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December - January- February 2015 - Issue 1 - Vol. 1

HOPE FOR RAISE MAGAZINE

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Hope for raise- magazine is a free quarterly magazine, sponsored by Hope for raise trust. This community magazine is a non commercial magazine, dedicated for the community.

Editorial

During these past few months, a story that I use to hear when I was a child came back to my mind very precisely. This story talks about the Easter Is-

land, according to the legend the inhabitants was living on a really luxurious forest, a little paradise in the middle of Pacific Ocean. After only 300 years, they just destroy all theirs resources by their way of life. The geographer Jared Diamond told in 1995 on Discovery magazine: “In just a few centuries, the people of Easter Island wiped out their forest, drove their plants and animals to extinction, and saw their complex society spiral into chaos and cannibalism. Are we about to follow their lead?”

Good question! Actually some more recent research reveals that the Easter’s people was not only responsible for this, the climate change could be, one of the reason of the sudden sterility of their Island. The climate change is a natural phenomenon, but we are making that happening faster and more strongly that it should do. What will happen if we continue like that?

According to environmentalists, activists and scientists we are the last genera-tion who can still make the change. Since a long time now, some associations like WAR in Rajapalayam or the Nature Conservation Foundation in Valparai try to educate people to this issue and to respect their planet. In September, gath-ering of youths and environmental aspirants in Delhi as well as in New-York and Paris for making global political reforms. So we keep our hope preciously for our child, for your child.

This is the aim of Hope For Raise Magazine, to give a place to the people; who make change on our society like this, and we hope that you will follow us and them for a very long time.

Thankfully.

Hope For Raise Team.

01 EdiToR's coRnER

covER sToRy

03 The era of Green crusade

spoTligHT

10 People's climate march: healing the world

acHiEvER

14 Building a new world

social insTiTuTion

16 Knitting minds, through technology

Focus on

18 Redemption of the education.(RTE) Right To Education

india's sToRiEs

20 Searching the roots of yoga in India

book REviEw

22 Dauntless rescue, on a war zone

CONTENTSEditor

G.Durgairajan Audrey SIMON

photographers

G.Durgairajan

Ganesh Ragunathan (NCF)

cover photograph

G.Durgairajan

Hope for Raise TrustRegd 80/bk4/14

contacteditor@hopeforraise-mag.comHope for Raise - MagNo-93, Thyagarajar colonyPasumalaiMadurai - 625004Tamil NaduIndia

“Water one day will be so much less than people will have to buy water with gold, that will have the same value” ironies about the future.

the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, inspired by his both predecessors, discovered the Greenhouse law: “if the quantity of carbonic acid [CO2] increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.”

Meeting the odds, they involve themselves for conserving

environment and their green crusade against the climatic

change.

The era of green crusade.

In science, every theory has its own believers and its rebels. This is how

we are creating a new theory and history in science. The contemporary talk among the scientific community is on climatic change, scientist had taken more than a century for under-standing this phenomenal problem that we were progressively causing to the earth by various factors.

First in 1824, Joseph Fourier discov-ered the Greenhouse gases, he found that the atmosphere makes the Earth's climate livable and without it,

the temperature will be on an aver-age of 60° degrees Fahrenheit cooler. In 1850, John Tyndall found that the proportion of CO2 on the atmo-sphere could affect the planetary bal-ance. Fifty years after this theory, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, inspired by his both predecessors, discovered the Greenhouse law: “if the quantity of carbonic acid [CO2] increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the tempera-ture will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.” Problem, at this time western countries has started their

industrial revolution. This theory was not being taken seriously by other scientists; they rejected this law by thinking that the emission of CO2 will be absorbed by the ocean ac-cordingly. Fifty years later, Charles Keeling became the first person in the world to develop an accurate technique for measuring carbon dioxide in the air, the amount he discovered was 310 parts per million. That means every million pints of air, for example, on 1960 CO2 con-tained was 310 foot prints of carbon dioxide, today we measure 400 parts

of carbon dioxide per million on the atmosphere, and that is the reason we are facing overwhelming conse-quence of the global warming. The climate change is a natural process which occurs due to different factors, as the variations in solar radiation received by Earth’s movement of tectonic plates, volcanic eruption, or-ganic chemicals change and Human activities. This makes the scenario unpredictable even for the scientist.

In Tamil Nadu there are some green crusaders, trying to inculcate the peoples with awareness and necessi-ties of environment on their purview. NCF (Nature Conservation Founda-tion) in Valparai, WAR ( Wild life As-sociation of Rajapalayam) in Rajapa-layam, both along the western ghats on different locations with the same objective of saving the wild life and their environments, they volunteered themself to create awareness among the people near and around the for-est. While at the same time Professor Dr.Navaraj, organizing secretary of the ICCC (International Conference on Climatic Change) which was to be held at Madurai, elucidate the current situation of the people's ignorant on this gigantic phenomena of climate in the city.

Touching all dimesions of life

Climate change is a gradual and slow process, which happens over a period of time, it is inevitable and occurring since long (i.e., decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather around longer-term average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events). Climate change is caused by factors such as biotic processes, variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics, and volcanic erup-tions. Certain human activities have also been identified as significant

causes of recent climate change, of-ten referred to as "global warming". The risks are colossal, climatic change touches all dimentions of environ-mental aspects. It also infects sub domain like, biology, environmen-tal, social, economical and political aspects.

