Category: Environment

Mark Ruffalo Goes Green, Supports Bihar’s Solar Energy Project

Ajay GhoshEnvironment 0

Mark Ruffalo, “The Hulk” star from New York has called himself “100% Bihar” in a recent Twitter post expressing his support for the Indian state’s clean energy project. Bihar is aiming to become the first state to run completely on solar energy and a lot of folk from the Hindi film industry like Manoj Bajpayee, Swara Bhaskar, Shilpa Rao, Prakash Jha and Sanjay Mishra have already shown their support for the project by joining the “I am 100% Bihar” campaign.

This came as a part of a celebrity-endorsed campaign which is aiming to make Bihar a state run entirely from clean energy. Others like Sanjai Mishra, Swara Bhaskar and Manoj Bajpai also feature in a video for the campaign: The plan gained impetus from an accomplishment earlier this month, when Dharnai in Jehanabad district of Bihar, became the first Indian state to be fully solar powered. Though the task of making Bihar 100% green is completely achievable, there are many obstructions. Getting land is one major concern as farmers won’t just give up their land. Regulatory changes as well as infrastructure issues have slowed down growth.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had launched a project in 2011 with an aim to generate 20,000 mega watt solar energy for sustaining power requirement of the country. Narendra Modi took that forward and has raised the bar to 1 lakh MW, which, though ambitious, is achievable if obstacles are overcome. 2400 villagers will get electricity in houses as well as 30 kw to run water pumps, thanks to efforts of Centre for Environment and Energy Development and Greenpeace, which faced trouble from authorities earlier this year.

Ruffalo, who portrays the green Hulk on silver screen, is going green in his real life too. The Hollywood star recently took to Twitter to show his support to Bihar government’s endeavor to run on clean energy.

NRI Leaders In New York Interact With E. P. Menon

Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Social Media 0

New York: Indo-American organization leaders in New York met E.P. Menon, the visionary and pioneer of world peace mission, in a gathering in Santoor Indian Restaurant in Glen Oaks, New York. The reception and dinner honoring Mr. E. P. Menon was attended by several members of Global Organizations of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO-NY), World Malayalee Council, National Federation of Indian Americans Associations (NFIA), Malayalee Hindu Mandalam, Sree Narayana World Council, Indian National Overseas Congress Kerala Chapter, Kerala Samajam of Greater New York and friends of Mr. Menon from New York City.

The leaders of organizations shared his vision and path he chose to serve humanity, congratulated him, and wished further success in his mission. The speakers shared their concerns and Mr. Menon explained several solutions to face them. Menon explained unrest persist around the world, United Nations failing to recognize the changing world. Future strategies of the UN must be reviewed and make its service useful to the humanity around the world. The countries around the world need to reset its strategies to face the future and protect the universe.

The threat of the nuclear arms has not yet been contained in the world said Dr Sreedhar Kavil, Chairman, Global Advisory Board, World Malayalee Council (WMC). However much we democratize the world, the structural conflicts among world leaders can any time trigger a nuclear disaster, Dr. Kavil explained.

What was declared most recently by Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan is very significant in this contest.  He said nuclear arms are not meant for a marriage party. It is for a purpose.  Dr Sreedhar Kavil applauded the service, dedication and simple life of Mr. E.P. Menon and said he is a role model to young and all.

Lal K. Motwani, Ex-Chairman of NFIA, Anand Ahuja Esq, and President of GOPIO-NY congratulated Mr. E.P. Menon and presented him NFIA & GOPIO  anniversary books with information on Indo-American cultural and social events and programs to unite Pravasi Indians in the United State.

Menon presented “Foot Prints on Friendly Roads” , the story of the Global peace march written by him to Mr. Lal K Motwani as a token of appreciation to Lal for his 30 plus years of service to Indian American community in the United State.

For more than half a century Mr. E P Menon, an everlasting crusader of peace, nuclear disarmament and social justice has persistently worked   for a fearless, prosperous world. Occasionally he travels to many destinations in the world to meet with young talents and share his vision and mission to protect all of us from manly-created disasters. Menon is one among very few who still around as from the era of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vinoba Bave, Jayaprakash Narayan, Thakkar Bapa and K Kelappan (Kerala Gandhi).

