The Weekend Leader - We Report News & Stories that Matter
Real teacher

Urvashi Sahni is an innovative educationist, who has done more than teaching and starting schools. Her project, Digital Study Hall, takes lectures of city school teachers to rural and slum students through videos, says Kavita Kanan Chandra

Techno solution

For the age-old problem of drinking water scarcity, a solution has been found through modern technology in Rajasthan’s Lakshmangarh, where people draw water from an ATM, says Ankur Paliwal

Husk power

Sahebganj in Bihar has seen a change in people’s lifestyle, thanks to biomass gasification plants that use husk as fuel, says Ankur Paliwal. More such plants are to be set up elsewhere, too

A pine idea

It sounded like a crazy idea first. Then it was fine and Rajnish Jain was able to generate electricity from pine needles, something that caused massive fires in the Himalayan forests, for rural households. Kavita Kanan Chandra tells the story

Going bananas

The National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology has developed technology for extracting banana fibre, which is in demand for making textiles, yarn, paper, and handbags

Useful weed

Researchers at a university in Tamil Nadu have found that the dreaded water hyacinth has some use. Biplab Das explains how biodegradable plastic can be made from the otherwise infamous weed

 
Green wheels

A single mother of two becomes New Delhi's first woman electric rickshaw driver. The emission free e-rickshaw can carry up to two passengers and its maximum speed is 20 km per hour

Lake cleaner

A product developed by a Bangalore based company is in great demand in the US after it helped in restoring a polluted lake that had “a variety of water quality issues," says K S Jayaraman

Invent for women

Having the finger on the pulse of rural women, Priyadarshini Karve has focused on research that will help the people at the grassroots. Suchismita Pai profiles the inventor with a difference

Magic car

A Pakistani engineer has built a car that runs on water and he drove the car during a demonstration for parliamentarians, scientists, and students at Islamabad, leaving onlookers astounded

Green cleaners

Chucking careers in the corporate world, an IIM couple came up with a ‘plant detergent’, which is not just eco-friendly but also works out cheaper and reduces water consumption while laundering clothes. Radhika Giri meets the Krya founders

 

Re-recycling waste

What happens to the waste that recycling of paper throws up? In the hands of Sachin Mandavgane and Rahul Ralegaonkar, it turns into paper bricks that are all set to change the contours of Green Building technology, says Kavita Kanan Chandra

 
New bio-fuel

Villagers in Himachal Pradesh are earning up to Rs.40,000 selling pine needles to a cement plant, which is using it as a bio-fuel in its kilns along with charcoal, says Vishal Gulati

Perfect pot

Poonam Kasturi Bir is a potter with a difference. Her earthenware converts kitchen waste to manure. Sapna Gopal finds out why the ‘compostwali’, whose ‘teen khambha’ has caught the imagination of people even abroad, loves to constantly experiment

No water, yes wash

Observing World Water Day on March 22 in the most appropriate way, three youth launched a car wash service that uses not a drop of water. P C Vinoj Kumar comes clean on the process that now has about 200 car owners ‘satisfied’ in Coimbatore
 

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