Is Silicon Valley becoming the Cleantech Valley too? About 7 years back, just back from a trip to SFO, I wrote a blog post ( ) on how perhaps some region in the world should create a powerful cleantech ecosystem by modelling it on Silicon Valley, with proximity of diverse...

Bio-scope About 15 years back, my mother planted a sapling of the parijaatam plant (night flowering jasmine) on a small patch of land in front of our house because it was just bare. I don't recall us doing much more with it. When I gave that space a closer look...

300 million potentially habitable planets in our galaxy After reading this CNN news item ( ) over an hour ago, I'm still trying to get a feel for it and failing - it appears so overwhelmingly huge. 300 million planets in our galaxy alone could support life in theory,...

Can - and should - Lifebuoy make me take shorter showers? Unilever targets to make its customers sustainable too. Would that be possible? And wouldn't it hurt its sales? See my LinkedIn post on this topic

You are so incredibly fascinating If someone had said that a book on neuroscience would turn out to be an unputdownable page turner for me, I would have ROFL. But that's precisely what happened with the book "The Brain" by David Eagleman. If I'm allowed to recommend only one book...

 May we live in the best of times Further extending my scope of activities during lock down to all things domestic, I was asked (euphemism for ordered) to do today's kolam for my house. Today is the Tamil New Year day. A new year should represent hope, optimism and new...

Value of education With no maid and no aid, my mom asked me to slice out coconut white from the shell using a knife. What appeared to be a cinch took me half an hour, gave me four bleedings on my palms, with me somehow even managing to get a...

Here's a suggestion to Amazon if it wants to go truly green with its EVs - Go solar Amazon wants to have 10,000 EVs in its Indian fleet. Electric vehicles, if powered by the current grid, will still have significant life cycle CO2 emissions. It is only when the batteries...

A smart way to incorporate green into college curriculum WCC Chennai shows the way - See my LinkedIn post on this topic

 Converting a big problem into good business 35 MILLION TONS of paddy straw burnt every year in Punjab & Haryana, resulting in hundreds of deaths through air pollution. Two IITs (Delhi & Ropar) have come up with innovations that convert paddy straw into valuable products - acoustic boards and biofuels...