Big ideas for micro units

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play a pivotal role in India’s industrial development, as they help hone and nurture the talent and skills of entrepreneurs. The MSME sector contributes 8 per cent to the country’s GDP, 45 per cent to the manufactured output, and 40 per cent to exports, and provides employment to 60 million people through 28.5 million enterprises.

How to live sustainably every day (Part 3) - A thriftier kitchen

A recent news article reported that American families waste nearly 40 per cent of the food they buy. As Indian householders get busier and more frazzled, we too are losing a good bit of our vegetables and provisions to carelessness. One rotten tomato can spoil an entire kilo. Packaged beans from a department store may contain those which are too stringy to use. A cut piece of white melon may rot in the fridge. Meanwhile, vegetable prices are rising every day.

How to live sustainably every day (Part 2) - It’s all about easy composting

In rural households, vegetable peels, plant clippings, coconut husks and other organic waste are all tossed under a tree or into a trench and eventually find their way back into the nutrient cycle of the garden. In the city, we are more fussy about what parts of a vegetable we use; we throw out vegetables that have wilted and rotted because we forgot about them. We have no cows and chicken to eat the food we won’t eat, so we accumulate much more vegetable waste.

How to live sustainably every day (Part 1) - How to trash that

Sooner or later, as we drive out of our leafy neighbourhoods and happening cities, we see them. Piles of garbage, stinking, oozing, and spilling on to the freshly tarred road. Somebody in the car says, ‘Why can’t they incinerate? Why can’t they recycle? Why can’t they do something?’ But this particular issue has to be addressed with ‘Why can’t we do something?’Those stinking, oozing piles come from households very much like ours. We generate endless streams of plastic wrapping and thermocol from white goods, paper and cardboard from branded purchases, and heaps of food waste.

Small is lucrative - Google is all set to train professionals who will help SMEs in India manage their digital campaigns

There is a strong demand for digital advertising from small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the country, To cater to them Google India has launched a ‘SME Partner Programme’.Through this, the company will train premier SME partners to offer the highest level of expertise and proficiency in developing, launching and managing digital campaigns for SME ventures. The partners will offer end-to-end marketing solutions like search engine marketing, localised marketing solutions across Google properties and a mobile advertising platform.

RFID-enabled services for supply chain management

RFID-enabled services are increasingly used in supply chain management by fixing RFID tags on the pallets or products and using special readers to track the products. Modern tags, which can be reused any number of times, are also available now.If a retailer who sources his products from several locations and has operations in different cities wants to have real-time data of the goods in his warehouses and at the outlets, he can go in for the Radio Frequency Identification-enabled services.Dubai-based Hexomatrixx has taken the technology forward by integrating the RFID reader to smart phones. It has already tested this in some of the overseas markets and plans to launch it in India too.

Election Commission of India to work together With Civil Society

The Election Commission of India and Civil Society Organisations have decided to work together on inclusive and greater participation of people in the electoral process. This was decided during a two-day consultation ECI held with a range of Civil Society Organizations in New Delhi concluded yesterday. The consultation also came up with recommandations on the challenges faced by Election Commission in meeting gender gap, fighting urban apathy, overcoming youth disconnect, inclusion of marginalised and weaker section and promoting ethical and informed voting. The Consultation also identified areas in which CSOs can extend electoral services support to election machinery at the grassroots level.