Meet few tech titans who gave away billions in charity

Zuckerberg, 31, and his wife Priscilla Chan, already lauded for donating $1.5 billion in Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), are setting a high bar that is bringing more money to philanthropic endeavors.

Image: Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have decided to donate 99 per cent of their shares in the company to charity during their lives in an effort to make a happy and healthy world as they announced the birth of their daughter Maxima. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Reuters

Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge on Tuesday to give away most of his Facebook  shares, a roughly $45 billion fortune, helps cement his role as one of Silicon Valley’s most generous donors.

The donation could also help bolster the reputation of the technology community, which has faced criticism for driving up rents and exacerbating income inequality in Silicon Valley while valuations of companies there reach stratospheric levels.

Zuckerberg, 31, and his wife Priscilla Chan, already lauded for donating $1.5 billion in Facebook stock to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), are setting a high bar that is bringing more money to philanthropic endeavors.

Nicholas and Jill Woodman, the founders of GoPro, the wearable camera company, said last year they would give $500 million to the SVCF.

Image: WhatsApp Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Jan Koum has pledged more than $500 million towards charity. Reuters/Albert Gea

Jan Koum, a co-founder of message service WhatsApp, pledged more than $500 million, also for the SVCF.

Image: Sean Parker, an early Facebook executive and a founder of music-sharing service Napster, has committed $600 million to his foundation, which has goals of improving civic engagement, public health, and life sciences. Photograph: Reuters

Sean Parker, an early Facebook executive and a founder of music-sharing service Napster, has committed $600 million to his foundation, which has goals of improving civic engagement, public health, and life sciences.

Google’s  Sergey Brin last year gave $383 million to his family foundation, which supports causes such as eradicating poverty in the San Francisco region. 

Image: His co-founder, Larry Page, gave Google stock valued at $177 million to a foundation named after his father, Carl Victor Page, that he started in 2006. Photograph: Reuters

His co-founder, Larry Page, gave Google stock valued at $177 million last year to a foundation named after his father, Carl Victor Page, that he started in 2006. It focuses on areas such as education and medicine.

The year before, Page had landed on Inside Philanthropy’s list of least generous donors.

“The foundation seems to give only to donor-advised funds that can sit on the money indefinitely,” the publication wrote at the time.

A representative of the Page Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Image: Tech titan Yuri Milner has recently said he would spend $100 million looking for intelligent life in space by searching for radio and light signals. Photograph: Reuters

Another tech titan with a sizable philanthropic streak is investor Yuri Milner, who bankrolls the annual Breakthrough Prizes, which awards $3 million each to scientists.

Earlier this year, Milner said he would spend $100 million looking for intelligent life in space by searching for radio and light signals.

Image: Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who along with his wife Melinda, have given $30.7 billion as of last year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, known for work in poverty and healthcare. Gates is a leading advocate of the Giving Pledge, a commitment made by billionaires to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charity. Photograph: Reuters

But so far, the most famous tech donor is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who along with his wife Melinda, have given $30.7 billion as of last year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, known for work in poverty and healthcare.

Gates is a leading advocate of the Giving Pledge, a commitment made by billionaires to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charity.

Why are our cities in a mess today?

Populations of cities are rising, more are coming in because cities continue to attract people for jobs and because of increased economic activity. One standard question would be: What is the government doing about this?, asks M Ramachandran. 

Image: Most Indian cities are grappling with heavy traffic. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/Reuters

Basic civic services are not available to everyone, the quality and level of service remains poor, there is increasing confusion on city roads, slums are on the increase and a general sense of confusion prevails.

This seems to be the city resident's standard comment on living conditions today.

Populations of cities are rising, more are coming in because cities continue to attract people for jobs and because of increased economic activity. One standard question would be: What is the government doing about this?  

Before we attempt to answer this, let us examine the key reasons why most of our 8,000 cities and towns are in what could generally be called an urban mess.  

In most cases, urban planning and creation of master plans for developing cities did not happen the way it should.

Till recently, the situation was that out of the 5,161 cities we had according to the earlier census, two-thirds did not have a master plan at all.

So, one can imagine the confusion that continues to prevail in the absence of a set scheme of development.

Even where master plans came into existence, enforcement was weak. On top of this, state governments, particularly powerful chief ministers, proactively presided over decision-making on individual land use change requests from cities.  

It was only after about 45 years of independence that we could give constitutional status to our third level of governance.

