Butterfly Metamphor and Sustainable Development

This month newsletter brings you a view on how the actual change in the society towards sustainable development takes place. Evolutionary Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris explains this through the metaphor of how a butterfly emerges from the caterpillar. This is an excerpt from her famous book "Earth Dance".

We have two happy features in this newsletter. One is the announcement of 'societal innovation award' by NRDC (National Research Development Corporation) being awarded to Dr. Kamalasannan Pillai our senior scientist. He is popularly known as Dr."Azolla" Pillai because of his wonderful work in propagating Azolla as a bio-feed for cattle through the cost-effective NARDEP backyard cultivation technology. There is a brief feature on the work of Dr. Pillai in this newsletter.We take this opportunity to make this technology flower into a people's movement for the marginal livestock farmers of this country and hopefully those is all developing countries.

The next happy feature is the work in Murugan Kuntram - a small hillock in the southernmost part of Kanyakuamri - where VK-nardep has successully constructed a beautiful rainwater harvesting/management structure in the form of a temple tank.This has been achieved with the assistance of Sri.R.G.Keswani and the active participation of local community.Tradition, Technology and Social networking all have come together for this eco-achievement. This is a replicable model for many parts of Tamil Nadu. And this can also bring a revolutionary change in the water harvesting landscape of the state. Speaking of social networking Our Siddha doctor Dr.Ganapathi is in facebook now. His facebook inputs are valuable insights into the world of Siddha healing and good living. You will find the link in this newsletter.

In the wisdom section we have a cellular biologist, a spiritual feminist and Swami Vivekananda talking about the centrality of oneness to our visions and actions. Thus we have Ursula Goodenough a cellular biologist speaking of how " the sacredness of life, of the astonishing complexity of cells and organisms, of the vast lengths of time" invoke in us "religious emotions", Swami Vivekananda speaking of how "happiness belongs to him who knows this oneness, who knows he is one with this universe" and Gangaji a spiritual feminist speaks of all life forms as "a collective cosmic story", "a teeming theater of lifeforms appearing and disappearing" while beyond this dance of names and forms Life is always there.