:: Delhi Greens ::

A Guinness World Record shattered last weekend when 173,045,325 citizens gathered at over 3,000 events in more than 120 countries, demanding that their governments eradicate extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The “Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now!” campaign, now in its fourth year, has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest mobilization of human beings in recorded history, an increase of about 57 million people over last year.

“The more than 173 million people who mobilized this weekend sent a clear message to world leaders that there is massive, universal, global demand for eradicating poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals,” said Salil Shetty, Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign. “In particular, we have seen citizens determined to show their governments that they will hold them accountable for keeping their promises to end hunger, improve maternal health and abolish trade-distorting agricultural subsidies. They will not accept excuses for breaking promises to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, who have already been hardest hit by the global food, economic and climate crises they had no role in causing.”

More than 100 million people participated (101,106,845) this year in Asia alone. Currently 1 billion people around the world are hungry and 500,000 women continue to die annually as the result of pregnancy and childbirth. The vast majority of these deaths are preventable. The mobilization was organized globally by the United Nations Millennium Campaign, in partnership with a range of organizations including the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). “Stand Up” was also supported by the entire United Nations system, with events organized by United Nations Information Centers (UNICs) across the globe.

Join this global movement and be the first generation who can end poverty.

Recently I got an opportunity to visit some of the colleges in Delhi for my project work. I must say that it was a good exposure for me and it helped me a lot in understanding the youth of the city. I believe that the young generation is the mirror of a city-country leading to the making of a great Nation.

The youth of Delhi are enthusiastic, energetic and remain cheerful always. But this is one side of the story. Just like many other young people across India, most of them don’t know what they want from their future. At the same time, Delhites must be thankful to their young adults. During my visits to not less than ten colleges, I could not find more than ten students smoking in their campuses. That is only about one student per college and is much less than what it is in other parts of the country. 

This may well be the outcome of  the ‘Delhi University Smoke Free Initiative’ which is an anti-tobacco campaign in the University of Delhi and was first launched in 2006. Initially, the campaign began with 10 colleges and 48 departments in the North campus. Now the university is planning to expand this initiative to other colleges across the city. This is something that needs to be shared with the larger society and is a campaign that should indeed be adopted by other public institutions as well. 

This post is an acknowledgment to the efforts of the University of Delhi and a compliment to the Delhi youth.

The latest report on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) says that in South Asia 87% of total population had access to safe drinking water in 2006. Another source (UNICEF Report) confirms that nearly 89% of the people in India have access to improved drinking water resources. This symbolizes a good change in the percentage of people with access to safe drinking water in India than earlier decades.

As a reminder to all, MDGs are internationally accepted eight goals which need to be achieved by 2015. The eight goals are as follows:

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Further, each of these goals have some specific targets and indicators. Here I would like to concentrate on Goal 7 which speaks of environmental sustainability. It reaffirms that all government policies and development programmes should be in tune with this goal i.e. ensuring a sustainable environment for the world. One of the targets of this goal is to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

Evidently India is doing well in providing access to improved drinking water resources to its people. But the difference between ‘improved’ and ‘safe’ remains unknown. Even today there are villages in several states of India that depend on an unsafe drinking water sources leading to the spread of harmful diseases among the rural population. At the same time, a large number of villages do not have a single drinking water resource within 3-4 km

There has always been a difference between policies and practice, reality and calculation. It is therefore, the vital responsibility of the common people to find out the truth and ask for your rights. To have access to safe drinking water is your right and mine. It is but a basic human right.

Editor’s Note: Sampa Kundu has been working in the development sector for the past few years and after having finished her M.Phil from the University of Calcutta, has just moved into Delhi and has already begun exploring the city.

After the sunset, its time to green the sunrise, the very next day!

We all agree that a clean and safe environment is our first priority and requires immediate attention. But do we really bother about this issue? We all love to give advice and suggestions. We also love to make comments and criticize others and do not take into account our own faults.

This is common and general human nature. So don’t feel bad and don’t put pressure on yourself by thinking “Yes, I did this wrong thing and I polluted my own environment…I threw up a plastic bag on the road, I smoked in public place…’ and so on. 80% of the people cause harm to our environment.

The pollution of our environment is decades old and it is been being polluted from centuries. We have started facing the consequence of this today but for now, lets not recall the consequences. You are well aware of these and may have already been faced it yourself in real life.

This is an urgent plea to spend at least one day as an Environment Friendly Person:

For that one particular day:

• Please avoid using Plastic Bags
• Please plant a tree
• Use public transportation and help reduce congestion and air pollution
• Do not smoke while you are in a public place

Add some more to the list that would save our environment and follow it at least for one entire day. Then, after you are done, sit down and think about how it feels. And hey, there’s no stopping you from doing the same the very next day!