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It has been a common property. They have been freely saved and exchanged. When a company like Monsanto enters the seed supply system it does three things. The second thing the company does when it enters any country or region is in face erode the public supply, and undermine public research. I have seen ads with the god Hanuman bringing Monsanto seeds. Guru Nanak the founder of the Sikh religion selling Roundup. The model for economic life is for a bigger or bigger grab for diminishing resources.

All conflicts are resource conflicts, but they just look different because we are so diverse…and it is so easy to cover up the basic issue with these cultural things. Folk please excuse any spelling and grammar errors in this post. If you have any suggestions please contact me actnaturallyworldwide gmail.

I wanted to include an article from which speaks to the farmer suicides mentioned at the beginning of this post. By Andrew Malone Last updated at When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. The children were inconsolable. As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low. Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide.

He could see no way out. There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on — they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless — as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting. Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home miles from Nagpur in central India.

An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end. As neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything. But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.

Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts — and no income. So Shankara became one of an estimated , farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops. Ranged against the Prince are powerful GM lobbyists and prominent politicians, who claim that genetically modified crops have transformed Indian agriculture, providing greater yields than ever before.

So who is telling the truth? What I found was deeply disturbing — and has profound implications for countries, including Britain, debating whether to allow the planting of seeds manipulated by scientists to circumvent the laws of nature. For official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1, farmers kill themselves here each month.

Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonising deaths. Most swallow insecticide — a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops. It seems that many are massively in debt to local money-lenders, having over-borrowed to purchase GM seed. But, as I discovered during a four-day journey through the epicentre of the disaster, that is not the full story.

A Greenpeace protester sprays milk-based paint on a Monsanto research soybean field near Atlantic, Iowa. In one small village I visited, 18 farmers had committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands — only to kill themselves as well. Latta Ramesh, 38, drank insecticide after her crops failed — two years after her husband disappeared when the GM debts became too much. She left her ten-year-old son, Rashan, in the care of relatives. Village after village, families told how they had fallen into debt after being persuaded to buy GM seeds instead of traditional cotton seeds.

The price difference is staggering: Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks.

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The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post-independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U. In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution. Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years — up to 17 million acres — many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.

Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death. With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off.

Having taken loans from traditional money lenders at extortionate rates, hundreds of thousands of small farmers have faced losing their land as the expensive seeds fail, while those who could struggle on faced a fresh crisis. When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year. But with GM seeds they cannot do this. As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices.

For some, that means the difference between life and death. Take the case of Suresh Bhalasa, another farmer who was cremated this week, leaving a wife and two children. As night fell after the ceremony, and neighbours squatted outside while sacred cows were brought in from the fields, his family had no doubt that their troubles stemmed from the moment they were encouraged to buy BT Cotton, a geneticallymodified plant created by Monsanto.

Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide. Villagers bundled him into a rickshaw and headed to hospital along rutted farm roads. He sent his children to school and paid his taxes. They sell us the seeds, saying they will not need expensive pesticides but they do. We have to buy the same seeds from the same company every year. It is killing us. Please tell the world what is happening here.

They insisted that GM seeds were only 50 per cent more expensive — and then later admitted the difference was 1, per cent. With rumours of imminent government compensation to stem the wave of deaths, many farmers said they were desperate for any form of assistance. Prince Charles is so distressed by the plight of the suicide farmers that he is setting up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation, to help those affected and promote organic Indian crops instead of GM.

As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds. He just said it was better to die. But the debt does not die with her husband: They will lose their land, joining the hordes seen begging in their thousands by the roadside throughout this vast, chaotic country. Here in the suicide belt of India, the cost of the genetically modified future is murderously high. Posted in Annam Brahma: According to Rodell and colleagues, it is being pumped and consumed by human activities — principally to irrigate cropland — faster than the aquifers can be replenished by natural processes.

The three states included in this study are labeled. In some of these subterranean reservoirs, the water may be thousands to millions of years old; in others, water levels decline and rise again naturally each year. Groundwater levels do not respond to changes in weather as rapidly as lakes, streams, and rivers do. So when groundwater is pumped for irrigation or other uses, recharge to the original levels can take months or years. Changes in underground water masses affect gravity enough to provide a signal, such that changes in gravity can be translated into a measurement of an equivalent change in water.

The satellites fly roughly miles apart, and microwave ranging systems measure every microscopic change in the distance between the two. The northern Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana have all of the ingredients for groundwater depletion: Rodell and colleagues had their case study. They found that groundwater levels have been declining by an average of one meter every three years one foot per year.

The loss is particularly alarming because it occurred when there were no unusual trends in rainfall. In fact, rainfall was slightly above normal for the period. The researchers examined data and models of soil moisture, lake and reservoir storage, vegetation and glaciers in the nearby Himalayas, in order to confirm that the apparent groundwater trend was real.

Nothing unusual showed up in the natural environment. Above write-up was originally published at nasa. It is reproduced as above for the information of readers of the Sikh Siyasat News. At the exact time I started writing this editorial, there were approximately ,, undernourished people and 1,,, overweight people in the world, source: Stop The Hunger Of those overweight, 5. What shocked me are the figures that followed:. Hunger, is a profitable and political tool. Not to mention, consumers have to be informed beyond the commercial and packaging.

