Sunday, July 25, 2010

Citizens for Green Doon, Members visited Matrisadan and given their support to Dr. Agrawal

Citizens for Green Doon, Members with Dr. GD Agrawal


To day Citizens for Green Doon, Members visited Matrisadan and given their support to Dr. Agrawal. Members who visited Matrisadan are NITIN Pandey,Laksha Mehta,RUCHI SINGH RAO, ANJALI BHATIYA, HIMANSHU ARORA, ANISH LAL, SAGAR WALIA, DHRUV MEHTA, KARTIK WALIA, MANAS MEHTA, HIMANSHU ARORA, HARMINDER SINGH, SONIA PANDEY, SWARAJ MEHTA, SHUBENDRA SINGH, MRS. BHANDRI, DR. POONAM MAITHANI.


2 comments:

Bhatt, Alok said...

While I am not against the cause, yet I don’t want to mince my words to express my displeasure or anger against people like G D Agarwals or Priyadarshini Patels of the world. I want to ask G D Agarwal on his face as to what concrete steps he had taken as part of CPCB to clean the Ganga downstream. You dont have to be an environmentalist or an activist to know as to what is the condition of Ganga downstream- Haridwar onwards- and you also dont have to look anywhere else but at CPCB as one responsible for the entire mess; where even few thousand rupees can get you “all clear” certificate. Why didnt he do something to clean up the Ganga as head of CPCB. Why have you allowed Kanpur tanneries to pollute the Ganga. Let’s accept it that whatever Ganga is today is because of people of Garhwal…..and you cant allow these so called failed environmentalists and jhola chaap activits to rob Garhwal and its residents of some propsperity that projects on upstream Ganga can bring to Garhwal. Why should local residents be allowed to remain under-developed and dependent on subsistence farming when better prospects and opportunities can be made available to them for enjoying the fruits of modern day prosperity.

If people like G D Agarwal and others are so passionate about the cause, they should also raise voice against scores (majority is such) of hooligans who visit Gangotri as kaanvads during saavan from plains of north…….majority of them are out on picnic and have made joke of the much religious kaavad yatra…..there is no need to allow them beyond Haridwar as yatra is about carrying “gangajal” from Haridwar and not Gangotri…..Any devout kaanvad would tell you how to separate real yatris from one who are out for fun in the name of religion.

Also, why not raise your voice against host of polluting factories around Ganga downstream Haridwar.

Can G D Agarwal abhor use of fossil fuels and start traveling on foot just because fossil fuels are largely responsible for climate change. Tell him or his followers not to wear sandals/shoes as tanneries pollute rivers, or tell them not to wear clothes just as spindles use power to convert thread into cloth……

What we require is not blind folded opposition to development, but a balanced, sustainable and holistic development. If a Tehri dam cannot improve the problem of drinking water and power shortage issue in its vicinity, then there is something terribly wrong with that development…..If because of that dam, the travel time for villagers on the other side of reservoir has gone, that is skewed development and needs to be avoided. Why should water from Tehri reservoir be supplied to GK I or GK II in Delhi through Sonia Vihar when village Jaikot or Chaka- Pokhri area few kms away from Koteshwar dam or Tehri reservoir is without water for better part of the year. Why should electricity be supplied to UP just as Uttarakhand was part of UP when scores of villages adjacent to dam dont have electricity…..I think people are missing the larger issue and that’s what worries me most here!

Alok

Bhatt, Alok said...

While I am not against the cause, yet I don’t want to mince my words to express my displeasure or anger against people like G D Agarwals or Priyadarshini Patels of the world. I want to ask G D Agarwal on his face as to what concrete steps he had taken as part of CPCB to clean the Ganga downstream. You dont have to be an environmentalist or an activist to know as to what is the condition of Ganga downstream- Haridwar onwards- and you also dont have to look anywhere else but at CPCB as one responsible for the entire mess; where even few thousand rupees can get you “all clear” certificate. Why didnt he do something to clean up the Ganga as head of CPCB. Why have you allowed Kanpur tanneries to pollute the Ganga. Let’s accept it that whatever Ganga is today is because of people of Garhwal…..and you cant allow these so called failed environmentalists and jhola chaap activits to rob Garhwal and its residents of some propsperity that projects on upstream Ganga can bring to Garhwal. Why should local residents be allowed to remain under-developed and dependent on subsistence farming when better prospects and opportunities can be made available to them for enjoying the fruits of modern day prosperity.

