database field will benefit from this website. This learning experience is simple and efficient and we have several success stories.

Praying on Diwali day - Let the light shine on Mother Earth positively and bring peace

Rain at EA Farms, Modern Environmentalism Book, EA IT Data DEN for learning are the positives during this period. Again praying for only positives.

Tribute to Dr. Abdul Kalam

With heavy heart and tears writing this, Dr. Kalam left us on 27 July, 2015 to be with God in Heaven.
Always prayed to God to send more people like him to Earth. However his legacy is still with us. Observing the condolences in the social media, we can see how many followed him. He had a vision to make the world better and his last speech was on Livable Planet. Most of us will follow his vision.

When I was in Maryland doing my research, I had visited Wallops Island Flight Facility and saw his signature there in the visitor's book.

That day I thought it will be nice to see him in person. After several years that dream came true, we met him in Casselberry temple.

He gave excellent speech during Gandhi Jayanthi  in the temple hall. He told everyone of us to contribute to others.

I still follow that, contributed and contributing my knowledge, experience to guide others in Environmental and Information Technology fields to make their life better and ask them to contribute to others.

Created projects that will help lots of people -

EA FARMS - Sustainable Organic Natural Agricultural Land Development

EAPHARMICS - Stability information for medicines

ZoomVin  - Creating environmental awareness through creating suitable ecological areas and photography.

His books in my collection:

"You have to dream before your dreams can come true" - Quote by Dr. Kalam.

He had asked several people including actors to plant trees.

My 8th Grade Niece's Tribute to Dr. Kalam

I have a dream to create sustainable environments and it is coming true. I will contribute to it as Dr. Kalam envisioned.  We have planted so many useful trees at EA Farms. RIP Dr. Kalam.

Education, Graduation, Future, Contribute

Last week I attended a graduation ceremony in one of the big University (UCF). It was lovely atmosphere. Diversified youngsters who worked hard for their degrees lined up in their graduating gowns, caps with tassels and hoods. It was wonderful and powerful atmosphere with their parents, friends and families cheering them. 

Education is not easy, especially getting one from traditional universities. Price is high, hard work needs to be put in, to reap the benefits. It was the time for these young students to start reaping the benefits of their education. They had their master's and  bachelor's degrees and could see the ultimate happiness when they had their degree. I wish them all the best success in real World.

Graduation Ceremony

I remember the time, when I graduated 20 years back. It was a PhD in Environmental Sciences.  

With my Ph.D guide Dr. Gupta

I was trying to get into teaching research career and want to guide as many students I could and publish as many research papers as I can. However the life takes you (similar to a river - changing directions) to a path as it wishes. So be ready for whatever path you get into and do the best as you can.

It is great to see graduates doing wonderful things such as this:

Lots of people in the World, even though they want, do not have the opportunities as we all did - graduating from an United States University. I have traveled and visited universities in many parts of the World. They do not have have the facilities, area, equipment and atmosphere for the education as we did. Think about your global counterparts (your age) who are in war torn areas, poor and cannot afford to study. This education has given more to you than to them, opened welcoming door to achieve more than those people. So when you fly high, please contribute to the World - it can be even simple thing such as sharing your knowledge (even through internet). It can be a guide to everyone who wants to follow and become like you. When I did not get the opportunity I wanted, I had the aspiration to co find a company called 
EnviroApps - An Environmental & Information Technology Company. 

That led to EAPHARMICS - Electronic Pharmaceutical Applications - Stability Testing Software

and EA Farms - Sustainable Organic Natural Agricultural Land Development. 

                                                        

I think and feel better that I did some justice to my education and contributed what I feel is appropriate. 

I have also trained, guided lots of people who have succeeded in their life and I will continue to do that. I wish and hope that these youngsters who graduated will grow into leaders and take the World into a wonderful path, moving forward. Wherever you are, strive hard to get education and guide others to get that knowledge. All other things may give temporary joy, but in long run it will not be good. So let us be positive, contribute with our education, knowledge we acquired through the education and show the World the right path for a better place to live. 
Makesh Karuppiah, Ph.D

Trees in Agroforestry

TREES ARE IMPORTANT

At EA Farms, we have planted all the following trees:

Black Wattle, Hickory Wattle, Mangium, and Forest Mangrove

Acacia mangium

Bread fruit

Artocarpus altilis

Jack fruit

Artocarpus heterophyllus

Papaya

Carica papaya

Sheoak, Ironwood, or Beefwood

Casuarina

Cannonball tree

Couroupita guianensis

Ebony

Diospyros ebenum

Fig 

Ficus glomerata

Vila

Limonia_acidissima

Mahwa, Illupai

Madhuca longifolia

Yellow jade orchid tree

Magnolia champaca

Mango

Mangifera

Sapodilla

Manilkara Zapota

Mountain Neem

Melia Dubia

Mulberry

Morus

Banana, Valai

Musa sp.

