My
Dear Student Friends,
Greetings!
Wish You Happy New Year 2017!
This is Dr. Ravi Saripalle, Founder, Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Storytelling
Movement. Welcome to “Letter
to Student Series- Volume 2 and Issue 5”. Hope you enjoyed reading my
previous letter. These letters are e-transmitted across the country, for one
good cause, spreading inspiring stories of amazing people. Our mission is to inspire
youth by sharing positive stories of people who made difference in life in
various domains. Today these letters are reaching all 686 districts of our
country. These letters are helping to
build positive dreams and act as catalyst to youth aspirations.
Why should you read this letter? Your
time is most precious.
We are writing to you for a cause of
individual and global importance. We request you to give us 5 minutes of your
valuable time by reading this letter and consider for implementation if you
find any merit in this. Today, children of 10-21 age group are highly
aspirational. If these aspirations are not properly supported by inspirational
information and support system, these aspirations deviate. After through
research and multiple observations, we are confident that following solution
may work for this critical problem. We humbly appeal to you to implement
following 2 steps systematically.
1. Read / hear one
inspiring story per week of any individual / situation
2. Write a physical
post card letter / formal mail to someone you trust in every 6 months. Request you
to share your dreams and hurdles. It helps in setting up vision for life.
Trust me, continue this process for
some time, it impacts reticular activating system of human brain. We can
expect amazing results. I truly wish your story becomes another inspirational
story and positively influence all of us.
Please view my message at https://youtu.be/Lng5TWomVEc
To facilitate this process, we
devised vision setting survey form. You can answer survey form at https://goo.gl/vgyD54 and help yourself setting up your own vision. I
encourage you to respond.
In the previous issue, we discussed
about Mr. L.V.V.Kamalakar, CEO of Power Dynamics, Dr.A.L
Rao, Founder member of Wipro Technologies, Dr.A.R.Rao, Retired
Principal & Correspondent of M.R.College, Vizianagaram, AP, Natarajan
Chandrasekaran, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Consultancy Services,
Dr. Ramesh Mashelkar, Former Director General of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), Prof. Vasudevan, Plastic
man of India. We and also referred other
key personalities like A.P.J Abdul Kalam - Missile Man of India, Rajendra
Singh- Water Man of India , Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel- Iron Man of
India, Ravi Kalra- No Honking Man of India, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak - Toilet Man of India, Sam Santhosh - Genome man’ of India, Dr. (Wg. Cdr.) Ashis Roy- Marathon Man Of India, Venu Bharati - Bamboo man of India.
In this Issue, I would like to raise
the importance of being organic and people who are fighting for this cause. What
is being organic? Recently I read an article on "What Does Organic Really
Mean, and Is It Worth My Money?" written by Alan Henry (http://lifehacker.com/5941881/what-does-organic-really-mean-and-should-i-buy-it). As per USDA, organic means free of
synthetic additives like pesticides, chemical fertilizers, dyes, and not to be
processed using industrial solvents, irradiation, or genetic engineering. Recently
I read an article on "Denmark is on its way to becoming an organic country".
(https://foodrevolution.org/blog/denmark-organic-country/) Not only Denmark, I wish all the
countries across the world, should embrace organic way of life. This is
essential for our survival else it poses grave risk for human existence and environmental sustenance.
Subhash Palekar is a well known organic
agriculturist. Palekar founded ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ model which is
creating huge impact in farming circles. Born on 2-2-1949 in Belora, a small
village in the district of Amravati, Maharastra. Palekar studied B.Sc in
Agriculture from Nagpur. Born to a farmer, he developed lot of interest towards
farming. Post B.Sc., during 1972-1985, he practiced chemical farming in his land.
He found that there is continuous increase in agricultural production due to
use of chemical fertilizes. However, after 1985, it started declining. This is
when he started searching for alternative methods and technologies. Finally, he
created Zero Budget of Natural Farming model. Today more than 30 Lakhs farmers
throughout India are practicing this technique (natural farming techniques). It
is believed that plants receive 1.5% -2% of nutrient requirements from soil and
rest from water and air. Hence Palekar claims that fertilizers are not prudent.
Generally micro organisms convert nutrients into a digestible form so that
plants consume them. However, when we start using chemical fertilizers, chemicals
kill micro organisms. Hence usage of cow dung from local cows is highly beneficial.
It revives micro organisms. This process works out greatly. In recognition
towards his determined and dedicated work, in 2016, Government of India conferred
Palekarji with prestigious Padamashri Award. We wish Palekar
ji to contribute more towards organic life. We thank Better India for
publishing such a wonderful article (http://www.thebetterindia.com/55881/zero-budget-natural-farming-subash-palekar/). If you want to read more about Palekar ji, Please do visit his
official website. http://www.palekarzerobudgetspiritualfarming.org/aboutme.aspx#sthash.eKZwxYhL.dpuf.