But, that remained a half-hearted effort because proper empowerment of these urban bodies did not take place as it was constitutionally left to state governments to take a call on how much power, funds and functions were to be transferred to these bodies.

And this agenda still remains pending.

Hence, the scenario where mayors and chairpersons continue to complain about not having enough powers.  

Basic services like water supply, solid waste management, drainage and sewerage were entrusted to urban bodies. But, either due to lack of funds or the will to prioritise what should come first, these bodies could not ensure 100 per cent access to services.  

Urban roads and mobility remained a subject within the domain of state governments and because the voices of cities did not matter much, the focus and attention was just not there.

The backlog was so huge, that it is no wonder the high powered expert committee that looked into the issue of resource requirement for cities came out with an investment requirement of Rs 17,29,000 crore for urban roads and Rs 4,50,000 crore for urban transport.  

Housing is another area where nothing much happened because assessing demand city-wise and adopting a target-oriented approach to meet requirements was not prioritised.

As a result, slums expanded. So much so that, in a major city like Mumbai more than 50 per cent of the population lives in slums. Housing is still not a subject assigned to urban local bodies.

It was only recently that the central government paid attention to this and set a target of housing for all by 2022, which means building at least 20 million new units for those who are without homes.  

Though subjects were assigned to urban bodies, the seriousness and keenness to allow these bodies to undertake their functions varied from state to state.

They do not have enough resource generating capacity, as a result of which most of them are dependent on devolution of funds from states and the Centre.

Also, many of these did not try seriously to generate revenue based on the items entrusted to them and levy user charges and provide satisfactory delivery of services.  

These bodies on their own are in no capacity to raise loans and, thus, find the resources for taking up major schemes.

Public-private partnerships as additional sources of investment could not take off, and the change in devolution of funds from states to urban bodies - expected as a result of mandatorily contituting state finance commissions every five years - did not serve the desired objective.

Allocation of resources by state governments to cities for schemes never received any priority, and there was no way concerns of cities could be heard properly at the state level.

And this despite the fact that contribution of cities to gross domestic product, tax revenues and employment generation was on the rise.

This is in contrast to the large number of rural development programmes that got introduced Plan after Plan. It is only now that the Centre has laid down basic priorities like toilets for all by 2019 with an outlay of Rs 62,009 crore, and to cover all households with water supply and sewerage.  

Over the years, not much attention was paid to strengthening the capacities of urban local bodies so that they could take up the ever-increasing challenges competently and professionally.

As a result, municipal capacities continue to be weak, making them dependent on consultants for almost anything new and different, even regular maintenance.

Further, there are no clearly stated norms as to when a state will notify a rural village panchayat as an urban body, when a new local body is constituted what is the funding support it will get to meet infrastructure gaps and what sort of division of areas and work will follow among the elected body, parastatals and other entities working within city limits.

In many states, the mayor or chairperson gets a limited term of one year, the commissioner has no defined tenure, there is no review of where the city stands with regard to service level benchmarks in basic service areas. Also, there is no clear accountability laid down for satisfactory delivery of basics services.

There is also no watchdog. There is no agenda to take care of the steady urbanisation of our census towns, which continue to be villages.

There are no proper avenues available for citizens to participate in and contribute to the process of city building.  

Broadly, these are the basic reasons why our cities do not succeed in meeting the desired satisfaction levels of residents.

The government needs to seriously take up the agenda of reforming city governance.  

The writer is a former Secretary for Urban Development in government of India and an active urban thinker and policy facilitator

Riding Bajaj Avenger Street 220 and Cruise 220

Tanmay Pangam took the two Avengers for a spin and is mighty impressed

The Bajaj Avenger has been the quintessential cruiser with a wide audience appeal. People who sought an alternative to Royal Enfield's lifestyle offerings either out of choice or lack of funding often veered towards the Avenger.

The Bajaj brand's assurance behind the motorcycle, it's classic small-capacity cruiser styling and easy-riding position were among the key reasons behind its success. Having said that, the looks of the Avenger hadn't changed much over the years. Seeing that they had to look rather jaded, Bajaj decided to give not one but two variants on the same engine platform. Christened the Cruise 220 & the Street 220, each of the variants is targeted at a specific segment of buyers.

We had the opportunity to spend some time with the two Avenger models & here are our first impressions:

Styling

The 220 Cruise is the old Avenger that'll carry on the quintessential cruiser torch proudly. Everywhere you look there's a healthy lashing of chrome. The paint on the tank is new, as are the emblems and the sticker job. The oil-cooler is encased in shiny chrome too, as is the horn -- toot toot! View it in profile and you see that things haven't changed much here and you still have all the strengths of the Avenger platform that have endeared it to buyers over the years.

