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Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna, an initiative of The Art of Living which finds full support from Delhi Greens, is a project for making a difference to our city, Delhi-NCR.

River Yamuna is immensely important for the economic, ecological and basic needs of the region and its people. But, over the years, it has become one of the most endangered waterways in India. Numerous attempts have not had much success, and there is confusion about what lies ahead in the future – for the river as well for all of us.

As already notified, the campaign is beginning with an event on March 16, 2010 on the banks of the river, and calls for citizens and leaders from all sectors and areas to come together and participate.

Date: 16th March, 2010
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Purana Qila

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living has already called for every person in the city to come together so as to raise awareness on the status of the river, to inform and alert the Government and concerned agencies and to work with the latter to bring about a difference – in the river quality and also in our lives and daily habits.

Eminent personalities, including those from the concerned departments of the Government would also be present on the occasion. These include, Shri Jairam Ramesh, Smt. Kiran Walia, Shri Kanwar Sain, Shri Ramesh Negi along with a number of stakeholders from corporate houses, culture, art, fashion, media, RWAs, government agencies, NGOs, etc.

Image © Delhi Greens, 2009 from the ‘Kiski Dilli’ Publication.

This is THE call for a clean, blue Yamuna, and a sustainable urban development for Delhi. All our encouraged to participate.

Lok Sabha MP Dr. Thokchom Meinya (third from left), Govind Singh from Delhi Greens (center), Dr. Irfan Quereshi from Jamia Millia Islamia (first from right) along with other Save Loktak Campaigners at Gandhi Darshan in New Delhi

It is one of the largest freshwater lake in India’s North-East and hosts the world’s only floating island National Park – the Keibul Lamjao National Park, the last habitat of the less than 200 remaining population of Sangai, the brow antlered dancing deer of Manipur. And now, the rapidly degrading and much threatened Loktak Lake has a second chance – a voice at the Center and an echo from the region.

Inaugurating the Campaign

On 7th March, 2010, the North East Center for Environmental Education & Research (NECEER), in partnership with a series of organisations, launched an International campaign to Save the Loktak, hosted at the same time in New Delhi and Imphal.

The campaign was launched by a call to youth action on environment made by the dynamic Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) Dr. Thokchom Meinya from Inner Manipur. This was followed by a note on the pathway for green action by Govind Singh of Delhi Greens and a talk on the science of conservation of Loktak Lake. An interactive session was followed wherein the youth had a series of questions and queries on the status of environment in Manipur, conservation strategies and government initiatives. A poster competition, a street play and a Manipuri folk dance followed this first ever world wide attempt at raising awareness and calling for action for saving the Loktak Lake.

In Imphal, the campaign was launched by well-known environmentalists like R. K. Ranjan, Kh. Shamungou, H. Meghachandra, O. Samoa all of whom expressed concern over the deteriorating condition of the lake. Issues such as the rapid expansion of weeds (phumdis), siltation, pollution and effluents from Loktak Hydro electric power project were discussed and pondered upon. The campaign aimed at involving the youth and mobilizing the general public for saving the Loktak Lake.

Girls dressed for the traditional Manipuri dance performance

The energy and interest shown by the youth from the region and also from other parts of the country was overwhelming. The issue of insurgency and access to remote parts of Manipur state also surfaced during the course of discussions. MP Meinya suggested a political solution to the problem by suggesting that all eminent people in the state, of which there are plenty,  should be invited over a cup of tea, as a first goodwill gesture towards a more hopeful future. Govind Singh suggested that only when the importance of local self governance will be realized–in the true spirit that even Mahatma Gandhi had envisioned for independent India–and youth begin to participate in the democratic processes of the state can there be a hope for a peaceful and prosperous tomorrow.

The 7th March event was the first step and a landmark day for the International Save Loktak Lake Campaign. The NECEER and Delhi Greens remain dedicated towards generating awareness and inspiring green action for protection and conservation of the Loktak Lake ecosystem and will continue working for ensuring the same.

Previously on Delhi Greens:

• Invite: Worldwide Save Loktak Campaign at Gandhi Darshan
• March 7, 2010: Save Loktak Lake Campaign
• Delhi Greens partners for Global Day of Action in Imphal, Manipur

Considered to be the lifeline of Manipur state, North-east’s largest freshwater lake – Loktak – is today in a sorry state. Already declared a Ramsar site- a status given to world’s most threatened wetlands, this rapidly degrading lake has a total area of 300 sq. km. It is home to the endangered Manipur brow antlered deer ‘Sangai’ – Cervus eldi eldi and several plant species. Keibul Lamjao National Park, the only floating national park in the world is situated at the south west part of Loktak Lake.