What do you think? That is sound business sense. It is the only argument they have. My personal opinion is that what we see now is a byproduct of where the focus has turned. The number one rule for return on investment is that there must be continuous growth. How do you do that with crops? Similar to selling automobiles you have to create new models year by year. Hence, seeds are now, branded with special enhancements, and bought not saved. Do you really want to base your nutritional needs on advertising or the will of a hand full of companies?

That is what is happening. What it has done is shift the native diets of struggling nations to U. Remember how I started this post? At the exact time I started writing this editorial, there were approximately ,, undernourished people and 1,,, overweight people in the world. Stop The Hunger Of those overweight 5. So there are a billion overweight people and 9 million hungry. This does not however reflect the truth of the overall situation only the situation as is held in a dangerous paradigm of chemical dependency. As the saying goes, all that is needed for evil to prosper is that good men do nothing.

If nature can do it more efficiently, why pay money for a substandard product? This however, is just one letter, with a handful scientists representing the world from It sums up the concerns in the following few paragraphs. You will be able to move that gene from organism A to organism B. You will be able to know that the transfer was successful. You will be able to know that the gene is being expressed, and even that the function of the gene is being expressed. You will have also produced changes in the cell or the organism as a whole that are unpredictable.

You can ask the technical question and get the answer you are looking for. You can take a gene from A and put it into B. We now realize that there are a whole host of other questions. The technology point of view does not deal with these networks. It simply addresses genes in isolation. But genes do not exist in isolation. They all know what I know. The number of questions, the number of possibilities for what happens to a cell, to the whole organism when you insert a foreign gene, are almost incalculable. And the time it would take to assess the infinite possibilities that arise is beyond the capabilities of computers.

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How can this show make such a claim stating it as fact? One way of inarticulately arguing is by using ad hominem. Ad hominem is a fallacy where a persons character is attacked or they are defamed by name calling, in an attempt to discredit their argument. Here Penn and Tellers argument is that by blocking the implementation of new technology that could feed people, those objecting are ultimately curbing efforts to feed starving people. Name calling the other side discredits the concerns of the anti-GMO camp.

Those trying to block the technology, are arguing that the technology will have long term consequences that can backfire creating more malnutrition and an environmental disaster. This ignores the global outcry against GMOs and wrongly places the opposition in affluent nations. They are not affluent by any means. As a counter point, I turned to the research from an international non-profit focused specifically on grain. These underlying issues that can never be addressed by golden rice.

Although animal sources are expensive, inexpensive plant food sources are widely available. The variety of vitamin A rich plants available to grow is astonishing. So why supply vitamin A in rice only? Because this is the new model to sale. When the ceiling is met, output begins to decline but expenses continue to rise.. Meanwhile the local water supplies are ruined with pesticides and heavy metal contamination.

For example, there is a huge number of patents being filed on rice varieties now. Here are just a few:. The old way of looking at food supply and demand is giving way to a new emphasis on the changing diets of hundreds of millions of people. Those changes will substantially increase demand for grains, putting upward pressure on prices. All the action was in food supply, not food demand. Things are different today. Bugs and weather still affect production, but the biggest story is the growth of demand for meat by formerly-poor people around the world.

An ounce of meat takes about ten times as much grain as an ounce of grain eaten directly. Those animals have to be fed, after all. The exact ratio depends on the type of grain, the type of meat, the location of production, but the number is fairly huge in its impact. I might spend more on filet mignon and less on hamburger. Go to India, China, Indonesia. There are many millions of people moving from poverty into the middle class, or what is the middle class in their context. With higher incomes they are spending more on food.

In some cases they are adding calories, but in many cases they are shifting from grains and vegetables to add chicken, pork and beef to their diets. They would typically increase food spending by about four percent. A large portion of that four percent gain would go for more meat.

And meat has that to-1 ratio of grain demands. Our newly middle class family may be spending only four percent more on food, but it could have triggered a 40 percent increase in demand for grains. We all know that the world is getting richer, but the numbers are pretty dramatic. One estimate shows the middle class around the world increased by million people from through The global recession obviously reversed the trend temporarily, but further global growth will push middle class numbers up by another billion or so people.

Unless you believe that the emerging countries are going to turn around and head back to the stone age, you have to believe that demand for grain will rise disproportionately. But what about supply? Agricultural supply improvement has been the dominant trend for centuries. When Deng Xiaoping allowed Chinese communal farmers to divvy up their land into family plots, incomes quadrupled in less than a generation. That more than anything else set up China for rapid economic development. How much farther can productivity increase? In the Western world, productivity will increase as seeds and fertilizers and farming methods improve.

So the real question is how much yields can grow in the emerging countries. When labor is cheap, each weed can be pulled by hand. As labor gets more expensive, farming methods will become a little less productive on a per-hectare basis though far more productive on a per-person basis. Rising labor costs are already challenging manufacturers in China.

Challenges for farmers will be next. In short, I doubt that global agricultural production will keep pace with the demand that will occur at current price levels.

