LIGHTING UP

In 1994, nearly half a century after India independence, Mullaria village in Kerala’s Kasargod district still had no access to electricity. In this, it was no different from two thirds of India. Kerosene lanterns lit most homes in the village, darkening walls & blackening lungs. But Mullaria would usher in a quite revolution, thanks to Handattu Harish Hande. An alumnus of IIT-Kharagapur, & PhD in energy engineering from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell). Hande has devised a solar lighting system.

                         It was a visit to the Dominican Republic in 1991, & specifically his exposure to the work of Richard Hansen, which showed Hande how solar energy could transform the lives of the poor. While working on his doctorate, he traveled to the tiny Caribbean nation & saw for himself how Hansen, an American engineer who shifted there in 1984, had used solar energy to provide electricity to thousands of poor Dominicans. Hande decided to do something similar in this own country.

                 (BY-K.R.BALASUBRAMANYAN in Business Today)