The 220 Street on the other hand is Bajaj's take on an easy rider that is the ideal tool for the urban prowl. Gone are the heavy doses of chrome, the tall handlebar and its ilk. The entire motorcycle goes matte and there's very little in terms of shiny reflective surfaces here. Viewing it from the front, the only chrome bits remaining are the surrounds for the meter and the headlight, together with the top of the front suspension pipes. The rest is all finished in matte paint, with the under-body in flat black.

There's a flatter handlebar that transforms the riding position and feels just perfect for the cut and thrust conditions of the urban prowl. The wire wheels are traded for snazzy 12-spoke alloy wheels. The tank follows the matte paint language and looks rather fetching in black, with its contrast graphics. The exhaust is all new and sports a rounded look, appearing almost bulbous instead of the chopped-looking one earlier. This is again finished in flat black with satin silver accents, but the latter end up detracting somewhat from the premium look of the motorcycle.

We spent a brief time in the saddle of both Avenger variants. Mechanically speaking, there's not much change. The 220cc DTS-i motor continues as before, though the visual makeup has transformed the way it looks nested within the chassis. The only functional changes are the RE T-Bird inspired foot-pegs and the handle-bars in the two variants. Pull in the clutch on the 220 Cruise, thumb the starter, and the motor smartly comes to life, accompanied by a tell-tale needle sweep across the speedo.

Let out the light clutch and the 220 Cruise darts off the line. If you've ridden the previous-gen Avenger, then you'll feel right at home. It is the same, familiar riding position, the comfort from the well-cushioned street and the fact that your feet can touch the ground. The gearbox feels butter-smooth, with shifts, both up and down the ratios feeling quicker than ever. There's chrome everywhere you look and touch around you, which ought to bring a smile to the faces of the purists. The exhaust note does sound like it has changed, getting slightly gruffy as we briefly took her up the rev range.

Switching to the 220 Street and the difference is immediately apparent. The flatter handle-bar is the first trick. Also, the bike feels better planted riding out of the parking lot. As we headed out on the open road, the 220 Street feels sure-footed and the bike appears to be at ease in the urban cut and thrust routine. The switch to those 12 spoke alloy wheels didn't just up the oomph factor but they also seem to have improved the road behaviour. Braking behaviour too felt a mite better on the Street than the Cruise.

Weighing in

On the road, it was the 220 Street with its matte paint job and minimalist appearance that grabbed the eyeballs. The mini-Harley Street 750 styling creating the stir that Bajaj is expecting. In terms of the initial riding feel too, the 220 Street felt better than its Cruise sibling (the latter should keep the purists happy).

For now, Bajaj Auto must be commended for this move of theirs. They may have taken their own sweet time with the updates to their Cruiser line-up, and even this has no real mechanical changes. But coming out with two, visually distinct variants on the same platform, yet appealing to two markedly different sets of customer needs indeed deserves an applause. The buyers however are expected to offer the last hurrah and it shall be interesting to watch which of the siblings surges ahead.

DISCLAIMER: This isn't a complete review, just a few initial impressions of the Avenger range of bikes.

Shh! Here's why IITians won't reveal their salary figures this time

All those news reports you've been reading about plum placement offers to bright IITians of the country may not be authenticated as yet. Read on to know why!

The country's premier technical institute, the IITs have decided not to reveal any pay package figures from this placement season following complaints of peer and parental pressure on students.

"Disclosing salaries puts unnecessary pressure on students. It kickstarts peer pressure as well as parental and societal pressure. People forget that only very few of them actually get those fat pay packages of over a crore. The minimum and average salaries are much less," Prof Sudhirkumar Barai, chairman, Career Development Centre at IIT Kharagpur, told PTI.

A decision to this effect was taken recently at a meeting of All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) in Guwahati. 

"We had this rule of non-disclosure earlier also but this time we took a conscious decision to implement it," Barai said.

The first phase of placements began at the IITs from yesterday.

So far the IITs used to reveal packages but kept identity of the students a secret.

"We have noticed that only the highest salary is discussed. But people forget that the average salary which an IITian gets is far less than the fattest one," Barai said.

Another issue lies with the employers as many of them have a confidentiality clause in their job contract which restricts them to publicly disclose their remuneration.

