Solan-Soon the people will be able to buy pure organic incense sticks prepared from flowers offered by devotees at religious places. Under the campaign ‘Yuvan’, Una based entrepreneur Ravinder Prashar, with the technical guidance from the scientists of Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry (UHF), Nauni, has developed this eco-friendly incense sticks by utilizing flower offerings from temples.

The idea, supported under the Chief Minister’s Startup scheme aims to provide a novel solution to the problem of disposal of flowers offered by devotees at places of worship. Moreover, these flowers used in religious places and functions also get a new life in the form of incense sticks.

Ravinder, who has completed his Bachelor degree Engineering from BITS Pilani had registered a company –Yuvan Vendors during the last semester of his MBA. Thereafter, he took up this with the CM Start-Up Scheme of the state. On approval, UHF’s Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture was allotted to him as his incubator.

At UHF, the product was developed under the mentorship of Dr Bharti Kashyap, who along with Dr YC Gupta and Dr Manoj Vaidya provided the scientific input in product development. The testing for the product was done at the Floral Craft Lab of the university. 

The process uses natural portions and essential oils from flowers to make the organic incense with no charcoal or any other synthetic chemical. In addition, the process of making the stick is completely carbon neutral. No waste is generated from this process and even the unused portions of the flowers are being utilized to make compost.

The company has already developed five fragrances including rose, sandal and lavender. All the sticks are rolled with hand. These will be available to the customers from June onwards. UHF Vice-Chancellor Dr HC Sharma recently launched the incense sticks during the rose festival of the university.

Ravinder thanked the CM Start-Up Scheme, university and its scientists for their guidance and support in making the product a reality. He said,

The objective was to utilize the pious flowers from the temples and utilize them to make organic incense sticks. Through this, we also wanted to provide an alternative to the disposal of these flowers in open areas and drains.

Congratulating Ravinder and the university scientists on their achievement, Dr HC Sharma, University Vice-Chancellor said,

It is very heartening to see young entrepreneurs coming up with novel ideas that not only generate jobs but also address some problems the society faces. The university regularly helps farmers to establish new enterprises through the dissemination of information and transfer of technology and will continue to support such initiatives in the future as well.

Dr Sharma was of the view that in order to give respect to the agricultural profession, people particularly the youngsters will have to take up entrepreneurship in this field.

The startup scheme envisages practical exposure, orientation training, entrepreneurial guidance and handholding to potential entrepreneurs whose projects are approved. Once a project is recommended by the host institution and approved by the empowered committee, monthly support is provided as sustenance allowance for one year. One such incubation centre was established at UHF in 2017. The centres support startups and innovation by providing mentoring services, access to their labs, facilities on a free-of-cost basis.

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the Earth. But in the 21st century, scientists now estimate that society must urgently come to grips this coming decade to stop the very first human-made biodiversity catastrophe.

“The sixth extinction is on our societyʻs shoulders; it really is,” said ecologist Greg Asner, who serves on the faculty of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the School of Earth and Space Exploration and came to Arizona State University this past January to lead the new Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science.

“We have to make a decision about where to save biodiversity, and where to let it go,” said Asner. “That’s where we are now. We are playing that game as a society. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to that point because we are dominating the planet.”

Asner is one of 19 international authors with a bold new science policy proposal to reverse the tide, called A Global Deal for Nature (GDN). The policy’s mission is simple: Save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth — for the price tag of $100 billion a year.

“It’s not a huge price tag,” said Asner. “That’s not a pie-in-the-sky number, but one we had to meet on and agree on. I know that those numbers are not outlandish.”

Consider that in 2018 alone, the top two most profitable U.S. companies, Apple and Berkshire Hathaway, almost matched that amount. What’s the price of saving the Earth by comparison?

Societal investment in the GDN plan would, for the first time, integrate and implement climate and nature deals on a global scale to avoid human upheaval and biodiversity loss.

While the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was the first major accord to take global action toward climate change policies, the international team of GDN scientists believe a similar companion pact is desperately needed to implement the very first global nature conservation plan to meet these challenges.

“All nations have signed on to this (Paris) agreement,” wrote corresponding author Eric Dinerstein, of the Washington, D.C.-based nongovernmental organization Resolve. “But the Paris agreement is only a half-deal; it will not alone save the diversity of life on Earth or conserve ecosystem services upon which humanity depends.

“The Global Deal for Nature is a time-bound, science-based plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth. Without the Global Deal for Nature, the goals of the Paris climate deal become unreachable; worse, we face the unraveling of the Earth’s natural ecosystems that sustain human life. Achieving the milestones and targets of the Global Deal for Nature is the best gift we can offer to future generations — an environmental reset, a pathway to an Eden 2.0. We must seize this hopeful pathway.”

The study, published in Science Advances, titled “A Global Deal For Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets”

Shimla-Every year on April 15, Himachal Day is celebrated to mark the day when Himachal Pradesh, among other 30 princely states, came into being as a centrally administered territory. Since the inception of this state, the people throughout the world have admired Himachal Pradesh owing to its tall standing mountains, forests, nature, adventurous trekking trails and the peace and serenity it offers.

However, during the last decade, this love and admiration from tourists have turned into filth and carelessness. Rivers and forests alike have been polluted by broken beer bottles, single-use plastic cups, water bottles, wrappers of crisps and biscuit. Not only do they harm the soil, but also poses a threat to the lives of animals like cows and dogs, who consume littered plastic, causing them extreme physical ailments.

The menace of littering continues despite the claims of the civic bodies as well as the government of India that Swachh Bharat has almost eradicated this ill practice.

As an initiative Trek A Tribe, a tours and travels company, organized a cleanliness drive at Shimla on April 15, 2019 to celebrate Himachal Day. Total 18 youth participated in the cleanliness campaign. As per this team, the campaign began from Sheeshe Wali Kothi and was supposed to end at Jakhu Temple. But they had to abandon their plan of going till the top since the amount of waste was much more than these youth had expected.

Just the starting point consumed over four hours of their drive. We collected 35 bags of garbage at the starting point of their drive,

the team said.

Most of the trash is the plastic left behind by youth who come to the forest to drink and eat, causing harm to the environment,

the team said.

The end solution, however, does not lay in repetitive cleanliness drives, but in the conscious awareness of the people. They should be aware enough to not leave their trash behind, it said.  

These cleanliness drives, the team said, do help in cleaning the surroundings but they do not solve the purpose if the people keep littering the same place over and again. The team said that the purpose of its cleanliness drive was also to raise awareness among the people by initiating a dialogue towards the protection of the environment. This drive urged people to raise voice against plastic pollution and to lead their lives more consciously. They need a more aware lifestyle.

The Municipal Corporation, Shimla, provided transportation and disposal facility for the garbage collected by these youth.