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So prices will rise. Not every single year, but on average over the next couple of decades, look for higher and higher grain prices. Selling prices will rise, as will the cost of buying grain to feed the animals. On average, livestock will be an OK business, but it will not benefit as dramatically as grain production. Certainly they do, though perhaps not in full detail.

The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank says that farmland values in their area have risen by 25 percent in the past year. Other areas of the country are showing similar gains. Hunger, is not a result of a lack of technology. Hunger is the result of a twist of priorities. As the previous Forbes analysis outlined, a shift to a meat diet in rising middle classes all over the world is creating the need for grain, which in turn is raising the price of grain.

More grain goes to feed cattle now than people! Do you really think the Green Revolution was about growing wheat and rice to feed brown people or the cow for the middle class plate? When one sales their farmland that was feeding their family for a finite amount, one now has to buy food, from that point onward. One has to rent from that point onward. The tight shorts, and cheap sweets really worth it? This story plays out all over the world and the story plays out according to plan. Then a flood came. What do you do in this situation?

However, it does take a layer of complexity out of the situation, and release farmers from having to pay back loans that they took out to buy their GE seeds when their harvest goes down to an act of violence or act of God. Take a look at what IS happening, not what you are told should happen. India approved Bt cotton in and within a few years yields increased dramatically. Louis, has noted 5 that most of the rise in productivity had nothing at all to do with Bt cotton.

It was down to other factors. They were told that, as the genetically modified seeds are insect resistant, there was no need to use huge amounts of pesticides. The opposite is true. And the way forward — more of the same. The failing technology can always be replaced with more technology that tries to offer a short-term fix. And this against a backdrop of reports of widespread collapsed Bt-cotton yields in Maharashtra at the end of last year 6. Scientific evidence must prevail. That much is true. The hijacking of governmental bodies for commercial gain alongside mendacity should have no place in policy making or in attempting to shape scientific discourse.

I truly believe his heart and intent was from a good place. He saw hunger as a production issue and created a high yielding dwarf variety of wheat thinking, as many did, that producing more wheat would solve hunger. Sadly, though the dwarf variety produced more, and proliferated wildly, it did so with decreased mineral content, in a monoculture. Draw one box, label it box 1 with five squares inside.

This whole box, box 2 is wheat. Just two generations ago, it was common for people to participate in their food production, exercising building strength and immunity while doing so. However, when people ate in season, and regionally their chances of gaining weight from one dominant food was much less.

The Global Epidemic of Malnutrition. In the developing world, there are million underweight children, nearly one in three. And in Africa, both the share and the absolute number of children who are underweight are on the rise. In the United States, 55 percent of adults are overweight by international standards. A whopping 23 percent of American adults are considered obese. And the trend is spreading to children as well, with one in five American kids now classified as overweight. Liposuction is now the leading form of cosmetic surgery in the United States, for example, at , operations per year.

World Watch Institute, Underfed and Overfed: Imagine a human mating with an elephant, and then trying to give birth to the offspring! Every farmer on this planet can create a hybrid planet with some pollen and good timing. Dirty white gold — Opinion — Al Jazeera English. India has the largest number of smallholder farmers in the World, million by some estimates.

From this army of workers one impoverished desperate man, or indeed woman, with a noose of debt around their neck takes his or her own life on average every thirty minutes, A statistic barely comprehensible, representing the tidal wave of suicides that has swept through the farming community in the last 15 years. The agrarian crisis of which farmer suicides are a tragic consequence is a mega calamity, rooted in one fundamental cause,which P. Shocking and destructive it should be seen as part of a greater whole of interconnected issues facing India.

Add to this the a day who attempt suicide and fail, the 2, that daily quit farming and the one and a half million family members affected by suicides, plus the millions facing the very issues that are driving the tragedy, and the scale of the inferno begins to be clear. Shocking, as they are, these figures are an indication only ; women are one of eight groups who are generally excluded from official data because most do not have title to land.

The major cause of this epidemic is indebtedness to banks and moneylenders, hiding behind the debt however is twenty years of market liberalization at the hands of the government that has withdrawn all agricultural support, failed to invest in irrigation, improve the availability of rural credit, or provide farmers with alternative seed purchasing options — other than GM shopping. HRGJ convey government statisticsstating: With the invasion of multinational corporate man came his agricultural weapon of choice, GM modified cottonseed.

The Monsanto Bt seed has flooded the Indian market, to the extent that in some Indian states it is now impossible to buy non-Bt seed, despite the unconvincing evidence to its efficacy. Costs of seed, fertilizers and pesticides, all incidentally supplied by the same company, have increased year on year. Now I have to pay between 2, to 3, rupees. And I need to apply it more and more every year.

As well as costing the earth the Bt cottonseed demands a great deal more water, a fact that is being hidden from Indian farmers unable to read the English instructions and water warnings on seed packaging — an accidental corporate oversight, no doubt. With poor irrigation, most farmers rely on rainfall to feed crops. When the monsoon rains fail, so does the crop, leaving the farmer with a massive debt to service and the prospect of further loans to continue farming the following year.

