What this blog is about ?

The two primary reason why I am writing this blog is, I have written just one blog this month and Second, I got a good stuff to write.

In pursuit of a great reading I keep going to one or other book stores in Chennai, One of my favorite hang out destination is Landmark, especially the one that is near to Gemini Flyover, but this time it didn't excite me, and I moved to Oxford book store in Nungambakkam, which is on Haddows Road. BTW this blog is not about my quest for book or knowledge it's all about something else...!!!

I bought "Go Kiss the World" by Subroto Bagchi expecting some great learning from the book for the young professionals of India, again this blog is not about this book. I had taken a "Chennai Traditional filter Coffee" at CHA bar which is there in the Oxford book store, which was quite savoring and devouring, but this blog is not even for that. I bought the book, settled the bill and picked up the Paper Bag given by the Store-Guy which contains the book I just purchased, and unexpectedly this blog is all about that "Paper Bag".

"Paper Bag, that's great", these are the exact words that came out from my mouth the moment I saw that paper bag and grabbed with my fingers. This is the latest trend or practice by many grand retailers in India. This is not the first instance where I was holding a paper bag , I did it many times in past but now I was more able to understand the importance of these kind drives from the organized retails across the globe. One more great things about "this" paper bag was that it was fully made by the newspaper and not from the recycled papers... and that's why the pic is been uploaded. There was a small slip at the bottom of the bag reading "This is a product of Mentally Challenged Persons... 'ANANDALOK...', Welfare center for the mentally handicapped"

Now there are two things that come in mind, 1. Employment of the Mentally Challenged People and 2. Eco Friendly drive. Well the former can not be neglected, but the question is; Is it actually eco friendly to use paper bag... after all we are using paper and that means we are cutting trees indirectly. The answer is yes, Paper bags are generally made up of recycled paper which encourage recycling of paper, which a good thing. In India recycling of paper is still not happening at great level, and not much importance is been given by the civilians. Once the recycling industry will grow to an organized level it will bring-in more and more visibility to the positive aspect of paper recycling and a positive drive from the people.

Second great thing is "Avoid using Plastic", using paper bag can limit the usage of plastic bag up to a great extent. Plastics are not good for environment as it is non-degradable and recycling of plastic is not very eco-friendly, burning of polythene emits lots of pollutants. So avoiding the usage of plastic can be taken care well if it can be replaced by a eco-friendly substitute and that at present is "used paper".

There is one more advantage of using paper bags for corporates, I learned from some of the training conducted at my office that "Trust" is a product of "Competencies" and "Character". Today every company is competent enough in providing a great product and rendering a superb service to their clients, but how can they over do the marketing and build a better character. Simple, build a positive image or character of the firm in the mind of their customers, and how can they do that, by doing better things for the society. Using a paper bag is something that will give positive impression on the customers, the way it did for me, surely it would have worked for many.

Corporate play an important role in spreading awareness about the good things in the society. It eventually helps the society to improve and to be better. I love some of the great initiative taken by Tata Tea, Idea, Aircel etc.

Anyway, as I stated earlier in this blog that this is only about "the Paper Bag" and nothing else, so I don't want to drift to anything else. Let's stop it here... and encourage using recycled paper bags for better Environment, better Earth and better Future.

I will again buy few books from "Oxford Book Stores" before I will finally say goodbye to Chennai.

Shivendra Singh
28 Feb 2010

Eco Eco Eco

Eco Eco Eco...!!! Every where you see people are talking about Eco. Some people take it very seriously and some just show "Chalta hai" attitude, and keep doing what they were doing.

I always had some or other doubts about this eco-system or eco-logical balance, and these doubts I often found mushrooming a lot of sceptical ideas on our actions and reactions about the eco-related development happening across the globe. There are many volatile themes continue to strike my brain, stays there for some time, and then dissappear, and it has become a very normal pattern these days.

Of late I attended some trainings on GHG (Green House Gases) and Eco related subjects in the organization, and even outside, all trainings with the same theme of reducing the carbon footprint. Now how can we reduce carbon emission where now carbon is almost considered as the by-product of the energy. We want more energy but reduced carbon discharge... pretty tough to answer, or may be very easy to answer but rather tough to implement.

Why it is so tough to setup a new rule to reduce carbon footprint ?, May be because we are no longer following the Nature's theory of evolution. Now I am definetely now talking about the exact theory of evolution but yes something related to that. The reson is simple human being has development so many thing that he has the power to challenge the enviornment, and survive at most unmanageable circumstances anywhere in the world, but don't forget it's not because of the evolution inside the human body but outside. Today our life is completely in the hand of the technologies and latest innovations. We will die the very next day, it's been taken from us.

I remember when first time ALL OUT launched it mosquito killing machine where there was no smoke and odour. It was so effective leaving no mosquito unkilled. We see mosquitos feeling drugged, and falling on the floor, it became the choice of every household in short span of time, as if they have got the "bramastra" to get rid of these small, fying skeeters. It worked for a couple of years very well but gradually mosquitos evolved and developed the partial resistance for it. They evolved... they built up new bearing power in their body to fight with their enemy's weapon. But in our case, we are not evolving but we rather change the enviorment around us and make ourselves comfortable. If we are actually evolving from anywhere then it's from brain, we are developing sharper and sharper brain, every century we have better brains taking birth who keep working on old brains theories and methodlogy to develop stuffs that can make us more comfortable and reduce our workload. And that's the world we are living in. In this world it's quite difficult to reduce the usage of carbon footprint unless our sharper brains won't turn their attention towards this eco-crisis we are heading towards and start working on better solution to use the natural and recyclable energies like, wind, sunlight and water. Unless we stop using the fossil fuel for generating energy we can not cut down the emission of GHG upto a great extent, which is the need of the hour and era.

GHG must be controlled, and if GHG emission is not controlled in a big way, we are not much far in destroying this lovely planet called "Earth". I love the below quote which was the part of one of training, I attended and I loved it...!!!

"We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children"

So people, lets save Earth for our children... It's a responsibilty.

Shivendra Singh
20 Feb, 2010