His first mission around the world on foot caught the attention of the world leaders and public where ever he and fellow traveler Sathish Kumar went in 1962-64. Kumar and Menon along with many supporting democratic fearless fellow walkers crossed many countries and  travelled 8000 miles on foot and boat from New Delhi to Kabul, Tehran, Moscow, Warsaw, Bonn, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London, Washington DC, California, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Saigon,  Singapore, Colombo, Bombay and back to New Delhi.

The then U.N Secretary General U. Thant wrote:  “ I am happy to hear all about your magnificent work for world peace.  Wish you the best of luck”.  Vinoba Bave inspired them and said, “Have absolute faith in humanity you will succeed. All best wishes”.

The dedication and work of E.P. Menon and Sathish Kumar in the 1960’s turned the world leaders to rethink their mad race for   nuclear arms.  Since then through continued negotiations and deals by world leaders,   world super powers reduced their nuclear weaponry and end producing new nuclear arms?  The modern world owes to and credit Mr. E.P. Menon and Mr. Sathish Kumar for pioneering to reduce/end nuclear arms and establish world peace through popular support.

Fifty three years ago in 1962, two young men in their twenties set out from Mahatma Gandhi Samadhi in New Delhi to conquer the iron minds of world leaders and gather the support of the suffering world.  They had no passport, no visa and no money in their pockets; and they achieved what they determined for in the name of peace and humanity.  Until now, it is a world record in serving the humanity with no penny in the pocket.  Even today, Mr. Menon lives with no means and follows his masters (Vinoba Bave) advice; “Go with no money, people will support your mission”, and he did that throughout his life to serve and protect you and me; Menon a silent warier with no weapons and protector of unknown.

Menon arrived at the venue accompanied by Mr. David Goldman, Singer, songwriter and music producer and many members of the global community from Manhattan.  Mrs. Leela Maret, (FOKANA) welcomed Mr. E.P. Menon and David Goldman with bouquet.

Aravindakshan introduced Menon to the audience and explained since he met him  forty eight years ago  in April 1967 at the home of Survodaya Leader Sri K Kelappan, (popularly known as Kerala Gandhi)   tried to follow his path in life and Mr. Menon is one of his role models.   Organizers and organizations can lean from Menon how to manage and provide relentless service to the community, said Aravindakshan.

Anand Ahuja Esq – President GOPIO-NY , Dr. Unnikrishnan Thampi – President MAHIMA, Dr. Rohini B. Ramanathan-Secretary GOPIO-NY  , K. G. Janardhanan, and S. K. Sreekumar – SNW Council, Varughese Thekkekara- WMC USA Vice Chairman, David Goldman, Susie Daniel, Pat La Mariana, Mimi Gussow, Mrs. Katy Casey, Jayachandran Ramakrishnan (President, INOC, Kerala Chapter) and Dr. Jose Kanatt (Kerala Samajam of Greater New York) were among few who made congratulatory remarks and applauded the service of Mr. Menon.  Anand Ahuja Esq, President of GOPIO-NY  made vote of thanks.

E.P. Menon (epmbangalore@gmail.com) is also the Executive Trustee of the India Development Foundation, an NGO in Bangalore, India that provides help and service to the needy while actively involving to defying unrest around the world.

70 Years After Hiroshima

Ajay GhoshEditorial, Environment 0

70 years ago, on August 6th, 1945 the city of Hiroshima in Japan was destroyed with an atomic bomb. In a few minutes, thousands of people lost their lives in the attack. Three days later the city of Nagasaki, also in Japan met the same fate. The Second World War ended six days later. Our world changed forever.

Within a single flash of light, Hiroshima, a city with a population of 360,000 — largely non-combatant women, children and elderly became a place of desolation, with heaps of skeletons and blackened corpses everywhere. As of now, over 250,000 victims have perished in Hiroshima from the effects of the blast, heat and radiation. 70 years later, people are still dying from the delayed effects of one atomic bomb, considered crude by today’s standard for mass destruction.

