Extension Education

Extension is a means for dissemination of education and information. The word extension itself gives a clue about its meaning- ex means out and tension means stretching. In layman terms, it means spreading out information. Some of the important objectives of extension education are to help change the human behavior through use of knowledge, skills and attitude; to reach out to rural and marginalized population for promoting social development; to improve Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Skills (i.e. KAPS) and; to ensure involvement and participation of the target audience.

Following are some of the principles of extension which act as guidelines in making the process of extension education effective:

·         Principle of cultural difference: It should be taken care that people differ in terms of their thinking, living & culture and as such changes will have to be made in the extension programs according to the changing situations. The underlying statement behind this principle is that ‘one solution doesn’t fit all.’

·         Principle of cultural change: It should be noted that culture may undergo change due to extension education and as such extension workers should gain the confidence of people and if necessary focus on result demonstration.

·         Principle of grass root organization: It should cater to the needs and interests of people at grass root levels.

·         Principle of interests and needs: Extension program should pay desired attention to the needs and interests of the target audience. It should be duly noted by extension workers that imposed innovation will have no relevance as people accept innovation only when they find it helpful. 

·         Principle of participation: It should be noted that participatory approach develops local leadership and builds confidence.

·         Principle of adaptability in the use of teaching methods: A due care should be taken in using teaching methods as people differ in knowledge & understanding and as such the methods should also vary accordingly.

·         Principle of leadership: Involving the local leaders increases people’s participation and thus increase the speed of work.

·         Principle of trained specialists: Make use of the subject matter experts (SMEs) for execution.

·         Principle of satisfaction: It must be noted that people will participate only when that feel satisfied and thus the extension program should result in satisfaction of people.

·         Principle of whole family approach: Extension work should reach all the family members.

·         Principle of evaluation: Regular monitoring and evaluation helps in improving the quality of work. Thus review of progress at regular intervals is necessary and corrective measures must be taken if the direction is wrong.

·         Principle of applied science and democracy: It must be noted that people have freedom to accept or reject the particular technology.

·         Principle of learning by doing: It should be realistic, humanitarian & flexible and must include the feedback from participants and local authorities.

(Note: The learning and insights are compiled from a course on Communication and Extension Management (COEM) at Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal and I'm thankful to Prof. A. Upadhyay for the same.)

Environmental Social Governance (ESG) landscape in the Indian Context

Responsible Investing and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) is a global trend that has off late started to pick up the momentum in India. Unlike the developed world, ESG investment is still at a nascent stage in the Indian market. If one goes by the number of signatories to United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) as the proxy for the penetration of ESG investment in India, there are only two AMCs which are signatories to UN PRI namely SBI and Kotak Mutual Fund. In comparison, the developed world has hundreds of ESG funds in accordance with the principles of UN PRI. Indian market has slowly started to respond to the global trends as two ESG funds worth $1 billion each has been announced recently by Quantum Investors and Avendus.

Despite the increased environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-focused conversations and growing interest of various stakeholders towards responsible investing, there are quite a lot of challenges that hinder its overall progress and wide adoption in the developing market like India. Firstly, there is a lack of clarity and understanding among the investors and other stakeholders about the ESG terminology. Secondly, there is a lot of inconsistency in the ESG ratings due to the differences in data collection, analysis and rating methodology by the ESG rating firms. The lack of reliable and standardized metrics to adequately measure the ESG factors results into discrepancy among the comparability of different firms. Thirdly, the quality of ESG information should be adequate and to the point. Too much of the ESG related information leads to information overload and creates a bid data problem. Fourthly, the role of ESG in other investment markets such as private markets is a big concern due to the inadequate disclosures and lack of availability of data.

