The first session of the Rural Transformation track was on the theme of ‘Inspire: Learn from success stories from the field’ (on 19th December at 2.00 pm). It was chaired by Ms.R.V.Bhavani of MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai. After the symbolic lighting of lamp, the array of speakers enlightened the eager audience with their really stirring stories of phenomenal success.

Harish Hande of SELCO Solar Light (P) Ltd narrated how rural electrification through solar energy has improved local economies and added subtly that economic disparity is, in fact, worse than terrorism. The root cause of many serious social problems is the existing economic disparity which can be often solved technologically.

R.Madhavan of Padapai Farms (he is more comfortable calling himself IITM Engineer-turned-farmer!) spoke about sustainable agricultural practices. Agricultural growth can best come from higher productivity which means a lot for a country like India where land and labour have to be optimised. Farm management is by itself a specialised discipline covering optimal use of soil, irrigation, tools and so on. Our practices actually consume more labour and cost in return for low yields, less than 40% as compared to better farm management. The importance of enhancing the agricultural productivity can be understood, he said, if we consider the fact that over 70% of livelihood is spent on food in India.

The architect of the Right To Information (RTI) Act, Ms. Aruna Roy impressed upon the audience with her forceful personality and enlightened them on how information can dramatically improve national producitivity. She pointed out that only by enabling democratic access to knowledge and information could we prevent more of 26/11’s. RTI can bring about national integration, boost image of the country and preserve the unity of India, she added. She appealed to the IIT forums to strive towards achiving this goal by concertedly mobilising ideas and opinions at the highest levels. She rephrased the popular slogan to say: “Janta Tum Aagai Bado, Desh Tumhare Saath Hai!”

Dr. GNS Reddy of BAIF (Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation. See www.baif.org.in) presented how better livestock management and use of local technologies have brought about sustainable economic development in rual areas. He appealed to the technologists that more research in livestock maintenance, especially in diagnostics/prognostics, could be done to prevent and control diseases. Also centralised control mechanism for breeding control, effective cross breeding and building up a national database on breeds can vastly improve livestock productivity and thus enhance incomes for rural families.

Popatrao Pawar, Village Sarpanch, Hiware Bazar, Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra told many interesting stories of how his village has now become a popular landmark.The contributions of the Yashvant Krishi Watershed Development Trust towards improving the ground water level in the area, thereby enhancing agricultural producivity and incomes for rural families were well known, considering the fact that there are 54 millionaires among 180 families in the village! He said that his village is free from mosquitoes, boasts of sufficient water throughout the year and generates sufficient employment from within. The achievement was due to the right application of local knowledge and local tools and technologies. He appealed that technologists must come forward and improve technology for education, health and infrastructure.

The session closed with the presentation by Dr. Ashok Khosla, Chairman of the Development Alternatives Group, Delhi. His slides were both interesting and enlightening. Understanding how nature has developed technology could solve a lot of our technological issues and also serious problems like climate change, desertification and floods can come from nature. We need to learn from nature, he said. He also said that his organisation has been working on compiling the best technologies from nature.

The speakers then answered many questions from the audience who had a lot to ask.

Post contributed by: M S Soundar

This is my first posting here. Hope it works.

When you have Bollywood stars like Hema Malini, cricket analysts like Harsha Bhogle, Indian Nobel winners like Amarthya Sen headling the Conference, the last thing you want to hear is that we are talking about the village people of India.

Yes, the PanIIT2008 Conference committee agreed almost a year ago to let this ‘crazy idea’ take roots.

And we now have one of the 6 parallel session titled “Rural Transformation”.

Instead of telling you all about this track, I will provide a link to you-

http://sites.google.com/site/ruraltransformationtrack/

happy to answer your questions on these

Ram krishnan - IITM alumnus