According to the Red Cross, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of atomic bomb survivor deaths in the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital until March 2014 were caused by cancers. The most deadly cancers were lung (20 per cent), stomach (18 per cent), liver (14 per cent), leukaemia (eight per cent), intestinal (seven per cent) and malignant lymphoma (six per cent). Over this period, more than half of all deaths at the Nagasaki Red Cross hospital (56 per cent) were due to cancer.

As many believed, Hiroshima was targeted because of its strategic significance as a military headquarters, a major trading port and one of the main supply depots for the Japanese army. It was also largely untouched by previous bombings. However, the Stop the War Coalition points out that over 95 per cent of the combined casualties of the two cities were civilian. As the first country to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations, the US was in direct violation of internationally agreed principles of war, writes Professor Rodrigue Tremblay for the Global Research Centre. “Thus, August 1945 is a most dangerous and ominous precedent that marked a new dismal beginning in the history of humanity, a big moral step backward.”

After the first bomb fell, co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis said: “My God, what have we done? How many did we kill?” The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also changed the course of history by launching the global race for nuclear proliferation. Today, there are more than 16,000 nuclear weapons around the globe with landmines, biological and chemical weapons threatening the very existence of humanity.

Currently, just nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the US, the UK, France, Israel, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The recently completed negotiations with Iran are only the latest attempt to keep the list at nine, says author and historian James Kunetka. “But realistically, the fight to halt the further spread of weapons will no doubt continue far into the future.”

These nine nations believe strongly in nuclear deterrence, arguing that by possessing a range of weapons, foreign states will refrain from attacking due to the fear of retaliation and “mutually assured destruction”. “In a world in which a rogue state like North Korea, a dysfunctional state like Pakistan and an increasingly bellicose state like Russia all possess the bomb, what major power is going to lead the way and unilaterally disarm?,” asks The Guardian‘s Andrew Anthony.

American journalist Eric Schlosser, says,”The problem with nuclear deterrence is that it requires secular rational thought on both sides of the equation,” he said adding that there are now groups like Islamic State with ideologies that glorify and celebrate the slaughter of civilians as well as militants who are not fearful of death. “That makes this technology even more dangerous.”

Most experts agree that nuclear weapons are more dangerous now than at any point in our history. The risks are too many and too huge. “Geopolitical saber rattling, human error, computer failure, complex systems failure, increasing radioactive contamination in the environment and its toll on public and environmental health, as well as the global famine and climate chaos that would ensue should a limited use of nuclear weapons occur by accident or design. Yet few people truly grasp the meaning of living in the nuclear age.”

The death of innocents that has been the driving force for millions of people around the world continues to inspire the struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. In a speech at a Washington DC university President Obama said the agreement is publically supported by every country in the world, except for Israel. Obama described it as the “strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated”. President John F Kennedy in 1963, spoke at the same Washington DC area university in support of diplomacy with the Soviet Union.

The Iran deal is considered a signature achievement of Obama’s foreign policy legacy. The nuclear deal calls for Iran to reduce its enrichment in exchange for the releasing of millions of dollars in frozen assets. Unfortunately, today, 70 years after the world witnessed the most horrific event in human history, humanity continues to live with the daily threat of nuclear weapons.

It’s time for action to establish a legally binding framework to ban nuclear weapons as a first step in their total abolition. Every peace loving citizen of the world must urge and work to join the growing global movement. And let us make the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal: to abolish nuclear weapons, and safeguard the future of our one shared planet earth. It’s time to rid the globe of the most destructive weapons of all and make sure there’s never another humanitarian tragedy like Hiroshima.’

You may send in your comments to the Editor at: ajayghosh1@aol.com

Sunita Viswanath Honored As ‘Champion of Change’

Ajay GhoshEnvironment, Women 0

Sunita Viswanath was among 12 faith leaders who was honored as “Champion of Change” on July 20 for their continuous efforts towards climate change. Viswanath, who has worked in women’s and human rights organisations for almost three decades, “is being honored for her work to encourage Hindus in protecting environment and communities from the effects of climate change,” the White House said in a statement.

Viswanath is co-founder and active board member of the 14-year old women’s human rights organisation Women for Afghan Women (WAW).

“Sunita is also co-founder and board member of Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, living and building a Hinduism that prioritises social justice, and upholding the Hindu principles of ekatva (oneness), ahimsa (non-violence) and sadhana (faith in action).”