Now let me share the story of Madhuchandan
Chikkadevaiah, an young software engineer from California, who quit his
lucrative job to sow seeds organically. Madhuchandan started Mandya Organic
Farmers Cooperative Society with a group of 270 farmers and cultivating organic
farm products. Later, he started Organic Mandya, a retail outlet between Bengaluru-Mysuru
highway. Determined to make Mandya district a fully chemical-free zone in the
next 5 years, Madhusudhan with the help of 45 employees heading towards organic
success. He is working towards a healthy
motto called "spend more on good food and remain healthy".
Today Mandya Organic society consists of farmers, ayurveda doctors, agriculture
scientists and enthusiastic farmers. Their model is simple. Even if farm's
yield is less in organic model, the price which farmer gets is double. This way
profit gets compensated. More than profits, organic farming makes land
environmental friendly. Madhu and his friends invested 1 crore rupees and shortly
hoping it goes 3 times of their investment in terms of revenue. Many volunteers from various IT companies are
joining this noble effort, cutting down their calories and also positively
contributing to organic.
Excessive use of pesticides causes cancer and
other diseases. The real solution is organic farming. Inspired by Subash
Palekar, Nandini Diesh, a corporate lawyer, Ramnish Tangri,
a civil engineer and animal lover (runs the Pashupati Gaushali in Greater Noida),
Vikrant Tongad is a green activist, Dinesh Sharma, Software
Engineer, Vijay Bhasin who works for Newell Rubbermiad, Rudra
Mahapatra, IIT Delhi alumnus, Amit Rana, an entrepreneur,
all residents of Noida's Jal Vayu Vihar, started organic farming and producing nutritious crop! Dinesh Sharma claims that spinach
produced in their farm has longer shelf life and stays fresh. Their families
started supporting by joining in the field work (composting to ploughing). They
started using new watering technique called mulching (covering earth with layer
of dry leaves to reduce evaporation), which helps in reducing watering
frequency from 15 days to 1 month. They are using natural pesticides like cow's
urine and neem leaves. Currently the produce is enough for
their family requirements, but they gained vast experience which is helping in educating
lot of farmers. Thank you NDTV for publishing this inspirational story. If you
want to read full length article, please visit http://food.ndtv.com/opinions/organic-farming-in-india-a-success-story-1290265.
Indiatoday published an article
called "Sikkim becomes the first fully organic state of India"
(http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sikkim-becomes-the-first-fully-organic-state-of-india/1/573654.html). It is inspiring to see the facts
and how this small state transformed to most healthy organic state! Sikkim
has total population of around six lakhs and deeply locked in the Himalayan
ranges without train or commercial flight. But people of Sikkim has tons of
determination. Till date more than 75,000 hectares of land has been converted
into certified organic farm. The surprising fact is "Within 1.24 million
tons of organic production in the country, around 80,000 million is supplied by
Sikkim alone". Sikkim produces ginger, turmeric, cardamom, vegetables,
flowers, kiwi, buck wheat, maize and millets etc. Now other states like Kerala,
Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram are getting inspired from this organic state and
moving towards organic development. In terms of countries, with the population
of 1 million, Bhutan is considered as world leader in organic
farming.
I was reading few case studies
published by ICRISAT about women farmers. It was interesting. I suggest you
read on http://www.icrisat.org/PDF/INDIAN-Women-Farmer.pdf. Vaddemani
Malleeswari, a
women farmer from Musalireddygaripalli , YSR Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, not only
showed the way of improved methods of farming, but also teaching fellow women
on how to manage financial problems, family health and get out of the clutches
of money lenders. She heads 60 member saving group. Each member saves 300 rupees per month and
total savings of the whole group is above
Rupees 250,000. She makes organic seeds and distribute to more than 60
members. She grows organic vegetables. She also markets organic produce,
cold-pressed oil (crushing the seed or nut and extracting the oil) and honey. Similarly,
an another women farmer named Garimella Mythili Venkataramana, East
Godavari, AP, received Best Woman Farmer. Trained many farmers on production of
bio-gas, which she generates from cow dung and cow urine. She has small dairy farm
with 5 cows. She grows fodder grasses and Azolla to feed her cows. She
cultivates seasonal vegetables using organic fertilizer. She cooks using
bio-gas plant in her home, making earth livable place and protecting
environment. Thank you ICRISAT for publishing such a inspiring women farmer
stories. I suggest you read all stories in the web link given above.
I was reading the story of back2basics
farm, fresh organic production company, started by Madhusudhan,
an IIM-B alumnus. It was published in yourstory.com portal (https://yourstory.com/ 2016/05/ back2basics-farm/). Madhusudhan was working with Bharti
Airtel for 30 years before starting this firm. Initially started organic
farming for his family and friends, but the encouragement from the initial
success turned him to be full time organic farmer. Started a venture called farm-to-fork.