Loktak Lake has been a main source of income and sustenance for inhabitants of the population living around it. However, since the last few decades the lake has been facing all round destructions due to natural as well as anthropogenic activities. Rapid expansion of ‘phumdis’, siltation, pollution, agriculture and adverse effect from Loktak Hydropower Project are some of the main problems which have led to an alarming destruction of the lake.

To raise awareness on the plight of the lake, and to draw attention towards an urgent need for action, the North East Center for Environment Education Research has partnered with Delhi Greens, and a series of environmental organisations in calling for an INTERNATIONAL SAVE LOKTAK LAKE CAMPAIGN on 7th March 2010. The event is taking place in 20 cities across three continents. Delhi Greens invites you to the Delhi chapter of the campaign at Gandhi Darhsan, Opposite Rajghat.

Date: 7th March, 2010 (Sunday)
Time: 9.30 am to 1230 pm
Venue: Gandhi Darshan, Opposite Rajghat, Rajghat Powerhouse Road

The event will have eminent speakers including MP Thockchom Meinya Singh, Dr. Irfan Quereshi from Jamia Millia Islamia, etc. who would be expressing their concerns over the issue. A poster competition for school and college students has also been organised.

Click here to connect with the campaign on Facebook

For further information and to participate, please contact:

Aastha Kukreti
aastha@delhigreens.org
9873124937

Mehnaz Lee
mehnazlee@gmail.com
9871318891

Here’s wishing everyone a colourful and well meant Holi hoping it is celebrated with all the natural colours and a judicious and well thought of use of water!

Haven’t we played enough?

Image source: over the Internet

Environment and Climate change

• National Clean Energy Fund for funding research and innovative projects in clean energy technologies to be established.
• One-time grant of Rs.200 crore to the Government of Tamil Nadu towards the cost of installation of a zero liquid discharge system at Tirupur to sustain knitwear industry.
• Rs.200 crore provided as a Special Golden Jubilee package for Goa to preserve the natural resources of the State, including sea beaches and forest cover.
• Allocation for National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) doubled in 2010-11 to Rs.500 crore.
• Schemes on bank protection works along river Bhagirathi and river Ganga-Padma in parts of Murshidabad and Nadia district of West Bengal included in the Centrally Sponsored Flood Management Programme.
• A project at Sagar Island to be developed to provide an alternate port facility in West Bengal.
• To build the corpus of the National Clean Energy Fund, clean energy cess on coal produced in India at a nominal rate of Rs.50 per tonne to be levied. This cess will also apply on imported coal.
• Provide a concessional customs duty of 5 per cent to machinery, instruments, equipment and appliances etc. required for the initial setting up of photovoltaic and solar thermal power generating units and also exempt them from Central Excise duty. Ground source heat pumps used to tap geo-thermal energy to be exempted
  from basic customs duty and special additional duty.
• Exempt a few more specified inputs required for the manufacture of rotor blades for wind energy generators from Central Excise duty.
• Central Excise duty on LED lights reduced from 8 per cent to 4 per cent at par with Compact Fluorescent Lamps.
• To remedy the difficulty faced by manufacturers of electric cars and vehicles in neutralising the duty paid on their inputs and components, a nominal duty of 4 per cent on such vehicles imposed. Some critical parts or sub-assemblies of such vehicles exempted from basic customs duty and special additional duty subject to
  actual user condition. These parts would also enjoy a concessional CVD of 4 per cent.
• A concessional excise duty of 4 per cent provided to “soleckshaw”, a product developed by CSIR to replace manually-operated rickshaws. Its key parts and components to be exempted from customs duty.
• Import of compostable polymer exempted from basic customs duty.

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Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna is a project for making a difference to our city of Delhi-NCR. What started as an initiative of The Art of Living, has now become a full blown citizen’s action plan. Dozens of civil society groups have already joined the movement and many companies including Microsoft, Educomp and Kent RO have become partners. The UNESCO, World Bank, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) etc. among many others are already on board the campaign and more and more people and groups are joining every day.

Delhi-NCR is not clean – India is at the centre of the world today, poised for global leadership in future – we can’t remain dirty, something needs to happen. Commonwealth Games are in October, and it would be great to present a clean city to the world.