In developed world, both individual as well as institutional investors are very active as far as ESG and responsible investment is concerned. In order to satisfy the demands from investors, asset management companies are frequently factoring in new products. Moreover, the awareness amongst investors has been created by media, regulatory bodies and various institutions. However, if the same level of awareness has to be created in India then asset management companies themselves will have to take the lead. So the scenario is just the opposite of the developed world in a developing economy like India. Though the SBI Mutual Fund has initiated the process to make the investors aware about the merits of ESG investment, but media will have a major role to play in creating mass awareness amongst investors in India. In all, it is the collective responsibility of the Indian Institutional Investors like mutual funds, banks and insurance companies to take up a leading role in embracing the concept of ESG investment philosophy into their investment decisions.

‘Bottle a Plant’ campaign

An initiative to create a tiny school grown forest…

Children are the future of this planet and it is important to catch them young and inculcate the habit of valuing nature right at the beginning. This thought propelled me to initiate a unique 'Bottle a plant' campaign with an aim to mobilize the children as nature guardians to raise environmental consciousness.

Think of a typical school going children who usually carry a bag, Tiffin, and a water bottle. All of us carried the same at some point of time in our life too. But ever wondered what happens to the leftover water in the water bottles once the school gets over and the child returns to home?? I saw these often getting landed up into the wash basins or wasted conveniently anywhere else. Isn't it??  Now, Can this small yet substantial amount of water be utilized for some constructive use? 

I have an idea. A unique yet simple one!

It's about watering the plant with the leftover water by the school children to create a small patch of forest within the school premises itself with the advanced Miyawaki technique. A small patch of the area will be designated in the school premises and the children from each standard will regularly water the saplings from the leftover water in their water bottles every day after school time. Thus a tiny school grown forest in no time can be generated in the school premises itself.

Broadly speaking, this idea is directly linked to SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) and SDG 13 (Climate Action). The successful implementation of the idea would reap multiple benefits such as improving the microclimate, generating carbon sinks, creating environmental awareness and improving the local biodiversity.

“We are talking a lot about rebuilding the roads, schools, industries, but rebuilding the environment is rarely discussed’’. ‘Bottle a Plant’ campaign is one such small initiative to rebuild the environment with the help of school children acting as nature guardians in creating a climate of change.

How can India pursue economic development while conserving nature?

I perceive development as the process of change, a change required for better living and existence. However, the change should be guided by the proper direction which involves all three aspects of triple bottom line i.e. social, environmental and economical.

In the present era, economic development is the agenda of almost all countries in the world and so it is of India. All are making a blind run behind the development and ignore the large-scale destruction of the environment. However, Bhutan remains an exception. I consider Bhutan as the most developed country which knows how to live in harmony with nature. Bhutan reinvented the term ‘economic development’ in its own ways and since 1971, Bhutan has been considering Gross National Happiness (GNH) as her indicator of progress. Rest of the countries should learn from this tiny, yet carbon-negative country.

India being a land of villages, the development that trickles down to the most needed and marginalized section of the society would find the real meaning of economic development. But in the process of development, often there happens some kind of trade-off between environment and development. So, economic development and conservation of the environment need to go hand-in-hand. For example, wood industries must have plans for plantation.

It is the sad reality that nature is the silent sufferer in the process of economic development. But interestingly, recently a micro-forest is being created in the heart of the city Raipur by demolishing 70 odd government buildings. Such kind of eco-development models is the need of the hour and if replicated across major cities of India could also act as a solution for the burning problem of air pollution.

At one place we are talking about bullet trains and on the other hand, we don't have a proper waste management system in older trains. The beautiful 1,15,000 Km railways track, one of the biggest in the world, is, unfortunately, getting surrounded by plastic waste and degrading the surrounding ecosystems. I feel that we need to address the existing issues beforehand rather than taking a step ahead in the process of development. If we don't manage that generated waste then nature would backfire in the long run and hamper the achieved level of development.

Recently, I visited Kanha National Park and liked how the revenue generated from wildlife tourism is being successfully diverted towards sustainable development and management of forests thereby ensuring both economic and environmental development. Such kind of inclusive models needs to be promoted at mega levels across the country.