The lifeblood of the Indian farmer is in danger of becoming even more scarce as the government goes ahead with the privatization of water as we collectively shake our heads in disbelief and irrigation pathways, sold no doubt into the hands of Indian corporations. One doubts there are farmer, Dalit or Adivasi cooperatives in the bidding — so much for participatory democracy. Corporate responsibility beginning and ending at the door marked profit.

Dowries add to the mountain of debt for families in poverty, and widows under the unbearable pressure of huge debt and the burden of finding a husband for their daughters, may in desperation take their own lives. The cycle of debt has created a spiral of death and extended multiple suffering; Children whose Father or Mother commits suicide are forced to quit school or university and take up the reins of the farm. Entrapment the order of the day, keeping people in a position of permanent anxiety, depleted of energy and with no state support, completely at the mercy of market forces and unable to resist.

In the face of what is suicide on epidemic proportions the Indian government is guilty of appalling neglect, moral and legal- they are signatories to all the key international human rights conventions and are obliged to respect, protect and observe the human rights of farmers and their families. Instead, and in keeping with corporate politics, a plethora of fundamental human rights are being ignored.

HRGJ list the rights breached, as: It is the Indian way, according to Sainath: There have been 13 reports on farmer suicides, for example. Farmer suicides are a blood red stain of shame on the democratic pretentions of the Indian government that is duty bound and legally required to act on behalf of the men, women and children being marginalized in rural areas, many who have farmed the land for generations, and are now unable to compete against the machinery of economic fundamentalism that is crushing them totally.

Running education and social development programmes, supporting fundamental Social change and the human rights of individuals in acute need. May by Prabhupada News. When his crop is attacked by pests, Ram Krishna must do whatever he can to avoid losing the family land. Adding to his burden is another duty — his daughter has reached marrying age, and he must find the money for an expensive dowry.

Ram Krishna has just become a candidate for joining the ranks of the farmers who commit suicide in despair. Her family opposes her plans, which go against village traditions. Armed with a small camera from the production team, her video becomes part of the film. Should Indian formality be blamed? Devereaux — — 3. It took them almost five-and-a-half years to put the film together. We owed a lot to the people who had opened their hearts and hearths to two outsiders in their moment of grief. We could not betray their trust. But when a quarter of a million kill themselves, how can the government call it suicide?

The couple hold the government, multinational corporations and even certain sections of the media responsible for the condition of the cotton farmers in Vidarbha. They have lost respect for the media too for they feel that most of the media has been bought over by powerful politicians and multinationals. They had even organised a special screening for parliamentarians at the Constitution Club, for which they had invited the parliamentary standing committees on agriculture and rural development. The police and the Guardian Minister of Yavatmaal district did their best to stop us from going to film the funeral of Dinesh Gugul at Village Mendoli.

He was killed when the police opened fire at the farmers at the Cotton Mandi at Wani, on 6 December We argued with the police officers, but the seasoned, shrewd police-wallahs sent us to the Mandi where an angry mob of farmers charged at us and almost smashed our camera. We were asked to meet the Guardian Minister at the Circuit House.

As soon as we entered the Circuit House, a curfew was clamped at Wani. We finally reached Mendoli, defying the curfew. There is a demand for Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odiya versions as well. I congratulate the center for sustainable agriculture for taking up this initiative and I expect this from an organization like CSA but not from a media house.

So , I particularly thank Tv9 for taking up this initiative. This programme will be held in jublee hall for the next 3 hours. But in these 3 hours nearly 6 farmers will commit suicide in India and one among them is from Andhra Pradesh. And also in these 3 hours nearly farmers will attempt suicide. In these 3 hours nearly farmers quit agriculture forever. And that is our national figure.

According to and census, every day farmers are quitting agriculture. Nearly 16 state governments had written to union agriculture ministry that there are no farmer suicides in their states. But the paradox is NCRB figures are a result of data collected from their police stations only. The data is collected from the individual police stations and then send to the DCRB district crimes record bureau and from there to state government. Andhra Pradesh government had reported 40 farmers suicides during this year. The NCRB data is available only for the past 16years that is from to and it tells us that more than farmers have commited suicides only in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

From this data we can see whether the trend in the suicides rates is increaing or decresing. If we look at the first 8 years data the from to the number of suicides were 12, From — the suicides are 18, The annual average has gone up by deaths. Despite this the state government of A. P claims only 40 suicides in the year. This proves that the government is denying its own data which is also the case with other states. P at least claimed about 40 suicides but nearly 16 states reported that there were no farmer suicides at all , so in a way we should appreciate the A.

P Government for reporting atleast 40 suicides. The total number of farmer suicides in India from onwards were more than 2,56, This data is not confidential or classified , you can check this data on the NCRB website. We were the ones who pressurised the Govt to publish the data. But this is not the complete data because many of them are not included such as: You can check out these statistics in the district of Anantapur from A. Even after excluding all these people the number of farmer suicides comes down to 30, which is of serious concern for Andhra Pradesh.

My appeal to all political parties is not to get in to a defensive mode because it is not about a political party but it is the issue of the farmers. But the governments must be held responsible; they must first start telling the truth. Going by their reports, if we calculate, in every 30 minutes a farmer commits suicide. But if you consider any other community like students, engineers and businessmen no other community has such alarming sucide deaths. This is because farmers have a double burden. The farmer is under double burden because he is affected by price rise, commercialization of education, medical facilities and rising farm costs.