Over the next few weeks, the campaign aims to bring together large number of partner groups and citizens, who will together inspire a million citizens to come out and clean Delhi in September 2010. Everyone will be contributing – people and leaders from all sectors of the society will be joining, including the NGOs; corporate and business community; Resident Welfare Associations; Defence and Allied Services; Schools, Colleges, Universities; Leaders from Arts, Culture, Music, Literature, Theatre and Films; Media, Government, and every citizen of Delhi.

The plan is to begin with Yamuna first, our sacred river. Yamuna is immensely important for the economic, ecological and basic needs of the region and its people – but, over the years, it has become one of the most endangered waterway in India. Numerous attempts have not had much success, and there is confusion about what will happen in the near future. We need to join hands and increase the awareness about cleaning of the river Yamuna – more than half of 3.6 billion tonnes of sewerage produced in Delhi everyday flows into Yamuna untreated! And we are dependent on Yamuna for more than 60% of the water needed by the Delhi region.

The Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna campaign is organizing an event on March 7, 2010 16th March, 2010 at 5 pm at Purana Qila in Delhi where the citizens and leaders from all sectors and areas would be participating. This will be followed by a massive cleaning of the banks of Yamuna on March 14 by the citizens to demonstrate that ‘it is possible to make a difference’.

The campaign invites all to support our initiative of national importance, which would perhaps be an inflection point for India – the citizens coming out and taking responsibility for their surroundings and this would spur the administration to be more effective too. Let us all join hands.

Editor’s Note: Delhi Greens, in partnership with Nature Foundation (India) have already spearheaded the Meri Dilli Meri Yamuna campaign in different target zones.

Inviting graduates, post graduatesand young working professionals across disciplines…to be a part of the solution!

Gandhi Fellowship , an initiative of Kaivalya Education Foundation is an intensive 2-year programme that helps talented young people develop the leadership skills to cause disproportionate positive change in society. The Fellowship challenges these young people to support primary school headmasters to turn around their failing schools, thus improving the quality of education provided in India’s government schools. By taking on real challenges and solving ‘live’ problems that exist today in schools across India, Fellows learn the generic skills that will allow them to lead change on a wide range of issues in other sectors. In the process Fellows are themselves supported to discover what they are passionate about, what they want to do with their lives and how to go about converting their dreams into reality. This intense personal change process is needed for Fellows to become the nation’s next generation of leaders.

What is the role of the fellows?

The 2-year programme consists of hands-on field work undertaken in small government schools, rural villages or slum communities.

The role of the Gandhi Fellow is to help each of their 8 Headmasters successfully implement these projects and tackle all other challenges related to improving learning quality in their schools. In particular, this means supporting their capacity building, so that once Fellows have moved on Headmasters are able to continue to work effectively to improve their schools. This is vital if the impact that Fellows have in their schools is to last. On any one day it will mean being a resource person, a facilitator, a change-agent, a co-creator, a mentor or a constant listener!

The Headmasters themselves are undergoing  PLDP(Principal leadership development program), a process of professional & personal development while being trained in school leadership by Kaivalya Education Foundation.

You can be a Gandhi fellow if you:

• Are self-driven and have intrinsic motivation
• Approach any task with rigour
• Are empathetic in dealings with others
• Can manage stakeholders
• Are solution-oriented
• Are analytical

Gandhi Fellowship is a full time, 2 year fellowship offered to final year students  and young professionals across disciplines. If selected you would be a part of this professionally and meticulously designed Fellowship. You would get a grant of Rs.14, 000 pm and official accommodation. You would be based out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat or Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan.

Apply today by mailing in your resume at gandhifellowship@gmail.com

For further information, please contact:

Tripti Vyas
Head: Gandhi Fellowship Programme
Kaivalya Education Foundation
tripti.vyas(at)gmail.com

The Okhla Bird Sanctuary in NOIDA celebrated the International Wetland Day on 2^nd February 2010, to mark the signing of the Ramsar Convention on protection of wetlands of international importance. The celebrations saw participation from residents and over 40 students from Delhi Public School, NOIDA. As an extension to this program, an awareness drive highlighting the decreasing population of cranes from the region was also organised.

In association with Nature Foundation (India), the Okhla Bird Sanctuary invited three different schools viz. Nehru International Public School, Sarla Devi DAV Public School and Bal Bhavan Public School, Mayur Vihar Phase-2, from which, a total of 110 students in all benefited from the program and enjoyed the bird watching organised around the sanctuary.

