Himanshu gave an interesting lecture on natural farming , pioneered by Fukuoka a microbiologist/farmer in Japan in 1950's explained in his book "One Straw Revolution". Natural farming is different from industrial farming and traditional farming as well. The idea of natural farming is that if crops are cultivated without any external "forced" agent, (no machines, prepared compost,), then the crops grown on will have high yield with minimal cost.

This SJC was presented by our special guest: Tara Ramanathan. She is an economics major at UCSD, and went to India last year for her studies abroad. She is actively pursuing her interests in urbanization and the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation.

The One Laptop Per Child project has gotten a lot of positive and negative press in the last two years. We take a brief look at the history of OLPC, the current status of the projects and where it is headed. Despite the criticisms, one fact can not be denied: OLPC has brought low cost computing into the main stream public consciousness like never before. Whether or not the project succeeds, only time will tell.

Water resource management is a very serious issue that is facing most of the world and especially India. An historical emphasis on large scale projects such as dams has led to an unbalanced situation with current water management. Groundwater resources are being used at a very unsustainable rate without appropriate efforts to maintain these resources.

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