Subject: Invitation to attend the National Conference on “Sustainable Development of Smart Cities” on Sep 22-23, 2017 at India International Centre, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi-03

Sub: Invitation to attend the national conference on National Conference on “Sustainable Development of Smart Cities”

Organiser: IDC Foundation

Co-organisers: Grass Roots Research & Creation India (P) Ltd. & International Roma Cultural University, Belgrade, Serbia

Venue: India International Centre, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi-03

Date: Sept 22 – 23, 2017,

Dear  Sir/ Madam,

IDC Foundation, GRC India and IRCU Serbia are going to organize a National Conference on Sustainable Development of Smart Cities on Sept 22-23, 2017. You are cordially invited to attend the same. Your rich experience, information and knowledge sharing for the other stakeholders could have been wonderful.

Background

The increasing urban population and ever increasing migration towards the urban clusters has put additional pressure on the availability of natural resources. This has caused several environmental and resource depletion issues. Increasing human activities, intervention and industrialization has led to increase the toxic elements in the resources viz. Air, Water and Soil; affecting the balance of habitat. This is posing a great challenge on the existence of the living and non living organisms in the ecosystem. There is a great need to create systems and networks to ensure optimum utilization of resources. As per one of the reports by McKinsey Global Institute (2015), India will have 68 cities with a population of over one million by the year 2035.

Management of Resources through Smart Cities

The management of resources with this additional pressure on the urban areas would become a great challenge. An efficient and sustainable solution for serving urban areas is need of the hour. The concept and model of smart cities is of significant importance. A smart city integrates the information and communication technology (ICT) and internet of things (IOT) to manage city’s resources cum assets. This includes managing local departments’ information system, schools, libraries, transport, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement and other community services through ICT based services.  The sustainable management of resources with efficient system will help in improving life standards of this population. As India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Government of India carrying forward the vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, has started taking steps to develop smart cities, which will be self sustainable habitats with maximum resource mobilization, optimized energy supplies and efficient public transportation system with a healthy quality of life.

National Conference

Keeping forward the momentum, National Conference on Sustainable Development of Smart Cities is going to be organized by IDC Foundation in collaboration with Grass Roots Research & Creation India (P) Ltd. and International Roma Cultural University, Belgrade, Serbia on Sept 22-23, 2017, which aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, urban and environmental planners, information technology experts, regulators, administrators and developers and in fact all stakeholders involved in the designing, planning and implementation to exchange and discuss their ideas and share their experiences related with the progress achieved so far in various aspects and issues of Smart Cities Mission with a view to evolve innovative recommendations for achieving the goals and objectives of sustainable development of smart cities as being envisioned under a broad framework of Smart Cities Guidelines 2015 of Government of India. A copy of brochure can be viewed at <https://issuu.com/bhaveshjha/docs/conf_brochure_sdsc-2017.pdf.pdf>;

Invitation

Your kind availability for the same, participation and information sharing could be really wonderful. We trust that your precious presence will provide the inspirational guidance to the delegates and other stakeholders.

For more information, please contact Grass Roots Research & Creation India (P) Ltd., F-374/375, Sec 63, Noida-201301; Ph. No. 0120-4044630, 4044660; Fax No. 0120-2406519, Website: www.grc-india.com Mr. Bhavesh Jha 8377904063/ 9971635600 or Mr. Abhishek Joshi (Mob. 8377904053/9837180402) or write at info@grc-india.com, bhaveshjha08@gmail.com, kunshu10joshi@gmail.com  

For the entire month of April, Safecity is making a case for safety, especially women’s safety in our cities and communities – one of the targets of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. As a part of this worldwide effort, we are focusing on Goal 11 – ‘Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.

Safecity (registered under Red Dot Foundation) is a platform, founded in 2012, that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. This data which maybe anonymous, gets aggregated as hot spots on a map indicating trends at a local level. The idea is to make this data useful for individuals, local communities and local administration to identify factors that causes behavior that leads to violence and work on strategies for solutions.

Come join me with Safecity for a discussion on safe and sustainable cities!

I curate Safecity’s Twitter account (@pinthecreep) this week again for the third time, for an exchange of thoughts, a debate, new perspectives, and most importantly to know more about what it takes to make our cities safer for all. I discuss this with a focus on ‘Omission of women in urban planning’. I’ll also be conducting a Twitter chat concerning safety in India’s 100 smart cities on 8th April 2016 9 PM IST/11:30 PM EST. Save the date!

