We have realized that we have been so busy, taking care of our day-to-day responsibilities & accountabilities, that we have started ignoring the state our community, society and our country is in.

We have started believing that we already have our hands full with things we have to handle in our personal life and have no time to think about the issues that plague our country, like corruption, illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, etc.

These issues affect us in our day-to-day life, especially when we deal with the local municipal corporation, government bodies, regulatory bodies, local politicians or various institutions (including schools & colleges). Almost everywhere where we want to get something done, things rarely happen without an ‘under the table’ payment. But just because we feel that we don’t have the time to fight against the system and the corrupt culture, we choose to pay the bribe and get our job done. And that is how we contribute to that corrupt culture and feed it, due to which it continues to grow.

The corruption is so bad that it has reached a level where even if our dealings, payments, records & documentations are authentic & in integrity, we need to pay some fixed amount to ensure that we aren’t dragged into some unnecessary trouble. It has always been a frustrating experience for me whenever I have received a call from a team member asking for permission to pay a bribe to a government official to get a job done. But after a while, I forget about it and move on with the belief that “One has to be practical in a business”. Besides the frustration, it’s been costing us money too, a substantial amount at that. But as a business organization, we have included that as an additional overhead and have got used to living in this corrupt environment.

The courageous & bold initiatives of Shri Anna Hazare have triggered us to think that:

…we have to spend more years in the country than he has to (he is already 74 years old). Hence, he is actually fighting for us.

…our generation and our children could live in a “Corruption Free India”.

…we could live with the feeling that our country’s political & bureaucratic system has strong value systems.

…we could respect and honour the various institutions in our country.

…we could live in a society which is based on honesty, integrity, fairness and selflessness.

…we could be free from the frustrating experience of paying bribes to get the smallest job done.

…we and our children could be Proud of our Country!

As an expression of our commitment towards this cause of a “Corruption Free India”, we at Newreka, have chosen to contribute two days of work of all our team members. This is not a holiday, but a paid-off, where Newreka is freeing its team from all day-to-day responsibilities so that they can dedicate the time (which other-wise would have been dedicated to serve the organization) to connect with our country and think about the country’s needs.

A 74yr old man is selflessly fighting for a huge and a deserving cause. He is willing to stretch himself (physically & emotionally) and completely devote himself (body, mind & soul) for the noble purpose of a Corruption Free India. He has ignited a fire, to which if all of us contribute, can take the shape of a revolution and can cause a completely new reality for our country. We invite you to partner with Shri Anna Hazare through whatever means you choose.

We invite you to take this opportunity to think about our country for two days. Dedicate yourself and contribute to creating a county we would be proud of!

We invite you to come forward and make a difference for the country that has given you the life that you have now. If the critical mass of this country, people like you and me, won’t do anything, who will?

We invite you to get in touch with 100 people from your network (family members, relatives, friends and colleagues), and ignite & inspire them to contribute to this cause in whatever way they choose to.

Attempts to reach Sterlite by phone and email were unsuccessful, but the company has previously stated that the projects are separate and that indigenous tribes were consulted.
To the activists, the fact that this argument is still going on is a victory of sorts. Although the refinery has been built, the mining has not yet begun because of these legal challenges. In a country still known for having failed to remediate the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in modern history, environmental regulation has come a long way. Twenty-five years ago, on December 3, 1984, at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, a tank of methyl isocyanate leaked 40 tons of toxic gas into the nearby community. Estimates of the death toll vary, but at least 3000 people were killed instantly and thousands more died later from health problems caused by the leak. At the time, India did have legislation to regulate air and water pollution, but it did not have comprehensive environmental protections in place. Reports from numerous outside groups, including Amnesty International, have noted that the Bhopal plant did not employ safety precautions on a par with those at similar Union Carbide plants in the U.S. These reports have also faulted decisions that led up to the gas leak, including how the methyl isocyanate was stored, as well as the company’s failure to provide the community and surrounding hospitals with toxicity information immediately after the leak. In 1989, the Indian Supreme Court approved a compensation fund of approximately $470,000 that has so far granted compensation to about 500,000 people, but critics argue that many who were left disabled by the leak have been turned away. To this day, the site has not been fully remediated. A statement on the website of Dow Chemical, which acquired Union Carbide, says that “although Dow never owned nor operated the plant, wesalong with the rest of industryshave learned from this tragic event, and we have tried to do all we can to assure that similar incidents never happen again.” Even though the former Union Carbide site has yet to be fully remediated, environmental awareness and activism have grown in India, as in other countries, during the intervening years. A paper in the India Infrastructure Report 2002 noted that India had about 20 times more environmentally oriented non-governmental organizations at that point than in 1985. And the disaster precipitated important environmental legislation. In 1986, the country’s Environment Protection Act, which empowers the central government to control pollution and protect the environment, was passed; the country’s Air Act was amended in 1987 and its Water Act in 1988. In 1994, another law required those who want building permits to obtain environmental impact assessments. In 1997, public hearings became part of the environmental assessment process.