Through our grassroots green project, Project Prithvi, we mobilize Hindus, especially the youth, to live out the principle of ahimsa by taking care of the environment. We have adopted a beach in Jamaica Bay, New York, where Hindus worship almost every day. Devotees place their offerings into the bay, but the offerings wash up on shore and become entangled with all the other litter lining the beach – beer bottles, Styrofoam containers, used condoms. It is deeply painful to see our religious offerings, broken idols, trays of flowers and fruits, fabrics that had adorned the deities, washed up on the beach as garbage. We reach out to local Hindu temples, and we enlist priests to help us advocate to devotees that it is important to worship in more environmentally friendly ways. We mobilize temple-goers to come to the beach with us on a monthly basis, and together we clean up the beach. At every beach cleanup, devotees tell us how hurt they are to see broken idols of Ganesha and Lakshmi lying face down in the dirt. Rivers and oceans are considered sacred by Hindus, as are trees, all life forms, and the Earth herself.

 “I have always been secure in my identity as a Hindu,” she told the media. “Growing up, I thought a lot about faith and religion, but I also had a very strong sense of social justice, what was fair. I imbibed profound lessons of love and justice from my religious upbringing, from the stories we were told, the prayers we learned, the texts we read. I went on as an adult to devote my life to advancing social justice causes, particularly women’s human rights. If Hinduism cares deeply about all people and all living beings, then there must be an active, vocal Hindu movement for social justice and human rights today.”

Through our grassroots green project, Project Prithvi, we mobilize Hindus, especially the youth, to live out the principle of ahimsa by taking care of the environment. We have adopted a beach in Jamaica Bay, New York, where Hindus worship almost every day. Devotees place their offerings into the bay, but the offerings wash up on shore and become entangled with all the other litter lining the beach – beer bottles, Styrofoam containers, used condoms. It is deeply painful to see our religious offerings, broken idols, trays of flowers and fruits, fabrics that had adorned the deities, washed up on the beach as garbage. We reach out to local Hindu temples, and we enlist priests to help us advocate to devotees that it is important to worship in more environmentally friendly ways. We mobilize temple-goers to come to the beach with us on a monthly basis, and together we clean up the beach. At every beach cleanup, devotees tell us how hurt they are to see broken idols of Ganesha and Lakshmi lying face down in the dirt. Rivers and oceans are considered sacred by Hindus, as are trees, all life forms, and the Earth herself.

Through our grassroots green project, Project Prithvi, we mobilize Hindus, especially the youth, to live out the principle of ahimsa by taking care of the environment. We have adopted a beach in Jamaica Bay, New York, where Hindus worship almost every day. Devotees place their offerings into the bay, but the offerings wash up on shore and become entangled with all the other litter lining the beach – beer bottles, Styrofoam containers, used condoms. It is deeply painful to see our religious offerings, broken idols, trays of flowers and fruits, fabrics that had adorned the deities, washed up on the beach as garbage. We reach out to local Hindu temples, and we enlist priests to help us advocate to devotees that it is important to worship in more environmentally friendly ways. We mobilize temple-goers to come to the beach with us on a monthly basis, and together we clean up the beach. At every beach cleanup, devotees tell us how hurt they are to see broken idols of Ganesha and Lakshmi lying face down in the dirt. Rivers and oceans are considered sacred by Hindus, as are trees, all life forms, and the Earth herself. Born in Chennai, Viswanath is known as a fierce leader whose passion for women’s rights and faith-based activism has made her a beacon of hope for the people of New York City.

Sunita Viswanath
Sunita Viswanath

A central component of Sadhana is Project Prithvi, which is an environmental initiative.

As part of Project Prithvi, Sadhana is involved with cleaning up a beach in Jamaica Bay, Queens which is a place of worship for Hindus.

Sadhana has officially adopted this beach, conducts regular clean-ups, and also does outreach through Hindu temples to advocate that Hindus worship in environmentally conscious ways, said the interfaithcenter.org. Viswanath was a 2011 recipient of the “Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Award” for her work with WAW.

She lives in Brooklyn in New York with her husband Stephan Shaw and their three sons — Gautama, Akash and Satya.

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