"Some multinationals will complain to us if we disclose the figures and breach the confidentiality clause," the placement in-charge of IIT-Kgp said.

In some cases, security and safety of the passouts and their families could be another cause of concern as they might even get kidnapped for a ransom, he feared. 

"All the figures from any IITs being discussed in the media this season is unauthenticated as none of the premier engineering institute can disclose figures," Barai said.

Recently an IIT-Kgp student had disclosed directly before the media that he bagged an annual package of Rs 2 crore from Google after finishing internship.

"We can't stop students from making any disclosures on their own," the IIT official said. 

There are 16 IITs in the country.  Altogether 177 students have already got pre-placement offers (PPOs) from different companies at IIT-Kgp.

Chennai turns into an island, thousands rendered homeless; more rains predicted

Chennai on Wednesday turned a virtual island and coastal areas of Tamil Nadu were marooned after unprecedented rains in 100 years pounded the city, its suburbs and neighbouring districts destroying road and rail links, shutting the airport and rendering thousands homeless.

Army personnel rescuing people during their flood relief operations in rain-hit areas in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

Late tonight, the Airport Authority of India announced that Chennai airport will remain shut till December 6 in the wake of the battering downpour and predictions of more rains in the next 72 hours.

Chennai, which received 49 cm of rain and Chembarambakkam, where the reservoir surplussed about 25,000 cusecs of water into Adyar river, received 47 cm of rains in the last 24 hours that flooded the city and the suburbs, uprooting people from their homes.

Vehicle moves on the watter lodged road during heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

Flood waters reached upto the second floor of the Housing Board colonies on the banks of Adyar river as people reached roof-tops looking for rescue and relief in several parts of the city and suburbs.

The death toll in the rains that have lashed the city and other parts of state has gone up to 197, officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last night and promised all assistance, held discussions with his cabinet colleagues Rajnath Singh (Home), Arun Jaitley (Finance) and M Venkaiah Naidu (Parliamentary Affairs) in the morning to take stock of the situation.

People being rescued after heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI

The National Crisis Management Committee headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha reviewed the situation and assured the state of all support from the centre.

All modes of transport -- air, road and rail services -- remained suspended due to the unprecedented deluge, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at the airport and various rail terminals.  Suburban rail services also remained suspended.

Trains stand stranded at a railway station near flooded tracks after heavy rains in Chennai on Wednesday. Photograph: PTI 

Adding to the worry of the citizens and administration, the weatherman has forecast rainfall over the next three days with the next 48 being very critical under the influence of a trough of low pressure and upper air circulation over the southwest Bay of Bengal and Sri Lankan coast.

Thereafter, the state will see an anti-cyclone activity which will be associated with "heavy rains" at some places.

People wade through the thick waters. Photograph: PTI 

"The phenomenon will continue for the next seven days, but the next 48 hours are very crucial. Neighbouring states will also see rainfall activity," L S Rathore, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department told reporters in Delhi.

© Copyright 2015 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.

Related News: Chennai, PTI, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department, National Crisis Management Committee, Arun Jaitley

Amazing story of an IITian who invented a $1 microscope!

Meet Manu Prakash, the IIT Kanpur alumnus who invented the microscope that costs less than a dollar, dreams of a world where everybody has the right to science.

In Africa, they term the problem 'The man with the key is missing.'

It's one of those aggravating situations when a community in a developing country has all kinds of fantastic scientific equipment donated to it, but can't access it when it needs it the most because the man in charge has locked it all up and gone home.

That's because the equipment would probably cost 15 times the annual salary of that guy.

"People are afraid of scientific tools, and that's the wrong model - you need to put research tools out in the field," says Manu Prakash, physicist and assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.

Travelling through Thailand in 2011, Prakash and his colleagues came across a similar situation, where people in a remote village wanted to run a test for rabies but could not, though they had the equipment.

That was one of the inspirations for the 33-year-old Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur alumnus' remarkable invention: a diagnostic microscope that costs less than a dollar and which can be printed and folded from a single sheet of paper, like in origami.

Announced earlier this year, Foldscope has grabbed the attention of the scientific community around the world. Prakash was the recipient of a $100,000-grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation while it was being developed.

Prakash, who did his masters and doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology after his computer science engineering degree from IIT, is on his way to his lab in Stanford when we catch up on the phone one morning.

He has opted for a phone call rather than a Skype call, where I had hoped to see the Foldscope because it was more convenient.