Some of the solutions which came to my mind while thinking about this topic are:

•   Providing tax-free benefits to industries following sustainable practices. This would act as a kind of ‘Green Insurance’ to allure corporates to invest in eco-friendly practices and attain sustainable profitable business.
• Municipal corporations can also cut down the taxes for the households with sustainable practices such as rainwater harvesting, waste segregation, solar rooftops etc.
• Incentive-based plan to conserve forests with the help of farmers.
• Promotion of sustainable technologies and a sustainable lifestyle.
• Making environment and sustainability reporting mandatory for every company to reduce its environmental footprint.

Finally, to sum up it is important to realize that “We don’t have a society if we destroy the environment”. Thus, economic development can be sustained only when the environment is kept at the core of economic development. 

What is claimed as ‘Clean’, may not necessarily be deemed as ‘Green’

The consumption of energy is increasing day by day and it is a well-established fact that fossil fuels are on the verge of depletion and as such may not be able to fulfill our ever-growing future energy demands. Hence, renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar energy is commonly perceived as the energy choice of the future owing to its cleaner production and environment friendly nature.

There is a global push towards installation and expansion of renewable energy and 192 countries across the world have already announced policies to promote renewable energy. India has also set ambitious renewable energy targets to almost triple its current installed renewable capacity from 59 GW to 175 GW by 2022. However, such a large scale shift to renewable energy comes with its own costs, causing significant impacts both on the people and the surrounding planet. But such projects are rarely critiqued on the ground of being clean and environment friendly source of energy. Thus in the backdrop of this, a study was undertaken to assess the various environmental and social impacts of solar and wind energy projects. These impacts were reviewed from the scientific literature and triangulated during the field visits while interning with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

The wind power projects are generally sighted in hilly and forested areas. Many a times, large number of trees are felled for building the access roads and transmission lines. This issue is being entirely neglected since wind power projects are exempted from the ambit of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). It is alarming that huge tracts of forested lands are being diverted for setting up of wind farms without any EIA studies and as per the CSE report on “Green Norms for wind power” it is estimated that about 3,932 ha of forests have already been diverted for wind power projects. Besides this, there are instances where wind farms have resulted in high bird mortality and disturbed avian habitat.

A large-scale shift to solar energy underscores the urgency of understanding their environmental and socio-economic interactions. The solar farms require large tracks of contiguous land (one-two hectares per MW) and the availability of land is a contentious issue in a dense and populous country like India. Thus such projects come in conflict with the local communities and conservation interests. Solar farms are also very water intensive, approximately 110 milliliters of water per kilowatt hour is required for cleaning solar panels. Another cause of worry is the amount of hazardous and toxic e-waste that is generated out of the solar panels at the end of their life.

This is not to portray that the renewable energy projects should be discarded but to sensitise that a poor understanding of these impacts may cause a serious disaster in the long run, put question marks on the status of renewable energy as ‘Green Energy’ and eventually hinder the progress of renewable energy. Though, the environmental and social impacts of solar and wind energy systems is a controversial and debatable topic, but the seeds of the next energy economy must be sown now as the implications of today's decisions will influence India's energy future for decades.

The Festival is for a few days… Nature is forever…

India, as we proudly call is a land of cultural diversity. We take pride in showcasing this diversity to the whole world. People of different religions live together with harmony in India and celebrate different festivals at various occasions throughout the year. Festival is a celebration of the changing seasons, harvest, reconciliation, the birth anniversaries of saints and honor to the gods & goddesses.

Festivals are meant for the purpose of celebration. But somehow we are deviating from the ways festivals should ideally be celebrated.  We changed the traditional way of celebrating festivals. Looking back into history, Diwali was never celebrated by burning crackers and Holi was never celebrated by wasting a lot of water. Modernization has utterly changed the face of celebrating festivals. Although the intention of any festival is not to harm any natural thing but these days things are getting out of hand. Even the founders of this auspicious festivals, would be amazed and surprised to witness the current trend of celebrating festivals. They would be ashamed to see the adverse impact we are making on the surrounding environment under the name of mere celebration.