If people like G D Agarwal and others are so passionate about the cause, they should also raise voice against scores (majority is such) of hooligans who visit Gangotri as kaanvads during saavan from plains of north…….majority of them are out on picnic and have made joke of the much religious kaavad yatra…..there is no need to allow them beyond Haridwar as yatra is about carrying “gangajal” from Haridwar and not Gangotri…..Any devout kaanvad would tell you how to separate real yatris from one who are out for fun in the name of religion.

Also, why not raise your voice against host of polluting factories around Ganga downstream Haridwar.

Can G D Agarwal abhor use of fossil fuels and start traveling on foot just because fossil fuels are largely responsible for climate change. Tell him or his followers not to wear sandals/shoes as tanneries pollute rivers, or tell them not to wear clothes just as spindles use power to convert thread into cloth……

What we require is not blind folded opposition to development, but a balanced, sustainable and holistic development. If a Tehri dam cannot improve the problem of drinking water and power shortage issue in its vicinity, then there is something terribly wrong with that development…..If because of that dam, the travel time for villagers on the other side of reservoir has gone, that is skewed development and needs to be avoided. Why should water from Tehri reservoir be supplied to GK I or GK II in Delhi through Sonia Vihar when village Jaikot or Chaka- Pokhri area few kms away from Koteshwar dam or Tehri reservoir is without water for better part of the year. Why should electricity be supplied to UP just as Uttarakhand was part of UP when scores of villages adjacent to dam dont have electricity…..I think people are missing the larger issue and that’s what worries me most here!

Alok

Dr. G. D. Agrawal Scientist and Rishi

Dr. G. D. Agrawal Scientist and Rishi

Meeting Dr. G. D. Agrawal in his spartan, two room cottage in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh, you would never guess what an accomplished and distinguished scientist he is – first Member-Secretary of the Government of India’s Central Pollution Control Board, former Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at IIT Kanpur and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. The list goes on and on.

Yet this eminent professional sweeps his own floors, washes his own clothes and cooks his own meals. He retains only a few possessions and dresses in homespun khadi. At the age of 76, his main mode of transport within Chitrakoot is a bicycle and when he travels further afield, he goes by ordinary bus and second-class train. These are the deliberate choices of a devout Hindu whose deepest values are for simplicity and reverence for nature. Dr G.D. Agrawal is the doyen of environmental engineering professionals in India. Well past retirement, he continues to teach and inspire students as an Honorary Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya Vishwavidyalaya, in Chitrakoot (M.P.).

Dr Agrawal is a much sought-after EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) consultant and a Director of Envirotech Instruments (P) Limited, New Delhi – a company that he established with some of his former students from IIT-Kanpur. He is an engineer’s engineer, the person senior professionals turn to for solutions to difficult technical problems. At CPCB he was instrumental in shaping India’s pollution control regulatory structure. He has been a member of various official committees for policy-making and administrative mechanisms to improve India’s environmental quality.

Dr Agrawal is a legendary and inspiring teacher whose students remember him with awe, admiration and affection. In 2002, his former students at IIT-Kanpur conferred on him the Best Teacher Award. He has guided scores of Masters and Doctoral students who are now leaders in the field of environmental engineering and science. Among his more prominent students was the late Anil Agrawal, the trail-blazing founder of the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.

Dr Agrawal has been deeply committed to supporting rural development initiatives grounded in scientific methodology. Among others, he has helped mentor well-known development activists like Dunu Roy (IIT-Bombay,’67) of The Hazards Centre, New Delhi, Dr Ravi Chopra (IIT-Bombay,’68) of People’s Science Institute, Dehra Doon and Rajendra Singh, a Magsaysay awardee and founder of Tarun Bharat Sangh.

Born in a farming family in Kandhla (Muzaffarnagar district, U.P.) in 1932, he did his schooling locally and graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of Roorkee (now IIT-Roorkee).

He started his career as a Design Engineer in the Irrigation Department, Uttar Pradesh and later obtained a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He has dozens of scientific publications to his credit. Dr Agrawal is both deeply religious and rigorously scientific.

His passionate devotion to the River Ganga comes from his strong Hindu faith; his conviction that we are staring at an unprecedented ecological and cultural catastrophe comes from his powerfully logical mind. As a citizen and a patriot, he has made it his life’s mission to recall India to its glorious traditional reverence for nature and to share that wisdom with the “developed” world. His sense of his duty allows him to do no less.