Fortunately, Prakash has given a TED talk where he explains how the Foldscope works, and it looks quite incredible - it can actually be folded out from a single sheet of paper, needs no external power, fits into your pocket, and can survive being dropped from a multi-storey building or being stamped on vigorously, as the researcher with a mop of unruly curls seems delighted to demonstrate. 

The current version of the Foldscope gives you a 2000x magnification with a sub-micron resolution. A bacteria is around one micron, so if you just want to see whether the bacteria is present or not, the instruments are good enough, he explains. Field trials are being run for diagnosing different diseases in various locations, such as malaria in Ghana.

Most diagnostic field trials take a long time but once the validation is done, distribution and use will be scaled up, he says. PrakashLab is also in talks with an organisation in south India. 

"Sikkim is another area of interest because malaria is a huge deal there, but progress is somewhat hampered by the fact that these field trials have not yet received a grant," he adds. 

The one area where Foldscopes use can be scaled up immediately, and which Prakash says he is very excited about, is in science education, which he feels is crucial because of its link with healthcare.

"If you are not excited about science or if you have never looked under a microscope to see what causes a disease, you are more likely to take up some other profession (than healthcare)," he says.

"The passion for science comes early on, so one of the things we are thinking about is how to get kids excited about scienc

Prakash's own passion for science was kindled when he was growing up in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. The previous tenant of his half-farm, half-home had been a chemistry teacher who was ignominiously kicked out and his apparatus confiscated and stashed in the garage, which turned out to be a treasure trove for Prakash and his brother.

"We inherited a lab with almost 200 chemicals, and we did all kinds of things. It was fantastic," he says.

He and his friends also assembled a rabbit skeleton out of the bones of three rabbits procured from a butcher's shop.

When he tells you a rabbit has almost as many bones as a human being and that creating what was essentially a 3D jigsaw puzzle was amazing, you get a sense of that little boy's enthusiasm.

Though his interest was in basic science, he opted to study computer science for his undergraduate degree from IIT, which he admits was due to peer pressure.

"I did well and I learnt a lot but my heart was in physical things, in mechanics, so I spent a lot of time in other departments which was encouraged," he says. Nitin Saxena, Prakash's batchmate and now an assistant professor at their alma mater, remembers him as somebody who was always very active, especially in project-based studies, even though he was not one of the toppers.

"The general impression in the batch was that he was someone interested in learning new things, beyond what was in the curriculum," says Saxena. 

Prakash also developed his interest in science education while he was in IIT when he, along with some friends, started a programme called BRICS, short for Build Robots, Create Science.

The group travelled to schools around the country and conducted workshops in robotics.

He was the most dynamic person in that group and was a natural leader.

In the three years that he was involved with BRICS, he visited 40-50 schools for the workshops, says Amitabha Mukherjee, professor of computer science and engineering at IIT Kanpur and one of Prakash's mentors there. 

The philosophy behind his work and its driving force is something Prakash has termed frugal science.

"It's very important to me for science to be frugal because then it becomes scalable and everybody has the right to do science. Now, people think that if you do not have the resources, you cannot do good science, which is not true. And we are thinking about how we could change that," he says.

Mukherjee says this line of thought was evident in his days at IIT.

"Frugal science was also part of the Build Robots, Create Science philosophy. At that time Lego sets used to cost around Rs 16,000 in India and even posh schools were hesitant to buy them; so we started looking at low-cost options, such as building robots from junk. We called that junk science." 

While the Foldscope is not yet available commercially, Prakash says the lab will soon be shipping 10,000 instruments to various corners of the globe.

Called the Ten Thousand Microscope initiative, the lab had invited people to propose an experiment using a microscope, the results of which they would document and upload to a common website.

They got responses from over 130 countries, including some from children too young to type the emails themselves. The beauty of it is that an examination done by a kid in Kenya, for example, could be repeated by someone in Hyderabad.

And it highlights the idea of context, because the types of problems proposed by people from India and Nepal were very different from, say, someone in California. 

The experiments include one from a young girl who wanted to know why we need to wash contact lenses every time, and who plans to see what grows on the lenses when you don't clean them for a day, two days, three days, and so on.

Another proposal came from a farmer in Mongolia, who wanted to detect pathogens in camel milk. PrakashLab was awarded $757,000 by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (Moore is a co-founder of Intel) to manufacture 10,000 Foldscopes

"We will do a commercial spin-off right after that, geared towards large-scale deployment, because we already have requests from all over the world," he says. 

