Ozone, the natural sanitising agent found in the atmosphere, is fast replacing chlorine for disinfecting water, since it acts many times faster on bacteria than chemicals, and breaks down to leave nothing behind except sterile water and no residual chlorine.

However, a new use for ozone in the Indian food processing and storage sector could help India become a major exporter in the international arena. With the Rabo Bank estimating an annual wastage of Rs 33,000 crores in food loss, experts agreed that the time was ripe for new technologies to be used in the fruit and vegetable storage and processing sector.

"Ozone treatment of fruits and vegetables has tremendous potential in the food processing and storage sector. Typical storage life for fruit and vegetables in India is between three and 30 days. However, by using ozone and other controlled atmosphere storage practices, we can help reduce losses, alleviate certain physiological and storage disorders, including insect control in some commodities," said Dr N.G.Shah, department of chemical engineering, IIT Bombay.

Although ozone treatment has been commonly used for treating sea food, IIT Bombay, has experimented by using ozone on tomatoes, potatoes and bananas and has been successful in increasing their shelf-life from five to 28 days. Depleting oxygen levels, elevating levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen using ambient technologies could be important in fruit and vegetable storage added Dr Shah.

"Minimally processed vegetables is another method of extending shelf life. We have a patented treatment for sugarcane processing and are currently working on increasing the production capacity wherein we can bring standardisation in sugarcane juice. You will soon see sugarcane juice available in 200 to 250ml bottles in different flavours and with a four to six month shelf life. Sugarcane juice will also be available in vending machines.

With national forecasts for holiday sales generally gloomy, the British should be especially glad for the Internet this year. That’s because the British are among the world’s biggest online shoppers, according to a global survey, along with Germany and Austria.

Does it have something to do with weather that is inhospitable to bricks-and-mortar shopping? An antisocial tendency? The survey, by ACNielsen, doesn’t say. But 11 out of the top 20 nations for Internet purchases are in Europe, according to the survey of 21,100 people in 38 markets. In fact, most of the markets in Europe make higher average purchases on the Internet than North America — five a month as opposed to four, according to Nielsen. In the Asia-Pacific region, South Koreans and Taiwanese are the biggest shoppers.

In every region of the world, this is likely to be the biggest online shopping season yet, erasing any doubt that the commercial side of the Internet has an impact on the global economy.Last year, sales on the first Monday of December hit $380 million, a 29 per cent jump over 2003. And for November and December as a whole, the Internet marketing firm ComScore Networks projects that online sales will total $19 billion, a 24 per cent increase over last year.

That fits in with a report from the credit card company Visa, which said that online spending by its card-holders grew 26 per cent on this year’s "Cyber Monday," which fell on November 28, compared with the same day a year ago.Why a Monday rather than on the weekend? One major reason: A Shop.org poll found that one-third of employees use the day to access the web from faster office connections. Still, that isn’t the busiest online shopping day of the year; procrastinators know that will come much closer to Christmas Day.

In the United States, the most popular sites on Cyber Monday were eBay.com, which attracted 11.7 million consumers, followed by Amazon.com, with 5.6 million, and Walmart.com, with 3.09 million.
The Nielsen survey, meanwhile, is a font of shopping trivia, showing the vast differences in habits that cultures create, even in something as global as Internet shopping. Thanks to the influence of Amazon.com, books are the most popular items purchased on the Internet, ordered by 34 percent of those who shop online, followed by DVDs at 22 per cent.

But in Japan, groceries are the most popular purchase after books. And South Korean shoppers are most likely to buy cosmetics and nutritional products online, three times above the global average.
In Latin America, electronic equipment like cameras is just behind books in popularity. And France, Germany and Sweden helped make European online shoppers the leaders in the clothing-accessories-shoes category.

Credit cards are the most common form of payment. But in many parts of the world — whether for cultural reasons of because of security fears — a lot of people prefer to pay for their Internet goods by cash delivery.In China, it is the most common kind of payment, while in Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy, India and Japan, COD is just behind credit cards.