The highest number of farmer suicides are from cotton farmers but we boast that we have increased the cotton production by bringing in hybrids like Bt. If this is the case, then why are the farmers committing suicides? I would like to discuss about the Vidarbha relief package as I had covered the story and the Prime Minister came only after The Hindu reported extensively on this issue.

To tackle this problem, we have to first recognize the major issues. Firstly, public investment in agriculture has decreased and currently the situation is negative. In the last budget of Shri. Vishwanath Pratap Singh in , In it came down to 5. Second problem is collapse of credit. If you look at Government data that is National Sample Survey of India, from to , the indebtedness of farmers have grown by two times.

I also want to add a point about loan wavier and I congratulate the Government on waiving off 70, crores of farm loans given to 40 million farmers. This happened only once in the past 30 years.

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But if you look at your budget, the revenue forgone by the Government due to corporate subsidies waive off is around 88, crores. Tax exemptions on custom duty on diamonds and gold are around 49, crore per year. Total exemption for corporates is around 5,00, crores. For the first time after 30 years, by waiving off 70, crores for farmers, the Government is trying to boast that they have given 70, crores when every year they are giving away 5,00, crores to the rich like Ambanis, Birlas and Tatas.

I want to share a incident. One of the poor regions in Maharashtra called Maratwada was in the news. It almost made it into the Guniess World Book of records because on one day business men in one hour bought Mercedes cars. To boast about Aurangabad, they bought Mercedes Cars which were worth 66 crores.

The poorer you are, the more interest you pay. This is our logic of inequality and discrimination in our country. Then I told them that I would not buy it. They told me that this was the case in seeds. This means that if you pay for 10, packets of seeds, you are getting only 6, packets effectively. In , local seeds in Vidarbha costed around 90Rs.

Seeds in costs more than 4,Rs. The cost of cultivation has grown disastrously. If you look at Vidarbha region highest suicides amongst cotton farmers , inputs for one acre of unirrigated cotton farm costs around 3, to 4, Rs in the year and the cost for an irrigated farmer was 8, Rs. Currently, input cost for unirrigated land is around 15, to 18,Rs. Also their incomes have come down.

The fourth factor is by bringing in expensive technologies, the Government is trying to boast that production has increased. But if you look at the official data given by Institute of Cotton Research and other advisory boards, per hectare yield in is around kg Bt. In , without Bt. Normal hybrid yield was kg. So what is the difference? The fifth factor is that soil fertility is dying because of extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides.

There is a major crisis of decreasing yields in Punjab because of the soil fertility. Vish is a member of The Chennai Angels, an organisation formed in Chennai in , to promote entrepreneurship in India. He established operations in India on behalf of multiple funds managed by prestigious, primarily U.

Most recently, he was an Investment Director at Peepul Capital. Chandra began his career at ICICI Ventures where he worked for ten years and was instrumental in investing in more than 30 companies. A from BIM, India. Ram is a pioneer in both Internet security and Internationalization. He is a founding member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee SSAC , which consists of Internet pioneers and technical experts who provide guidelines and advice on matters concerning Internet security and stability.

He held various leadership positions at Infonautics, and led the company to market leadership through product innovation, co-founding the award-winning CompanySleuth product, architected the Electric Library product line, now used in schools and libraries worldwide and built Encyclopedia. Ram is also co-founder of the technology behind TurnTide, an anti-spam company acquired by Symantec. Ram is also actively involved in cancer-related nonprofits.

An inventor, he is also the author of several patents. Shobana Anand has worked with multiple industry bodies on policy and regulation issues. Shobana has also worked with governments — both at the state and the centre — in a consultative capacity on creating industry vision, strategizing disinvestment and entity turnaround.

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Vardhman has set upand runs multiple businesses. He exited his first venture in , a healthcare BPO to set up a vocational training company — LaurusEdutech. A serial entrepreneur, he and his brother have set up World Haus India, a company that caters to the low cost housing market; and a tele-medicine company that will make primary medical care accessible to rural India. Vardhman is passionate about politics. Apart from his love for work and politics, Vardhman is a keen traveler and an absolute techie at heart.

Computer Science — University of Texas, Austin. Sc, Statistics — Loyola College Interests: Quiet performer, Discreet, Reliable. Srinivasan started his professional career as a Civil Servant serving with the Ministry of Railways, Government of India. Srinivasan holds a degree in Mathematics and two post graduate degrees — in Public Administration and Management. A first generation entrepreneur fondly referred to as GRK by friends and peers , he began his career in the merchant banking industry and gained valuable experience in advising and structuring financial closures. A post graduate in commerce and alumni of Kellogg School of Management, GRK recognizes the untapped potential in infrastructure space.

Today, MARG Group has over two decades of reassuring presence in infrastructure development and is pioneering the development of economic growth centers. All MARG projects are standing testimony to this philosophy. In keeping with her passion for identifying and developing new business ideas, she helped Upasana Engineering transform from a small scale industry to a major auto component supplier and exporter operating from multiple locations. He is also an active investor in early stage businesses and loves a conversation over new ideas.

