Monsoons are eagerly awaited throughout India because the country’s prosperity and the ruling Governments popularity depend on whether the monsoons have been good or bad. In case the rains failed in large parts of the country there would be all round misery with poor agricultural output and consequent rise in price of food articles and suffering for the people, mainly the poor. The cascading effects of failed monsoon would affect the industries too with poor demand from the farming community, which accounts for a major proportion of the Indian population. During the worst droughts that hit the country in the past, people in rural India were the worst affected with a number of cases of deaths due to starvation or diseases.

During one of the worst droughts some years ago, villagers in one of the states suffered badly and starved because of loss of failure of crops and unemployment. The problem before the Government was how to help the villagers to earn enough to buy food in the market and keep their body and soul together! It is not easy to suddenly come up with some alternative employment for the farm labourers. So the Government decided to repair the roads in the villages for which the labour force could be used. Huge boulders were brought to the villages and the villagers were employed to break the boulders. Some UN observers engaged in relief work were aghast at the sight of poor half starved farmers engaged in breaking stones and sweating under the sun! Those foreigners believed that such work could be given only as a punishment to criminals or jailbirds and not for half starved villagers who were already weakened by malnutrition and needed help in the form of food and medical help!! Relief measures should not be so harsh!

Khadi cloth or “Khadder” is a cloth woven from hand spun yarn. Ever since Gandhiji made hand spinning the symbol of India’s breaking away from British shackles, “Khadder” is the choice of all politicians, compulsory for the Congress party worker. Even after sixty years of independence “Khadder” continues to be the cloth for the Congress worker.
Hand spinning had some meaning in those days before the independence, and Gandhiji spun yarn on a Charkha to convey some meaning to the masses. It is doubtful that Gandhiji intended to make it a profession for livelihood for himself or for the masses of India because a single spindle Charkha, which was in vogue in those days, could hardly be expected to produce sufficient quantities of yarn for making a living. But after independence successive Governments wanted to promote hand spinning and Khadi as an employment opportunity for the villagers. So a Khadi board came into existence and later the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).

But for the introduction of a four spindles Charkha by Mr. Ekambaram, Khadi would have become extinct long ago. Mr. Ekambaram’s Charkha came to be known as the Ambar Charkha later. Present Charkhas have six or eight spindles, but still the production is not economical compared to mill production and lot of subsidies go into Khadi industry to keep it going. B.K.Nehru, in his memoirs “Nice Guys Finish Second” states that a former finance minister who was reputed for his business acumen and commercial sense, Mr. T.T.Krishnamachari, thought very poorly of the Ambar Charkha and told that it would ruin the country (or something to that effect!). Ekambaram’s Charkha was an innovative product and after many years very little improvement has happened on the Ambar Charkha except some cosmetic changes that mainly benefited some MNCs in the textile machinery Industry! Now we hear from news reports that a new E-Charkha has been “invented” awaiting introduction of some 2 Lakh Charkhas at a cost of Rs.3000/- each for the hand spinners!! The E-Charkha is not an improvement on the Charkha for increased production of yarn or to reduce the load on the operator but it is a Charkha to which a dynamo is fitted. When the handle of the Charkha is rotated electricity is produced which is used for charging a battery. This battery can light up an LCD lamp! Such a mechanism could be attached to any device having rotating parts but why the Charkha and increase the load on the operator whose productivity is already low!! The device could be attached to a bicycle or a bullock cart or a scooter or any other device! Usually when elections are near lots of funds are channelled through KVIC for political purposes!! Ha!! Rupees sixty crores !! Wow!!

Now take Biogas, or Gobar gas as we Indians would call it. Many press reports have appeared about its advantages and India is in the forefront of Gobar gas production units. India has over 2 million installed in the country for producing gas for cooking in households. There is no clear figure of how many are working on a regular basis or how much is the production. But this much is clear: We have the world’s largest livestock population of 250 million, which produces close to 125 million tonnes of cow dung. Using this we can produce enough methane gas to entirely replace LPG and kerosene in cooking, and substitute petrol in transportation. Methane gas can also produce enough electricity to meet all requirements, at least in rural areas. The by-product can serve as excellent organic manure, substituting chemical fertilisers, which require LNG as feedstock.

