The oil price doesn't seem to flow down. It is still hovering around $145 per barrel. The indications are that it might shoot up and that in the near future there is no possibility of any relief.

There is some good news as well. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. We can ill afford now to ignore the dire necessity to find alternate, cheaper fuel if we want the world to move.

The good news is that the British engine maker Rolls Royce Group has started 'a scientific test program to investigate the viability of alternative fuels for the aviation industry. The study will seek to identify practical alternatives to the current industry-standard fuel kerosene. The companies will initiate a joint tender process, inviting suppliers to offer alternative fuel samples for testing on a Rolls Royce RB211 engine from a BA Boeing 747. Four samples will eventually be selected for further trials.'

This London news story has far reaching ramifications at a time when the whole world is feeling the pinch of soaring oil prices.

This is a point of time in the history of the world when we want a genuine Ramar Pillai. A high school dropout from a village near Rajapalayam, he claimed he had found the philosopher's stone of the petroleum age. He said he had a herb that can turn water into a virtually pollution-free diesel fuel or kerosene for about Two Rupees a litre! In fact I was there when he 'demonstrated' his fuel in the Chennai secretariat. With his new-found fuel, he literally took all of us for a ride!. We thought we had a new Isaac Newton. Then the CBI came into the picture. And the rest is history. Now nobody knows where he is.

Nevertheless, a genuine Ramar Pillai can help this globe.