He has ensured that every piece produced for CaratLane. Few e-retailers can live up on specs like CaratLane. Before this, he was a part of the family business Jaipur Gems and expanded the same in south India. The company which was started in the year with a very small beginning has become a brand to reckon with today. Under him Casa Grande has won many awards and accolades and he has led Casa Grande to phenomenal success in past 10 years. He has been an angel investor in various startups and mentoring them. Prior to his role as an entrepreneur, he started his career with corporate stint at Wipro Infotech.

Arun Kumar is passionate about startups and looks at entrepreneurship as game changer for Indian economy. The Trust also works in helping the Government for better Governance as well as in the area of the environment, carrying out tree planting on an extensive scale. Under the leadership of Sriram, Sriram Charitable Trust had also launched Puducherry Vision , in collaboration with CII, for the development of Pondicherry, involving all stakeholders.

Passionate about sustainability and organic farming, Sriram has started his own organic farm, spread over more than acres. Working on sustainability, through rainwater harvesting in his farm, Sriram is also interested in afforestation and is in the process of creating an arboretum of a wide variety of plants and trees for the greening of the earth and also to provide a source of nature education to school and college students.

The brand addresses the needs of the consumers seeking safe food and also provides sustainable livelihood for farmers. A Mechanical Engineering Graduate of the batch of Annamalai University, Sriram has a passion for technology and new gadgets. Deeply spiritual in nature with an interest in Carnatic Classical Music, Sriram is also an active sportsperson, who enjoys table tennis, swimming, and has recently taken up golf.

During the course of his exciting journey as an entrepreneur, a plethora of awards and recognitions have come his way and that of his Company. Bharat is a member of The Chennai Angels. The unit is located in Pondicherry. When he joined his family business soon after, the Vikatan Group was print-only Magazine Publisher with its flagship weekly Ananda Vikatan widely respected and growth, challenging. He met Radhika the same year he joined business and they are happily married since She is his better half not only at home, by also the Creative force behind the TV production business that has been producing the 1 TV Daily Soaps in TN for over 10 years in a row!

In his spare time, Srini loves to play Tennis but his knees protest , Cycle, Yoga and play the Guitar but is woefully short of practice and watch movies with the family! Ravi personifies the success story of a young first generation entrepreneur who has his roots in an agricultural rural background and who has grown his personal stature as well as his businesses to immense international scale and size in a very short period of time.

He is currently on a mission to make Sri City, as the destination for the best companies of the world. Sri City has a world class infrastructure and state-of-the-art facilities for a company to start their operation from any point of its life cycle. Sri City will be home to more than Global Companies and would provide , employment opportunities and is slated to be home to an estimated , people over the next few years. Started in , Origin has grown to be a niche player in the eLearning business. Hari has over 30 years of experience in the eLearning, Publishing, Higher Education and Software industry.

Hari has completed his Masters in Commerce. Hari likes travelling and Gardening. He has developed an interest in philosophy and is a follower of Swami Parthasarathy of Vedanta Academy. Elango holds a Masters degree in Business Administration and began his career with ONGC in and over a span of years, has performed diverse roles and joined Cairn in January Sriram Vaidyanathan is a Director of Integrated Enterprises.

Integrated is a trusted name in providing investment advisory services for retail investors since He is an Engineer and a Masters graduate from Leeds university business school. He handles strategy and business development for Integrated. As the second generation entrepreneur, he was instrumental in starting the capital market and commodity verticals for Integrated. He is very passionate about investing in public equities across all sectors. He is very active in capital market forums and is passionate about promoting equity investment cult for retail investors.

Prior to joining the two groups, Vivek worked with Marakon Associates, a strategy consulting firm based out of New York. As a consultant, Vivek has worked on strategy initiatives with clients across a wide range of industries spanning Asia and North America. CK Ranganathan was born in Cuddalore to parents with primary interest in education. Ltd a Group Company which has a clear-cut focus providing personal styling and beauty solutions to everyone in the family. He also instituted an annual Chinnikrishnan Innovation Awards to encourage small and tiny entrepreneurs in memory of his father Shri.

R Chinnikrishnan, the man who pioneered the sachet revolution. Annush proactively leads the group by focusing on new product and new business development. He has a passion for new technology and advanced solutions. In the society, his vision is to enable people to create a substantial positive impact in their domain, thereby benefitting the eco system at large. Time away from work, he enjoys reading, traveling, listening to Indian Classical music, automobile racing and skydiving.

It has branches across Tamilnadu. Aditya handles the branch network in Coimbatore Capital Limited. Prior to joining his family business he worked on the Subcontracting team at Decathlon India and helped establishing the office in India in He is also a member of the Institute of Indian Foundry Men and has served as a governing council member, chapter chairman and member of the young core group of the same.

Engineering Export Promotion Council. He is also a member of Entrepreneurs Organization — Chennai. Headquartered in Geneva with more than 60 offices worldwide, Temenos serves over 2, firms across the globe, including 38 of the top 50 banks, who rely on Temenos to process their daily transactions of more than million banking customers as well as over USD 5 trillion in assets.

