"The vast rural population of India subsists mainly on agriculture. Till recently it hassubsistence agriculture, which was rain dependent. Traditional methods being hard to alter,improvements in the agricultural pattern by the introduction of other cash crops, financialincentives and irrigation must be attempted on a planned basis . There has been a shift whereleguminous crops were grown to reintroduce nitrogen in the soil, and provision of fertilizerand pesticides. On the downside, these chemicals affect the ground water. Animal dung,which was used as fuel, creates a problem culturally and financially when used as fertilizer bythe poor farmers. (a)Sustainable growth implies that any improvements made in theagricultural pattern self-perpetuate, and that once supervision subsides, the previous patternsdo not recur; (b) the tendency to abandon the countryside and migrate to the urban centers isminimized or kept at a sustainable level by encouraging rural investment and therebyrelieving pressure on the urban centers.An example exists in Maharashtra where a large milk producers union exists (AMUL),similarly KOMUL in Kolar. The collective efforts of an organized group are effective inimplementing change and maintaining the sustainable growth and developmentIt can be deduced that sustainable growth needs financial inputs and technology. This isessential to maintain viability and offset threats from other regions in the light of cheaperimports and efforts by vested interests to break the growth cycle. I have implemented somepointers from "Green Path Research" where extensive quotes are given on economic studiesdone on the sustainability of a poor country's resources to the benefit of more powerful andrich nations. According to Barbier (1), -"it is rare for capital obtained by depleting resourcesof an LDC (Less developed country) to be reinvested in a sustainable way" India has rich experience of this after over 2 centuries of exploitation from the 1700's to the 1900's where itfell from the richest country in the world to one of the poorest. (Green Path Research:http://greenpathresearch.com/id12.html)THE ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS CURVE:It would be instructive to explain a little here on the EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve). Apaper in the 1950's by Kuznets (2) introduced the idea of income disparity versus per capitaincome and stated that there was a nonlinear relationship, the disparity peaking then reducing.A similar curve is postulated for environmental pollution versus per capita income. Variousstudies have been done for the various pollutants commonly present in industrial emissions,and an average of about 10,000 USD to 17,000 USD appears to govern the turning or tippingpoint. A similar curve is postulated for deforestation, Koop (3). However, there is a strongdebate about the validity for the so- called EKC, with various proponents and opponentsarguing one way or the other. Harbaugh et al (4) claim there is no reliable evidence for thiscurve. Rosser (5) has published research illustrating the symbiosis of Institutional evolutionwith the EKC.The trend seems to be the laissez-faire attitude that environmental pollution would take careof itself once the level of development reaches a certain state, and was implicit in the UNdeclaration of 1987 (OUR COMMON FUTURE), (6).This was the view taken by Grossmanand Krueger also (7, 8), where they assume that sustainability would follow once a certainlevel of the economy was reached.In the case of developing countries like India and Brazil, the primary task to be tackled is oneof alleviating poverty. Poor people directly use the environmental resources like firewood,forest land, and directly pollute the water and land in rural scenarios. It may happen that thereare groups that have learned to micromanage their environments. In fact, many poor peopleare concerned with the environment but do not have the means to do anything about it. Theirsurvival depends on their degrading the environment even further. Alleviation of povertytowards environmental protection was mentioned as early as 1972 by the then Indian PrimeMinister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi at the UN Stockholm conference on Human environment. In asense, once the question of baseline poverty is addressed, the environmental concerns canthen be addressed, implying the basis of the EKC, although not supporting proving ordisproving the validity of this concept.EFFECT OF SOCIO-POLITICAL VARIABLES ON THE EKC: Russia (former USSR), India, to some extent the UK, Scandinavia and the Eastern Blocadopted a socialist model for their economies and growth plans. Here, greater equality in theintermediate stages was enforced through structured taxation, Welfare schemes, andInvestment by the State leading to large employers like the Government Institutions andfirms. The forced shift in income levels needs to be analyzed with reference to the EKC,perhaps through a lateral or upward shift (assuming linearity). However, since the EKC isnonlinear, the resultant effects may not be seen immediately and essentially these factors need to be included as Institutional variables which are fixed in a sense, (as given variables orconstraints), leaving room for other variables in the models. The price of ‘Taking Off"invariably was environmental degradation and deterioration in social conditions, (slums, low- quality housing and sanitation, poor medical and educational facilities) and quality of life.EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGY INPUTS ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTIn the global scenario, job outsourcing and the availability of cheap labour from offshore viathe medium of the Internet must be kept in mind. The Tigers of South East Asian economieshave quickly adapted from manufacturing and assembly line to virtual technologies based onsoftware, flooding the markets with cheap goods and imitations. Traditional paradigms do nothold good anymore. The factory of today needs to be designed in a way that is energyefficient, able to capture and retain technology and adapt to the future changes that mustoccur with corresponding technology changes with market shifts. To this end, computerbased manufacture using NC machines and CAM (Numerical Control, Computer AidedManufacture), must be included for even basic units, as the cost of a conventional lathe withthat of skilled workers and that of an NC machine are now quite comparable. The workforceneeds to be trained in such technologies and the production in such workshops and factoriesmust follow scientific methods using time and motion studies, work-study, and linearprogramming to optimize transportation and storage costs. Machinery discarded as scrap should preferably be recycled or refurbished, for instance, older computers may be donated toneedy schools.Manufacturing methods must then shift to such technologies as DFM, (Design forManufacture), Near net shape design (sinter and NCT methods), rapid prototyping and thelike all of which mean higher capital cost but lower losses and gains in the long run.Similarly, in the welding industry, there is a need to adapt to other means like pressurewelding, TIG/MIG, diffusion welding and similar innovative methods to increase quality andreliability and lower wastage. Eventually, the total energy budget needs to be looked atincluding the cost of mining and extracting the material, cost of fabricating and finishing andcompare this with alternative materials and fabrication technologies, along with associatedcarbon footprints. "