Sept_13

PROACTIVE
@ your service
An ex-serviceman in Kerala steps into a brave new world as a blogger campaigning
for rubber farmers, reports A K Anuraj
Like most farmers, S Chandrasekharan Nair wakes
up at 4 am to milk the cows. But before he gets
busy on his rubber plantation, he does something
no other 64 year-old farmer in Kerala does. As
dawn breaks and the birds begin to twitter, Nair switches
on his computer, checks his email, browses through his
social media accounts and updates his blog.
It’s a hallowed ritual that, quite literally, gives him reason
to wake up every day. Far from being a blog that chronicles
an idyllic life on a farm, keralafarmeronline.com is a
lifeline for thousands of rubber traders.
Apart from exposing malpractices in the rubber trade,
Nair’s blog provides a real-time listing and analysis of
Indian rubber statistics, export-import figures released
by the Rubber Board of India, valuable information on
rubber farming, and articles on bio-fertilisers and the
environment.
Nair is no armchair blogger. His efforts to put the skids on
unscrupulous middlemen and other corrupt players in the
rubber trade have led him to approach various authorities
and file numerous queries under the Right to Information
Act (RTI), all of which are chronicled on his blog.
34 harmony celebrate age september 2013