Today, Infonnation and Communication Technol ogy (lCT) is ubiquitous. It has touched almost all spheres concerning human suIVival, growth and development. Agriculture is no exception to it. This paper presents the research initiatives towards improving irrigation efficiency through affordable ICT solutions. It presents experimental results of studies related to improving irrigation efficiency in Semi arid zones in India, using commercially available ICT solutions. It compares between simple microirrigation and microirrigation with ICT (irrigation on demand) and establishes that by using ICT in agriculture, we can increase the irrigation efficiencies by a considerable amount. The paper also presents the development of indigenous wireless sensor node and gateway made from open source hardware and software components. The efforts in this regard show, while maintaining comparable perfonnance, a significant reduction in the cost of wireless sensor devices, when compared to commercially available wireless sensor devices, is achieved.

The process of collection, transport, disposal, recycling, and monitoring of wastes is called waste management. The waste management is undertaken to recycle the wastes so as to reduce the ill effects of wastes on environment, health, and aesthetics. There are several kinds of wastes produced such as agricultural wastes, municipal wastes, industrial waste, mining waste. Some wastes are more hazardous such as medical wastes and nuclear wastes. Various techniques are used for the management of wastes which includes landfilling, incineration, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, plasma gasification, recycling, composting. Anaerobic digestion produces biofuel in the form of biogas. Plasma gasification results in the generation of electricity from wastes. Recycling of wastes involves the collection, sorting, and reprocessing of wastes into new products. Vermicomposting is the preferred form of composting as it results in the formation of vermicompost called black gold due to the presence of rich nutrients and growth promoting factors in it.

The process of collection, transport, disposal, recycling, and monitoring of wastes is called waste management. The waste management is undertaken to recycle the wastes so as to reduce the ill effects of wastes on environment, health, and aesthetics. There are several kinds of wastes produced such as agricultural wastes, municipal wastes, industrial waste, mining waste. Some wastes are more hazardous such as medical wastes and nuclear wastes. Various techniques are used for the management of wastes which includes landfilling, incineration, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, plasma gasification, recycling, composting. Anaerobic digestion produces biofuel in the form of biogas. Plasma gasification results in the generation of electricity from wastes. Recycling of wastes involves the collection, sorting, and reprocessing of wastes into new products. Vermicomposting is the preferred form of composting as it results in the formation of vermicompost called black gold due to the presence of rich nutrients and growth promoting factors in it.

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