Just consider what has been happening in other countries on the biogas front: (From BBC news site)
“The world's first biogas-powered passenger train is taking its first passengers between the Swedish cities of Linkoping and Vastervik. Nor is it just trains. In Linkoping, the 65-strong bus fleet is powered by biogas. Indeed the city boasts that it was the first in the world to try out its buses on methane. The taxis, the rubbish trucks and a number of private cars also fill up at the biogas pump, housed under a dinky green corrugated iron roof. “
I understand that the reputed German automobile manufacturer BMW is producing electrical energy from landfill gas, methane, to meet almost 20% of their energy requirement. They are getting the methane gas from a distance of about 9 kilometres through pipe lines to gas turbines for production of electrical power. This is really great.

If the world’s richest economies are concerned about the depleting resources of crude oil, what is India doing with the world’s largest livestock population of 250 million?

We must wait till another Dr. Kurien, famed for the milk revolution in the country, takes the initiative to form co-operatives to collect cow dung and produce biogas on a commercial basis in every district of the country.
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In our day-to-day life all of us are engaged in some activity or the other, presumably in pursuit of happiness. We may not be all the time aware of or conscious of the fact that the ultimate aim of all our activities is happiness. Happiness that we are after is that which comes from fulfilling our desires. We work to earn to keep our families in comfort, though we may not be quite liking the work that we are doing. Then, it is not the immediate happiness that keeps us on our jobs and business activities, but the happiness that can be procured from performing the activities that may not, per se, we like. It is said that altruistic people do good deeds and help others not really to meet the need s of the underprivileged or helpless people, but it gives them a sense of fulfilment and happiness. People loot and murder not because these deeds give them happiness (may not be true in case of sadists or psychopaths!) but to fulfil the other desires. When we analyse thus, we would reach the conclusion that we are always in pursuit of happiness. How lasting is this happiness is something we hardly bother to ponder. Most of the happy events are not even noticed in our lives, but if the desires are not fulfilled, however small the desire is, there is a positive pain, very recognizable and nagging.
But happiness that we derive from wealth, security and other material objects, is known to be short lived and desire for these keep growing endlessly until our last day on earth. There is never a point of satisfying all ones material desires.
In western societies happiness is mainly derived from material pursuits, physical activities such as water sports, bungee jumping, wind surfing etc and a whole lot of other activities, which for one thing the majority of Indians can hardly afford. What does the Indian do for happiness then? He has to find activities that he can afford, because most of the leisure activities cost a lot for the ordinary Indian to indulge. The most affordable activity of the ordinary Indian is pilgrimage. People go on pilgrimages for different reasons. Faith in God has great healing powers because the poor has nowhere to go except go in search of God.
When the French colonial rule ended in 1956, Habib Bourguiba, who advanced secular ideas, led Tunisia for three decades and these included emancipation for women - women's rights in Tunisia are among the most advanced in the Arab world - the abolition of polygamy and compulsory free education. But the people of Tunisia were far from happy due to a feeling spiritual vacuum and it was reported that at one time people thronged and crowded around a replica of the Kaaba in an exhibition and waited for several hours in long serpentine queues to have a glimpse of the sacred place of the Muslims. They prayed with tears in their eyes as though they were witnessing the original. Immediately following the Bourguiba regime there was a strong surge of religious activities in the country, as though the people where longing for a spiritual revival and many women who threw away the veil earlier adopted it again.
Like in the west, affluent societies do not need spiritual pursuits for happiness, since they have the resources for seeking happiness through many material alternatives – if that can be called happiness. But these societies also come to a point of saturation after a time and the heart will seek for spiritual fulfillment. We see the revival of religious or spiritual revival in many affluent societies. One difficulty with spirituality is that the seeker does not know what he is seeking. The seeker can at best wait for an experience, which is new and exhilarating but can one explain what it is that he is waiting for. A true seeker may be one who abandons everything in pursuit of the “Unknown” but when one embarks on this pursuit, can any one be sure of any kind of outcome? It is said that, knowing the “Unknown”, that is the realization of the truth, that is realization of God is the ultimate happiness, which is endless and which does not expire after a time!
The Hindu thinking is that, life is all about seeking the ultimate truth. The purpose of birth is to strive towards realization of God. God Realization is the ultimate experience, the ultimate knowledge of all. A realized person has no desire for any further knowledge because he knows everything. The law of Karma does not bind realised person. He is one with God. That is to say “He is”. He is bliss itself!