The increasing economic growth and changing consumption trends world wide have resulted in a significant rise in the disposable incomes and consumers’ propensity to spend. The advancement in technology and changing lifestyle, status or perception of consumers has driven this demand of electronic items. Consumers’ dependency on information and communication technology has been increasing very rapidly. The new innovations in information technology because of the rising demand for higher efficiency and productivity in the businesses and work have become a matter of day to day life. Technologies which were new yesterday have become obsolete for today. The increase in demand for “White Goods segment” i.e. on consumer durables such as television sets, microwave ovens, calculators, air-conditioners, servers, printers, scanners, cellular phones, computers etc. is for obvious. Thus, there can be broad range of waste electric and electronic goods which have outlived their use, ready for disposal. These contain chemical materials considered hazardous for human well beings and natural environment.The increasing rate of waste electronic products and additionally the illegal import of junk electronics from abroad create a complex scenario for solid waste management in India.

According to Ministry of environment and forest, E-waste is such waste comprises of wastes generated from used electronic devices and household appliances which are not fit for their original intended use and are destined for recovery, recycling or disposal.

Indian Scenario

The Indian electronic waste industry is booming at a very rapid pace. It is expected to be increasing at a rate of 20% annually. With increasing per capita income, changing life styles and revolutions in information and communication technologies, India is the second largest electronic waste generator in Asia. India is generating around 4, 00,000 tones of electronic waste per year according to Ministry of Environment and Forest MoEF.  Not only this, it gets around 50,000 tones of e waste through illegal means of imports. According to a report on electronics market, TATA Strategic Management Group says that India is expected to have 11% share in global electronic market. MoEF’2012 report says that Indian electronic waste output has jumped 8 times in the last seven years i.e. 8, 00,000 tones now. India has majorly two types of electronic waste market called organized and unorganized market. 90% of the electronic waste generation in the country lands up in the unorganized market. And out of this only 5.7 % of e waste is recycled. Electronic waste accounts for 70% of the overall toxic wastes which are currently found in landfills which is posing toxic chemical contamination in soil and other natural resources. Another report from Central Pollution Control Board CPCB says that around 36,165 hazardous waste generating industries in India accounts for 6.2 million tones of toxic wastes every year. Indian PC industry is growing at a rate of 25% annually as per MAIT study.

Out of the total electronic waste generation in India, only 40 % of these are taken into the recycling processes and rest 60% remains in warehouses due to inefficient and poor collection systems. Generally, people hand over electronic waste to unauthorized recycling centres/ scrap dealers etc. for quick money. The e-waste scrap is managed through various management alternatives such as reuse of equipment from second hand dealers, back yard recycling (manual dismantling and segregation into plastic, glass and metal) and finally into the municipal dumping yard. 

MAIT (Manufacturers Association for Information Technology) study says that waste from discarded electronics will rise dramatically in the developing world within a decade, with computer waste in India alone to grow by 500 per cent from 2007 levels by 2020. Over 100,000 tonnes from refrigerators, 275,000 tonnes from TVs, 56,300 tonnes from personal computers, 4,700 tonnes from printers and 1,700 tonnes from mobile phone.

Techno-Trash

The electronic waste due to Computer waste also called techno trash is becoming most significant of all e-waste due to the quantity as well as the fast generation rate. The computer hardware sector has displayed an unusual growth in the past few years maintaining pace with the rapid growth in the software sector. The continuous innovations and technological up gradations in the hardware segment, obsolescence risk remains a key area of concern for companies that have made huge investments in their IT systems.

Management

Managing Electronic waste has become a very big challenge.  The governments and private organisation will have to play a crucial and responsible role in order to properly manage electronic waste. Proper inventorisation and management has been very necessary in order to reduce the negative impacts of e waste in human livelihood and maintain prosperity in society. It could be made possible through the consultation with different E-waste experts and the assessment of unorganised small scale industrial houses. Different awareness programmes and reach to the local level unorganised sector recyclers can play a pivotal role in efficiently managing e waste.

Hi Friends,

For all my fellow colleagues in Climate Change domain, below is a link to get a handy document worked by me on the Clean Development Mechanism – the only mechanism under Kyoto Protocol that involves developing nations.

http://www.slideshare.net/PriyankaAbbi1/cdm-a-quick-overview-13038455

Will keep coming with further update and information on various topics in the area. 
 