Now his farm got spread over 100 acres, selling 90 varieties, and also
exporting to Europe and Singapore. Now his daughter Bhairavi, MBA from US,
joined father's firm and expanding their business (as of now, they are getting
200 orders a day with 60% repeat customers). They are using only natural
fertilizers like cattle and poultry manure, neem and oilseed cakes. They manage
their own logistics and have fleet of delivery vans which are GPS enabled. Assocham study says Indian organic food market
grows by more than 25% every year and it may touch $1.36 billion by 2020. Thank
you yourstory.com for publishing an inspiring story and wish back2basics for a
great organic futur
Association for India's Development
(https://aidindia.org/2016/09/29/revathi/) published an article about Revathi,
a school teacher turned organic farmer, who did an amazing work of transforming
more than 11,00,000 farmers lives from 22 disaster situations. Post 2004 tsunami,
saline water invaded and ruined coastal farmlands. Revathi's efforts (use of
indigenous seed varieties and organic farming ) in Nagapattinam reclaimed
more than 3000 ruined acres. Her efforts got recognized by Former President APJ
Abdul Kalam and Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Government of Indonesia,
Srilanka etc. Revathi inspired farmers at Sunderbans and more than 10,000
farmers taking up the organic farming. Wish Revathi for her continued organic
success.
There are few organizations working
towards Organic implementation. Farms n Farmers (FnF) was
started by alumni of IIT Kharagpur and IIT Delhi and working towards organic
farming, soil technology, horticulture and so on. Read more at http://farmsnfarmers.org/. All India Organic Farmers
Society is a leading organization in India working towards organic
cultivation. It trained more than 10,000 farmers across India. If you want to
know more about it or if you want to join, please do visit http://www.aiofsindia.com/aboutUs.php.
The Organic
Farming Association of India (OFAI), a premium organic farming association is working towards
policy advocacy, promotion and awareness (http://ofai.org/).
During 2016-17 Government of India
made grand budget allocation for Organic farming. There was a provision of
35,984 crore and it was more than 44% of previous year. Government announced
traditional farming improvement program called Paramparagat Krishi Vikas
Yojana, an amount of Rs.300 crore got allocated. 50 or more farmers who
are having 50 acre land need to form as cluster to take up the organic farming
under this scheme. If you want to know more about this scheme, please do visit http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=118622.
As of now, the total
number of farmers, cultivating organic are 7,23,039 Hectares. Among all states,
Madhya Pradesh made largest contribution with 2,32,887 Hectares, followed by Maharashtra
with 85,536 Hectares.
My Dear
Friends, Appreciate your valuable time. See you in my next letter. Thank you for
giving me this great opportunity to write to you and help me to learn, unlearn
and relearn. I personally thank all websites, authors who are publishing /
writing such an inspiring stories for common good and contributing for better
world. With Best Wishes, Dr. Ravi Saripalle
About Author: Dr. Ravi Saripalle is Founder of Inspire
to Innovate (i2i) Storytelling Movement. He is also Director,
Center for Innovation, GVP College of Engineering (A), Vizag, AP, India. As
part of Inspire to Innovate (i2i) Storytelling Movement, Dr.Ravi is trying to instill
inspiration through spreading positive stories of amazing people in the form of
short stories, embedding them in the form of letters (epistolary form) and
sending them to thousands of schools, colleges, universities districts
administration across India. Also conducting Storytelling Workshops in select institutions.
Providing customized mentoring to inspired students. Dr. Ravi is having 18
years of experience in Industry, Consultancy, Training, Mentoring and Research.
Prior to this current mission, Ravi worked with Wipro Technologies for more
than a decade. Ravi can be reached at saripalle.ravi@gmail,com or http://i2itm.blogspot.in/ or facebook.com/saripalle.ravi
Links to previous 10 letters
1. Letter to Student Series-
Volume 2 and Issue 3 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @
Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/12/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
2. Letter to Student Series- Volume 2 and Issue 3 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/11/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
3. Letter to Student Series- Volume 2 and Issue 2 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India)http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/10/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
4. Letter to Student Series- Volume 2 and Issue 1 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016_09_01_archive.html
5. Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 12 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/07/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
6. Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 11 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/06/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
7. Letter to Student Series-
Volume 1 and Issue 10 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @
Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/05/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling_30.html
8. Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 9 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/05/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
9. Letter to Student Series- Volume 1 and Issue 8 (Inspire To Innovate
(I2i) Storytelling Movement @ Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/04/inspire-to-innovate-storytelling.html
10. Letter to Student Series-
Volume 1 and Issue 7 (Inspire To Innovate (I2i) Storytelling Movement @
Students Of India) http://i2itm.blogspot.in/2016/03/inspire-to-innovate-i2i-storytelling.html
Disclaimer:
The goal of this i2iSM letter series campaign is to inspire students / youth
through storytelling and develop innovative leaders to build strong nation. In
this process, I have taken several data points from various websites, NEWS
articles, books, videos etc. I sincerely thank all the editors for providing
such an insightful stories and information. To the best of my knowledge, I
tried to acknowledge all the sources. I sincerely apologize for any omissions,
grammatical mistakes and hurting any reader’s sentiments. I request all the
readers to understand the spirit behind this effort. This effort doesn’t
involve any commercials. Letter series is for free distribution.