Nutmeg

Myristica fragrans

Kadambu

Neolamarckia cadamba

Vanni

Prosopis cineraria

Cherry

Prunus avium

Guava

Psidium guajava

Pomegranate

Punica granatum

Goose berry

Ribes grossularia

Rosewood

Rosewood

Soap berries

Sapindus emarginatus

Agathi

Sesbania grandiflora

Peenari

Sterculia guttata

Poison Nut

Strychnos nux-vomica

Mahogany

Swietenia mahogany

Naval

Syzygium cumini

Teak

Tectona grandis

Porti

Thespesia populnea

Lime

Tilia cordata

  

Japanese rosewood

Torreya nucifera

We know the importance of these trees. As part of our Agro-forestry area, these trees help in many ways in our Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture activities. They are mixture of medicinal, natural insecticides, fruit and several diversified useful trees.  These trees also help in integrated farming, nutrient cycling, water retention, soil enrichment and benefits animals and crops. Whenever you get a chance plant a tree

and maintain it.

For sure trees will provide benefits.

MRSA, India Trip, Environmental Projects

It has been a while since I updated enviroapps blog.

Trying to help a friend in his damaged house, somehow contracted MRSA bacteria. It was a very bad experience that I had to go through.

MRSA Prevention:
Keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand rub as soon as you come from an outing.
Thanks to immediate attention and prayers, I am back to normal after couple of months.

Also, I traveled to India. I could see the difference in India because of the economic boom.
People driving high end cars, roads are becoming better (Still not that excellent).
These temples were built more than 1000 years ago and look as fresh as a new structure.

Pillayarpatti

 Thanjavur

Since greed has taken over, the structures that has been built at recent past is withering away very easily.

Also, very little is focused on Environment and Pollution. Still Plastics are floating everywhere. Garbage thrown at will and nothing has improved on that issue. All roads should be like this with trees on the sides.

Anamalai Road

Few areas are clean, but doubt that they are pristine.

I heard that it was smelling pesticides before the rains. Thanks to good monsoon, the environment looks clean and not smelling pesticides.
Hopefully they will learn and make these areas pollution free and clean.

EA Farms project is moving forward as we envisioned. Dairy is moving along with several varieties of plants and trees being planted.
Within few years we will reap the benefits of these. I could smell fresh air from the variety of trees we planted there. Again rains have made it green. We are producing pure coconut without any chemicals and extracting very pure coconut oil. Also we are happy to produce milk that is uncontaminated and its pure bye- products. I had the most wonderful tasting butter from our farm. Peanuts that were grown also was very tasty. When I was young student, I had read in Tamil Mariyathai Raman Kadaigal that some one had fine lunch that consisted of thayir (yogurt) and agathi keerai (sesbania grandiflora also know as - august tree leaves or humming bird tree leaves) and it was the best food one could eat. I tried that and always felt that was so true. This time from EA Farms I savored the best yogurt and agathi keerai. Also I had the opportunity to feed agathi keerai to the cattle.

It was great pleasure to meet my professors in PSGCAS Environmental department. Dr. Palanivel and me went for lunch together and discussed various topics. He has started an Environmental lab - Greenlink Analytical and Research Laboratory (India) Private Ltd. 

I had the privilege to visit the lab and felt very happy. In this era of "REAL ESTATE BOOM", it feels better to know that people are still willing to do such endeavors. Thank God I had the opportunity to get guidance from such wonderful personalities.

Another day, we visited my friend Dr. Ravi's Aviculture farm - Wild County farm stay which is in Sethumadai - foothills of Topslip.

Wild County Farm Stay

                                                                 

I strongly recommend to stay at this place and enjoy nature at its best.
Very happy to see wildlife thriving at these areas.

Wild Monkeys

                                       

Nilgiri Tahrs

Overall had one of the best time of my life.