In the early 1990s, the Supreme Court interpreted Article 21 of India’s constitution, which guarantees the right to life, as including the right to pollution-free air and water. At the same time, however, the country’s economy is surging. Between 2003 and 2008, India’s GDP grew at an average rate of 8.8% per year, according to the State of Environment Report India 2009 from the MOEF. In India, as in so many other places worldwide, development and environmental protection are often at odds. “Our Environment Protection Act is one of the best in the world,” says Moulika Arabhi, the program coordinator of the Centre for Environmental Law at WWF-India’s office in New Delhi. However, she notes that the law, as well as the country’s water and air acts are decades old and that “the environment has undergone drastic degradation, and the causes for such degradation have changed…. What is required is to identify loopholes, create clauses to make it watertight, and repeal those rules which are not effective.” To better understand how effectively India’s laws help balance Environmental conservation with development, Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon, researchers with the Delhi-based environmental organization Kalpavriksh, analyzed data on environmental impact assessments clearances. The researchers were concerned that they had observed instances of companies not fully complying with requirements after receiving clearances. Using India’s Right to Information Act, they counted the total number of clearances granted between 1986 and August 2008 and collected detailed data on clearances granted in 2003. In 2003, 223 building clearances were granted. When clearances are granted, developers are required to submit followup monitoring reports every six months. In addition, officials from the six regional offices of the MOEF may conduct site visits to monitor projects. In a report released earlier this year, Kohli and Menon found that with two to four scientists in each of those six offices and 4016 total clearances granted between 1986 and 2006, the ministry simply doesn’t have enough staff to enforce its rules. “Out of 223 projects [cleared in 2003], only 150 projects have reported [on] compliance at least once in the years between 2003 and 2007. In the Southern region alone, 30 out of 75 cleared projects have never submitted a compliance report,” they note. And they found some interesting reporting habits, such as one company that submitted five identical compliance reports. Similarly, ministry offices reported being able to visit only a fraction of the development projects in their region each year. The challenges are only likely to increase in coming years. In 2006, the environmental impact assessment process was streamlined, and by August 2008, 2016newprojects had been cleared for constructions slightly more than half the total that was cleared in the previous 20 years. “The basic bias of the government of India is to push through all development projects,” says Armin Rosencranz, a former Stanford University professor and coauthor, along with Shyam Divan, of Environmental Law and Policy in India. (The book’s second edition was published in 2001.) India’s courts provide one avenue through which citizens can challenge development projects. In recent decades, environmental lawsuits have increased at all levels, all the way up to the country’s Supreme Court, notes Rosencranz. This led to the creation in 1997 of a body designed specifically to hear challenges to the environmental clearances granted by the MOEF. Because such appeals relate to projects ranging from power plants to airports to mining, the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) was structured to include members with technical expertise who could help the tribunal with complicated scientific questions.