Mr. Gopi Sundar,  member from Save the Cranes campaign addressed the students on the declining number of cranes and facilitated them in bird watching and in identifying different bird species that migrate to the Okhla Bird Sanctuary during the winter season. The major birds included Northern shoveler, black Ccot, Eurasian wigeon, etc.

Mr. Neeraj Kumar, District Forest Officer, was also present in the celebrations and spoke to children on the importance of wetlands. He also talked about the role being played by the Forest Department in conserving the sanctuary and the steps needed to be taken to preserve the biodiversity of the region in order to attract more and more relevant species in the near future.

Rakesh Khatri, Nipun Kaushik & Animesh Kapoor from Nature Foundation (India) also spoke to the students on the need and benefits of bird watching and also highlighting steps that can be taken to save the dwindling bird population in the entire NCR. The idea was to motivate the youth towards bird watching so as to developed it as a habit and a hobby.

The experience for the visiting students was nice which was well evident from the requests by them for letting them go into denser parts of the forest in their next visit.

Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) requests the presence of all concerned to the Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) on the issue of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds/foods and Bt Brinjal in particular. HRLN is bringing eminent speakers and researchers from across the country to share a common platform and vocalise their experience and opinion on January 28th and 29th, 2010, at Vishwa Yuva Kendra, New Delhi.

The regulators in India have cleared Bt Brinjal as safe for human (& animal) health and environment and that it could be permitted for commercial cultivation in India. However, the Government of India is holding nation-wide consultations to address numerous concerns and unanswered questions on the GM food crop before reaching a logical end. Bt Brinjal is the first GM food crop in India and the first ever GM vegetable in the world with the Bt gene in it. This Tribunal is being held as a platform to not only address the surrounding queries but also highlighting the many facets of the debate on GM seeds.

Without really getting lost in the larger debate around food/hunger crisis, which is being made into the rationale for bringing in Bt Brinjal iisue, this People’s Tribunal focuses clearly on GM seeds, their relevance and need and other related issues, even as all presenters of testimonies will be encouraged to touch upon some larger issues too and present data to support their case.

A panel of prominent citizens, journalists, judges, scientists and activists will preside over the two-day IPT.

HRLN strongly hopes and looks for your support in this two-day programme, so that it will serve for larger social and political change in perceiving the issue. We anticipate the tribunal will be an indicator for civil society to rethink of a new set of strategies, to compel the State for immediate intervention to address the GM seeds/food debate.

Concerned individuals who would especially like to attend the IPT on the 29th of Janary are requested to kindly confirm  their presence in advance so that necessary arrangements can be made in due time.

For further information and to RSVP, please contact:

Imran Ali, Coordinator (IPT), +91-9212696986 or write to imran@hrln.org
Manisha Tiwari, Coordinator (IPT), +91-9717-505-798

Image Source

Environmental Equity and Justice Partnership (EEJP) is an independent grant-making program of the Just Environment Charitable Trust and supported by the Ford Foundation. The initiative is dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the area of environmental justice by catalysing grassroots initiatives; triggering new imagination; bringing in new perspectives; encouraging crossover linkages; promoting community participation, and providing greater opportunities to connect to the environmental thinking.

The goal of EEJP is ‘to secure environmental justice especially for the poor and the marginalized that are often expected to bear more than their share of environmental burdens’. EEJP is currently inviting applications under two categories:

1. Environmental Small Grants (for grassroots organisations): The Environmental Small Grants allows EEJP program to assist worthy grassroots organizations engaged in environmental work through support of small projects that are of special importance to those applicants and their communities. The focus is on supporting organizations that identify and work on the root causes of problems and that approach issues with a commitment to long-term change.
2. Environmental Fellowships (for young individuals): The Environmental Fellowship component of EEJP allows it to assist young committed individuals with a leadership potential to engage with the cross cutting issues of Toxicity, Waste and Pollution within the context of environmental justice. The broad aim is to encourage new thinking and perspective that in turn challenge the status quo and help re-imagine solutions.

The focus under the current phase of EEJP (2009-2012) is on the cross cutting issues of Toxicity, Waste and Pollution.Deadline for receiving the applications is 30th Jan 2010 28th Feb, 2010. For more information, visit http://eejp.org

Previously on Delhi Greens:

• Announcement: Fellowships Available with EEJP