Prakash says his dream is for every single child to have a Foldscope in his or her pocket, 30 years from now.

"I don't know what that world would be like. But people would be able to see the world from the components it's made of. And that's the dream we're working towards."

How an IITian is helping villagers to produce electricity

Yogeshwar Kumar is helping villagers build and operate their own micro-hydro-power plants.

They say it takes tiny drops of water to eventually fill an ocean.

At a time when the world is questioning the construction of mega dams in the earthquake-prone and ecologically sensitive Himalayas, Yogeshwar Kumar's micro-hydro projects have the potential to do exactly that.

In the last three decades, Kumar, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, has engaged with rural communities to build over 15 micro-hydro plants. 

Constructed by villagers-turned-barefoot-engineers, these projects are also operated and maintained by them.

"Every mountain stream flowing down a gradient is capable of producing some power - and every village community has it in its hands to tap it. In my estimate, every third village in the Himalayas can harness nearby streams and waterfalls to become self-sufficient in power," says Kumar.

Inspiring as the idea may be, it is certainly not new.

The first mini hydroelectric project in India commenced back in 1897 in Darjeeling.

But what sets Kumar's initiative apart is his emphasis on community involvement and the use of electricity to power rural livelihood projects.

"The idea is to enable rural communities to become self-sufficient," he says. 

"Although it was hard at the outset to train the villagers, who are mostly illiterate, in power generation, the results have been great," says Kumar.

Today, all the plants he has set up in places as diverse as Kargil (Ladakh), Agunda and Budha Kedarnath (Uttarakhand) and Kalahandi (Orissa) are being maintained by locals.

Some of these grassroots engineers are now training other villagers.

So much so that when last year's cloudburst in Uttarakhand damaged the Agunda project, the villagers ingeniously restored power temporarily by connecting the plant to a newly created waterfall. 

In the fortnight that followed, when the state grid remained switched off, villagers would trek 20 km to Agunda to recharge their mobile phones.

The power generated doesn't only light up bulbs in rural homes, but can also be used to set up myriad small-scale industries such as weaving, spinning, cold storages, milling of grains and bakeries - especially as the electricity generated is not always used to its fullest capacity.

Near Phata in Uttarakhand, I visit a multi-use watermill (which generates power in addition to grinding grain) under construction in Rampur village.

Kumar is building this in collaboration with HelpAge India. Dayal Singh and six others have partnered in its construction.

"I used to have a traditional water wheel here, but it was very slow. With this new mill, we'll be able to extract oil and grind masalas and foodgrain more efficiently," says Singh. 

With the electricity generated, Singh plans to set up a reverse osmosis plant and sell purified water.

Plans are also afoot to start a bakery unit. In Phata, where Kumar and HelpAge India trained local women to make felt rugs, the response has been great.

"People here keep sheep but throw away the wool. By putting it through an electric carding machine, it can be felted into beautiful and saleable rugs," says Kumar.

He feels that micro hydro power can be a significant contributor to the main grid and cites the example of Germany, where individuals generate electricity and sell the surplus to the grid.

"Some youngsters in Genwali (Uttarakhand), where we set up a project some years ago, even want to supply power to neighbouring villages," he says. "The potential is enormous."

If these projects have been so successful, why hasn't he built more, I wonder. "It's the lack of funds," says he.

At the very minimum, the cost of setting up a micro hydro project is about Rs 1 lakh per kilowatt.

To be of any significant use, the plant should have an output of at least 50 Kw. "We raise some capital and villagers contribute the rest, around 40 per cent, by way of labour," he adds. Getting collaborators isn't easy either.

Thus far agencies like United Nations Development Programme, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Swiss Development Corporation, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Centre for Environment Education, and, most recently, HelpAge India have pitched in. 

After last year's cloudburst, the Agunda plant requires expensive repairs.

"My NGO, Jansamarth, had dreamed of making Agunda a zero-carbon village independent of the main grid," says Kumar.

"The floods were a grave setback." Kumar is preparing to leave for Agunda again to oversee the repair of the damaged plant. 

He says, "Hopefully, someday policy-makers will understand the significance of gently harnessing the power of water as we do, without disturbing the hill ecology or the course of the river."

His efforts towards restoring power to the people are as yet small, but have the potential to revolutionise rural lives. As he says, "To me, electricity isn't only for lighting; it's the beginning of development of the rural world."