Protecting the earth is not just everybody's business today but is also getting to be big business. Given that the world is still trying to crack how to green the planet at prices that don't burn a hole in the pocket, there is an immense opportunity for young Indian companies in this space.

Jairam Ramesh was listening to jazz music on his iPod and staring at his laptop when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on his mobile. It was a Saturday morning, just two days before the crucial Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen was to begin and Ramesh, India's environment minister, had come into his office to clear some pending work.

In 2012, the movie, the earth as we know it is destroyed because of a sudden burst of solar flares that heat the planet's core, causing major shifts in tectonic plates. The result is cataclysmic tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes that wipe out most of life except for a modern fleet of arks that the G8 countries have built to save a few. It's a gripping plot.

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India may have recently vowed to slash carbon emissions by 20-25 per cent but Mumbai's new electrical suburban trains are already speeding ahead of this target. These local trains curb carbon emissions by 40 per cent and save 30 per cent more electricity than a normal train. The saving is made through the regenerative braking system, which reuses electricity for other trains on the same line.

There was never a doubt that the i-pill and other emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) would prove to be immensely popular among women in India when they were introduced two years ago. That's because India records 11 million abortions annually and a shocking 20,000 women die because of abortion-related complications.

The tummy, they say, is a mirror of emotions. A stick of a girl in the outpatients department of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, has a stomach issue. In that crowded OPD, where everybody befriends everybody to while away the waiting hours, she sits like a zombie, eyes fixed on the ground. Her parents don't quite know why she gets those excruciating bellyaches.

In India the elongated, deep purple ovoid is considered one of the humblest of vegetables. The Bengalis call it begun which means a vegetable that has no virtue. But now the lowly brinjal has become the eye of the storm that is forcing you to sit up and take notice as you sit down to eat.

Managing a country's limited resources for development purposes is not exactly taught even in the world's best B-schools. It comes with years of ground experience and foresight.

Three municipalities in south Chennai set up an integrated solid waste management project (Established 2002). With a private-public partnership, they are trying to find a solution to one of urban India's greatest nightmares, garbage.

In its journey as the leading oil and gas exploration company in the world, ONGC (Established 1956), which contributes over 80 per cent of India's oil and gas production, has single-handedly scripted its hydrocarbon saga.