With over half the global headcount based in India, the team is responsible for the product delivery and customer support to all Temenos clients around the world. Mehul has been instrumental in setting up a new manufacturing unit, managing unit operations and setting up the international business arm at Raj Petro Specialities.

Mridula Ramesh is the founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, which focuses on solid waste and water solutions and education. She is an active angel investor in cleantech startups, with a portfolio of over a dozen and counting. Leveraging on her two decades of management experience, she teaches a postgraduate class on climate change at the Great Lakes Institute of Management. She is a regular columnist with Firstpost on climate change and has also written extensively for The Hindu.

She is the Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles and lives and experiments in Madurai in a net zero-waste house with her husband and two children. Manoj Namburu brings with him 23 years of professional experience along with an extensive network and goodwill serving customers with high levels of ethics and integrity. He has lived and worked in the US for 10 years. Prior to founding Alliance, Mr. Manav is a third generation entrepreneur born and brought up in Chennai. Com graduation from Loyola College in , he got involved with his apparel export business as a trainee and in the span of 10 years graduated to the role of the managing partner.

The quest for learning and the passion for growth are the primary motivator to get involved with TCA. He hopes ,through this platform he not only interacts and learns from his peers but also enlightens himself with the new age ideas and thinking that the fresh minds of the new gen have so abundantly to offer , cause there is always a — What Next!!

The companies are in the affordable building material space manufacturing Polymer Roofing, Profiles, Doors and Pipes. He is a Board member of Medical Research Foundation Sankara Nethralaya, a leading eye care institution and Honorary Secretary of Sri Venugopala Vidyalaya providing high quality education to middle and lower middle class background students at affordable cost. He is also the President of EO Chennai, an international member driven Entrepreneurs organization comprising of high impact and outstanding entrepreneurs.

He is married to Mrs. Nagaprasanna and has one son. His interests are Snooker, Swimming and Astrology. Navneet is currently the Managing Director at RB Agarwalla Group of companies, engaged in the manufacture and exports of iron castings from India for the past 35 years. RBA is the largest manufacturer exporter out of India for sanitary and infrastructure application castings.

Navneet has been instrumental in growing the business by adding several critical product lines to key customers in Europe and US. He has been key in driving the strategy for the group helping evolve the entire supply chain and production base to compete effectively in the world market. Prior to RBA, Navneet worked with a large manufacturing group in the US focused into the automotive and power transmission businesses. This was preceded by his B. Navneet and his wife Radhika, moved from Kolkatta to Chennai in , where they live with their daughter and son.

In his spare time, Navneet likes to travel, watch movies and read. He was also responsible for setting up Engineering Plastic business of the group. Chandrasekhar completed his B. E Chemical Engineering from Annamalai University. Chandrasekhar and Annapurna married in , and they live at Chennai with their two children Krithika and Ganeshmurthy. On the academic front, Pankaj completed his M. Returned to India to join his family business of manufacturing. Has exposure in real estate. Frequent International Traveler and sources the most green product to replace the traditionally older options.

Married to Surabhi in the year Presently she is a Homemaker. Shubham 6 years old and Ria, 1 year. Lives with his parents. Pankaj wants to share his expertise in the process and implementation stage if any opportunity comes. This can be either just financially or on board. Feels the potential and growth of online business is going to revolutionize the total economy. Start up with creative ideas which can make life comfortable for normal masses. He started his career with the family business of finance of films and commercial finance which is in existence since He has diversified the business and grown the media business, becoming one of the largest exporters of Tamil films from India.

In the course of his career, he has been involved with setting up of Pyramid audio a leading audio label in South India and also have set up AnAk Exports Private Limited, a per cent EOU for the export of films in various digital formats. AP International is present in all verticals of the entertainment industry except production of films. They have cinemas in Sharjah, London and Birmingham.

AP International has a back catalogue of Tamil and Malayalam films and has catered to home entertainment. Aspire has been ranked as one of the best employers in India for the past six years in a row by The Economic Times and Great Place to Work Institute. He is an active speaker and has presented in various industry events and has been quoted extensively by leading publications.

He is also an amateur pilot still trying to get it right! My guiding philosophy in life is driven by the overarching intent of adding value not just in business but in every sphere that touches my life. This probably explains why, as dealers of some of the top automotive brands in the country today, we have been able to bridge the gap between manufacturers and consumers by offering them distinct relationships-driven and solutions.

Moreover, my team and I have actively engaged with several trade organisations for representations that benefit the entire ecosystem. Today, the Khivraj and Olympia Groups are strongly founded on the cornerstones of enriching value for our principals and stakeholders through embracing a long-term approach to sustainability and success.

This is not just a business strategy; this is a life philosophy. As a family, we have laid a strong emphasis on imparting quality education that not only represents a sound foundation but also helps us leverage knowledge for raising living standards through employment creation and spreading good for societal well being.