The season of festivals starts off with “Makar Sankranti” in January. The rampant use of China made plastic strings while kite flying has become a nightmare for the birds and the plants. Severely injured and dead birds trapped in Chinese manja lying on roads have become a common sign during this festival. These sharp manja is even more dangerous for vehicle riders and some serious accidents have happened in the recent past causing innocent deaths. There is nobody to keep a watch on this and we are also busy enjoying the fun quotient during kite flying. In the name of celebration and enjoyment, we are simply damaging the ecological balance of the nature.

As the year progresses, March starts off with a colorful Holi. Even holi has become a great concern for the nature in terms of air and water pollution. The colorful holi is overtaken by commercialization with the advent of artificial colors which is not only harmful to the human skin but also dangerous for the water bodies and soil. The burning of fuel wood in order to perform the Holi bonfire (Holika Dahan) is another factor that raises a factor of concern. Useful fuel wood is wasted during this festival, this not only leads to the cutting of trees but also unnecessary air pollution in return. Instead of wooden logs, it would be ideal if people use this holika dahan for burning their waste material. These would not only result in keeping their surroundings clean but also in conserving nature.

‘Ganesh Festival’ and ‘Durga Puja’ are also major festivals celebrated across the country. The water pollution caused by the immersion of POP idols into natural bodies is hazardous for both human and aquatic life. Besides this noise pollution, traffic congestion, increased consumerism and rise of acid content in lakes are some of the indirect effects of this festival on the system. Even Lokmanya Tilak, the founder of Ganesh festival would be surprised to witness the changed nature of festival.

As the year comes to an end, there comes the festival of lights and crackers. Diwali celebration adds up to air and noise pollution enormously. Burning of crackers lead to harmful emission of chemicals which indirectly is a cause for hazardous diseases. . Not only the humans, but animals and birds are also affected due to air and noise pollution.

These are just to name a few majorly celebrated festivals and their devastating effects on the environment. Similarly, there are many more festivals where people blindly look for the “fun” part but do not care about the consequences of their actions. The significant purposes of festivals are being overlooked, causing harm to both Indian culture and environment. Here the problem is pollution, not the festivals. So, it would be prudent not to think of banning the festivals, instead we need to adopt eco-friendly practices to stop pollution from festivals. Like introduction of eco-friendly idols painted with natural colors; use of permanent idols made of stone and perform a symbolic immersion and reuse the idol each year; a dry and natural colors; lighting Diyas instead of lights during Diwali and saying No to crackers etc.

Celebration is good when done in a right manner. The real message and real purpose of festivals haven’t been properly propagated to the recent generations. We need to change our mindsets and ideologies towards a better and sustainable celebration of festivals in sync with nature. Real wisdom behind celebrating festivals lies in valuing the nature created by the divine and not in exploiting it. Let us be the agent of change, take responsibility and motivate people to celebrate festive occasions in a joyful, meaningful and eco-friendly manner.

“Waste to Wealth” : ‘Think locally, Act globally’

What was a waste land two year back behind our quarters at Kanpur is now a source of fresh vegetables and banana leaves. It is noteworthy to mention about the guy named 'Dhiren' who was chiefly instrumental in giving it a facelift by his sincerity and hard work. Dhiren, who was studying in 12th class wanted some livelihood for him to support his family and gardening proved to be the solution for him. Because of his workmanship and sincere nature, he has been employed by four more houses for developing kitchen gardens and now he earns respectfully to support his studies & family.

Such kind of terrace & kitchen garden not only provides fresh veggies but adds to the positivity and beauty of living space. Attached picture speaks volumes about his work.

India has so much of waste land and innumerable unemployed Dhiren's in search for a meaningful vocation. Can people like us give them the lead and positive directions?? 

Often, we talk about big things and miss out on small actions at individual or local level. As social activist Howard Zinn once said, “We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”