In a commentary Rosencranz wrote last summer while serving as a visiting fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (known as ATREE) in Bangalore, he argued that most of the technical appointments had gone to people who did not possess the needed skill sets. Rather, he wrote, “it seems obvious that the posts of technical member(s) of theNEAAhave become retirement jobs for superannuated officers from the MOEF and the state government. This is not only unseemly and corrupt; it also deprives the NEAA of expert members who could render careful and knowledgeable decisions on crucial ecological issues.” The result, he argued, is that the NEAA dismisses the majority of petitions that come before it. In 2007, local activist Prafulla Smanthra challenged the environmental clearance for the Vedanta aluminum smelting plant in Orissa, and the petition was dismissed. Such dismissals are common; the next step is for cases to be filed in the traditional courts. Although India’s courts take on environmental cases, such challenges are not always easy. In the U.S., attorneys often take such cases on contingencys that is, they are paid out of any money they obtain for their clients. That system does not exist in India, so petitioners must either pay out of pocket or rely on a small group of nonprofit attorneys who have come to specialize in environmental issues. “Litigation in India is incredibly slow and costly, unless there’s a constitutional claim,” says Rosencranz. “Cases can take 10 to 20 years.”

A proposal that was tabled in Parliament in August and is expected to be considered this fall would create a fast-track court called the National Green Tribunal that would replace the NEAA and hear all environmental cases. Whether it will be an improvement over the existing system is unclear. “The concern here is the existing National Environment Appellate Authority has been criticized for its record of dismissing all but one petition in the last 12 years. So, one has to wait and watch,” says WWF-India’s Arabhi. Back in Orissa, the battles continue. The refinery is operational, although the company is importing raw materials from outside the state. Andeven that operation is facing challenges: on July 13, Orissa’s state pollution control board issued notices to the aluminum refinery charging that particulate matter in the refinery’s emissions exceeded the upper limit of 100 milligrams per cubic meter and that the company was discharging untreated wastewater with high levels of fluoride; this was reported in India’s leading environmental magazine, down-to-earth. A company representative told the magazine that Vedanta would comply with the pollution board’s direction. The mining project has taken longer to get off the ground. The company has stated that it plans to begin mining in 2010. A preliminary environmental clearance, which environmentalists are challenging, was issued in spring 2009. In September, the U.K. government issued a critique of Vedanta, arguing that the company had ignored the rights of tribal communities in the Niyamgiri Hills, and both local and international protests continue. “The success is that since 2004, the company has still not been able to begin mining, which itself is an important indicator,” says Kohli.

Published by American Chemical Society

Industrial Green Chemistry Workshop (IGCW 2009) is a workshop where the participants can understand, realize, and explore the ways to implement green technologies to enhance the economical and environmental competitiveness of the chemical industry. The three-day workshop, based on the 9-Eye (I) Approach, will gradually take the participants through different aspects of industrial green chemistry.

All the three days will focus on their respective themes. The final day of the workshop will encompass specific requirements of industries for implementing IGC, and thus elucidate ecological and economical impact concerning the process, production, project, operation managers, vice-presidents, etc. The theme for the last day would be Implementation, Industrialisation, and Impact. Consequent to the keynote address by Dr. Amy Cannon on Green Chemistry: From classroom to manufacturing, Dr. Joe Armstrong, Dr. Shailendra Singh, and Dr. Gottumukkala V Subbaraju will elaborate on ways to implement IGC to achieve triple bottom line of Planet, People, and Profit.

Dr. Joseph Armstrong will speak on Green Chemistry through Innovation at Merck. He will highlight on the development of an environmentally benign alternative manufacturing route to sitagliptin, the active pharmaceutical ingredient in JANUVIA®. He will speak about how Merck and Codexis have collaborated to discover and develop a transaminase capable of catalyzing the production of chiral amine from a complex ketone precursor in high yield and nearly perfect enantioselectivity. Dr. Shailendra Singh will speak on how the conventional method for niacin production is less efficient and highly pollutant and forms a big threat to environment and overall community. Consequently, he will elaborate on innovative and sustainable ways of producing niacin viz., niacin production via catalysis, where chemical  conversion consisting a  number of individual reaction steps, are brought about in one reaction step by applying multi-functional catalyst, making the process much more cleaner, greener (eco-friendly), and carbon efficient. Further, Dr. G. V. Subbaraju will elaborate on green technology for the esterification of carboxylic acids presenting details from many successful examples. Wow! Isn’t it really an all-encompassing session!

I am definitely going to be a part of this workshop. What about you?