For any other information or clarification, I am easily approachable and accessible.

Have a great day!

 A developing country like India where around 10% is the unemployment rate, more then half of its population is below poverty line (BPL) as per ADB BPL of 2$ a day; employability has been a cause of concern for government. Proper and efficient technical education and the opportunities thereafter are lacking. Beyond IITs, IIMs and some top technology and management institutions; the quality of education has been not very satisfactory. Despite producing quality professionals, Institutions put their attention to the pomp and show. Industry- academia linkages is lacking and due to what the graduates are not able to find a satisfactory job after the completion of such professional courses like B. Tech, B.E, MBA etc. There is a huge mismatch with the industrial standards of hiring a professional and the raw graduates prepared by these institutions. The practical knowhow and attitude of today’s graduates are a cause of concern for the industry as well as the economy. According to a study, Engineers in India does not match with the international standards and their productivity is one third of an engineer from USA or UK.

But what can a graduate do? They are not trained properly from the beginning. Graduates are groomed under the supervision of these institutions which plays a very pivotal role in deciding the career future of any student.

Today, a peon in a government organization is paid much better than a person who is an MBA/ MA/ B.Tech etc. Unemployment and thus poverty is pushing our highly qualified graduates’ steps back and they feel very frustrated and unable to perform and sometimes they are involved in different bad and criminal activities. They have studied hard, took up all the savings of his family and what is the result, he is stranding in the midway under sun finding a job. He is begging here and there to give some jobs. He queues in long line where for one post, there are more than hundred people. The tremendous pressure from family and society makes them to earn at any cost. Sometimes, some of these strugglers defeat with the situation and the surroundings and he takes the extreme step i.e. suicide. If he is able to find a job still he is not paid as per his qualification. He is exploited maximum and the job pressure takes away all his happiness and personal and social space. He becomes alone again with having a job. As per the international labour law; around 35 hours a week on an average is the criteria of working hours; but in India we work 50 hours a week usually. This is the height of the unethical and unsustainable practices in the Indian job market.  Is this what he has studied and spent huge amount of money for? Those money could have been spent in some other ventures like in setting up own ventures, enterprises etc. Instead of working for others they could have worked in the sectors which suits and interests him. But now after spending so much on his education he is not able to face his family and beg for some more money.

The societal environment needs to be more practical and entrepreneurial. Instead of finding a job an Engineer or an MBA can use his/her expertise to open up his venture, which not only provides him/her mental satisfaction but also the reward in terms of better economic gains. They would be able to generate more economic contribution to the society and also the jobs, which will enhance the inclusive growth and development of society at large. We are not able to make a bankable and feasible business plans after getting these higher studies. Then what is the utilization of the studies they have done. Instead of producing job seekers, governments, institutions should take up a stand towards making graduates job makers. Through the use of business incubators at institutions, they can also enhance their salability in the market.

I asked many of my friends about the aim behind gaining a higher education. Most of them told about getting a good job, good compensation after the completion. People should have to understand about the benefits of quality knowledge and practical experience which itself usually followed with a satisfactory job.   

I personally don’t think that the academic qualification is very necessary. Instead one should think and find one’s real instinct, strengths and interests which can be nurtured into an idea. This idea can be transformed into an enterprise. The enterprise can provide not only self economic sustainability for an individual who starts it but also it generates employment for others as well.    

Academic institutions should pay more attention towards the industry demands. Through proper communication and interactions with the industry they should not only design the course but also they should increase more practical on job trainings in curriculum in terms of internships.  Generally for an MBA internship is of 4 months on an average. This should be increased to 10-12 months so that a graduate learn the different dimensions and complexities of businesses and be more capable of handling the situations in the management process. Time has gone when only the lectures, attending classes and attaining qualifications were more than enough for a graduate to satisfy the role profile of any company. Graduates need to be more practical, efficient and productive in the complex business environment these days.

In this ever increasing competition, decreasing focus of government on unemployed literate youth is a major cause of concern.

This dilemma whether one should attain a good qualification MBA/MCA/B Tech/ B.E etc or should start an enterprise very first would have to be answered. Academic institutions will have to understand the value of hard earned money. They would have to work for the societal upliftment in order to bring economic and social prosperity.