Way back when education was not given much importance, my father insisted that I complete my education — school plus university — before assuming family business responsibilities. Our focus on integrity and responsible dealings has pitchforked us to not only among the largest automobile dealers and one of the most respected realty developers in Chennai but has also enabled us to invest in areas that are under-served. This is precisely why we have set our sights on the renewable energy business solar and wind power and lined up residential and commercial projects that will redefine the way individuals interact with spaces.

Madanlal Gundecha is an entrepreneur. His sons are with him in these businesses. After graduating in Commerce from A. He is a longstanding committee member of S. Jain Educational Society , which runs two colleges and four schools. Mootha Girls Senior Sec. VVD Group has been engaged in manufacturing and marketing coconut based hair oils for over 7 decades. VVD is a household name in Tamil Nadu. Adsorbent Carbons Pvt Ltd is a leading manufacturer and exporter of Activated Carbon of liquid phase, gas phase, pharma and food applications.

Prem has been one of the key business leaders of HCL. He is sports enthusiast and much sought out speaker. He has performed more than cataract surgeries and over retinal surgeries. After completing his M. Adil decided to take on a management role in and to further augment his skill set; he decided to go to business school. He is leading the expansion of the group with the goal of establishing a pan-national and global footprint for the chain.

He has been actively involved in fund raising activities for the group and leads investor relations. He is very passionate about meeting new entrepreneurs, working along with them to scale up their businesses and most importantly, learning along the way.

Meet Our Angels

Having been on the sell side and successfully having executed private equity transactions for his organization, he feels he can add a lot of value on the buy side and be a supportive investor. Adil and wife, Urmilla, live in Chennai with their daughter. He is very passionate about fitness and also, enjoys travelling, skiing and playing poker in his spare time.

Sundar Seth has 20 years of sales and marketing experience. Spending over the last decade in the IT industry, he combines his entrepreneurial zeal with corporate outlook to provide a platform on which his ventures have a win-win relationship with clients, employees, and partners. He focused on increasing revenue from existing customers and provided strategies for policies that established the foundation for growth and success. Alongside his ventures, Sundar has been a part of Angel groups, investing in product and service start-ups with an acute interest in commercial and residential REIT.

He also mentors budding entrepreneurs and offers strategies on scaling their businesses. In , Sundar started Diya Foundation, a non-profit organization with the goal of adopting and serving underprivileged communities in rural India. He was working with Ma Foi strategic consultants as Strategic consultant, worked with various companies on evolving strategies for business transformation, business model generation and specifically in formulating and implementing PR, Communication and Branding and Marketing strategies focusing on scalability.

Hemachandran completed his engineering from Crescent Engineering College and authored more than 25 books for Anna and Madras universities syllabus during his college days. A passionate entrepreneur, he is actively involving in start-up ecosystems especially in south India focusing on bridging the gap between Entrepreneurs and Investors.

He is passionate about developmental politics and he was the state general secretary of a political party started by IITians and educated youths in He had worked within the group as General Secretary. He is a people person. He is passionate about youth towards nation building and indulging himself various in socio-political activities. His accomplishments have been the startup business for Henkel in India beginning with the implementation of their production facilities and developing a National Sales and Distribution Network. He is a mentor to a number of entrepreneurs and students.

Polisetty Somasundaram, an Export House, recognized by the Govertment of India was floated in the year by the late Sri. Now it is been managed by his son- Sri. They are one of the leading Tobacco Exporters in India occupying second place to I. They execute more than Rs. Due to the increase in demand for threshed tobacco from Overseas buyers they floated their own Threshing Plant at Kaza, Guntur District with a toatl project cost of Rs. She is also a director on the board of Lucas TVS Ltd where she plays an active role in the control and finance functions.

In addition she is also on the board of trustees for Aim for Seva — a charitable organization focused on running student homes across the country. Prior to her joining the TVS group in , she spent over 11 years in the financial services industry. In Fitch ratings now india ratings she was the analytical head for Western india and part of the National rating committee, in addition to leading rating exercises for some key international bond ratings. It has a strong pan India national network as well as a deep connect within tier 3 and 4 cities and towns in India.

Piyush Bhandari is a qualified Chartered Accountant, an entrepreneur by choice and an avid tech enthusiast. He worked with the Sanmar Engineering Corporation from to He played a key role in strategic initiatives of the group including mergers and acquisitions. In he started his entrepreneurial journey by establishing IMC Intuit Management Consultancy Group which specializes in cross border advisory services focusing on the Asia, Middle East and Africa region. He specialises in market entry services, corporate advisory, global mobility, international tax and outsourcing services.

He has advised several mid to large enterprises which include many of the Fortune companies. This year the group also launched a portal www. He serves on the board of the CPAAI International which is the fourth largest independent accounting network in the world. He will also be serving on the Board of Entrepreneur Organization this coming year. In the past he has served on the committee of Jain International Trade Organisation for 4 years where he spearheaded the administrative services initiative which encouraged the students to prepare for the civil services exam by the Government of India.

He is also the member of the Confederation of Indian Industries. Anuj has over 20 years of experience in robotics and industrial automation space. After a short stint as a project manager incharge of setting up the automated material handling systems of 3 new fabs at Intel USA, Anuj returned to India in to start his own business. He is the Founder of G. Microsoft had featured the gaming solution developed by him and his team as its case study in