Environmental impact : We should have environmental balance. Due to excessive deforestation and mass emissions of CO2 due to industrial-ization will affect everyone without mercy. People think the climatic change is happening only in the city as they don't have any idea about the countryside and forest regions. Primarily the climate change will affect the food chains of all living be-ings due to less rain fall, plants does not yield well, animals depending on this will lack food, further it will lead to extinct or starvation. Then it will definitely impact the carnivores and omnivores, which will further lead to extinction of species. The biological equilibrium will be lost. Some plants

species and animals are very sensi-tive about the habitat, amplifying the temperature on the atmosphere will lead them to a sarcastic end.. Melting on the Antarctica and on the poles risks high tides and storm surges riding on ever-higher seas are more dangerous to people and coastal infrastructure. Natural protections against damaging storm surges are increasingly threatened. Barrier islands, beaches, sand dunes, salt marshes, mangrove stands, mud and sand flats retreat inland as sea level rises, unless there are obstruc-tions along the retreat path. If they cannot move, these natural protec-tions are washed over or drowned. Many shorelines have sea walls, jetties, and other artificial defenses to protect roads, buildings, and other vital coastal resources. In these areas, sea-level rise increases erosion of stranded beaches, wetlands, and engineered structures.

Sea-level rise can mean that

Water tank in Madurai (Courtesy : Hopeforraise-mag)

Improper waste management

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saltwater intrudes into groundwater drinking supplies, contaminates ir-rigation supplies, or overruns agricul-tural fields. Low-lying, gently sloping coastal areas are particularly vulner-able to contamination of freshwater supplies.

Economical impact: capitalism has its own side effects, government and people should work together to save forest, and should also concentrate on other alternative sources. Mas-sacring of trees in forest will intense the climate change, the results will be devastating. We can witness wide range of disaster, causing even fertile land to a desert. For example, on farmers land, pests are becoming more resistant. Professor Navaraj’s explanation is more rooted on global warming: “Nowadays farmers says that crop is not resisting to the pests, they did not witnessed such a pests previously, because some organism are dormant during the cold climate and become active during the hot climate, but nowadays there is a raise in the temperature which make them

hyperactive and destroy the crop, there is a heavy economical loss. These financial burdens on the farm-ers lead to sell their land and desert them or migrate.causing more insta-bility to environment and economi-cal. We can witness lot of suicides by the farmers due to this”. Raise of the sea levels is a major threat to coastal communities. Some 40 percent of the world's population lives within 62 miles (100 kilometers) of the ocean, putting millions of lives and billions of dollars worth of prop-erty and infrastructure at risk.

Social Impact: When monsoon fails, land is deserted, farmers migrate to the cities. Lack of agriculture pro-duce will lead to inflation and lack of jobs. Instability will repel the political and social aspects. Animals will also migrate in search of food or new habitat leading to human and animal conflicts. Many diseases are coming up, starvation and unforeseen events happen like Jammu and Kashmir flooding, large cyclones, landslides,

earthquake and raise in the sea levels. Finding Solutions In Cities Mostly all grown and growing cities are populated and polluted due the human interference. Prof. Navaraj, principal of Annai Fathima college was organizing Secretary of the ICCC in Madurai. His intellectual speech, amplify your curiosity of knowing about impact of climatic change in Madurai city. The Inter-national Conference on Climate Change 2014 (ICCC 2014) to be held at Madurai and is an opportunity to bring together knowledge from across the globe to share experiences and information, enable collabora-tion and build new partnerships, discussion of cutting edge solu-tions to the world’s water, food and energy issues, while also address-ing approaches to sustainable and effective adaptation throughout the water sector. Considering the current situation of India in the urban water, food, energy and climate aspects, ICCC 2014 will provide a unique

opportunity to understand the new innovations to face the existing chal-lenges. This event was unfortunately not held on 2014, but professor as-sures that he and his team will make it happen on the 2015.

Prof. Navaraj substantiates cli-matic change happening in Madurai “Normally in Tamil Nadu by the end of May it must be raining; it starts from south-west, passing by the Kuntralam falls, and a cold wave should arrive on south, in Madurai for example. But today this is miss-ing or it is delayed. There are many reason behind it, lack of trees, more CO2 on the atmosphere due to the human activity, human activity disturbs nature, as the result nature is getting troubled, When people are destroying the Koddaikanal hills, how can you expect its chillness? When you are converting forest reserve and green patches into resorts and cot-tages in Ooty. How can you enjoy the scenic beauty of the hill ? We are also not properly handling the waste, we burn them in open resulting lot of

carbon emissions. People consume these hydrocarbon they develop pulmonary problem, lung cancer, tuberculosis and skin problem. Lots of advertisement around us saying don’t litter or burn in the public place, but everybody do so. People discharge the sewage directly into the ground with out treating, which will be absorbed by the ground and it will affect the normal water. As a result water will become more salty and finally will not be comestible to the public”.The problem is improper waste management, caused by Humans, these problems pretend to be small or may be common, but the result will be irrevocable damage to the entire community. That will create migration in search of water and food, further damaging the new block of forest; people in cities should act wisely to reduce their carbon foot prints, in order to save forest and entire living organisim.

Green crusader of the western ghats fighting the climatic change NCF (Nature Conservation

Foundation)-Valparai There has been numbers of NGO's and other organizations are involved on this green war. Now everyone in this world, are in fast lane. Still, there are numerous people work not only for us even for the plant and animals. Valparai lies in Western Ghats, and has it crown NCF (Nature Conserva-tion Foundation). Stunning peak with mesmerizing beauty and commonly known for leopards, elephants, Lion Tailed Macaque and Nilgiri tars. These eminent scientists & conservationists are heroes for these people. Everywhere you can witness their stories, their work near to the forest was flaunting. Traces of their suc-cess were witnessed by the tales of the people. A tea shop owner near Chinnakallar, on the forest says: “We can easily track the elephant move-ment, with the help of NCF peoples” further they confessed: “We know that, we live near to their homes. Yet due to livelihood and completion we share the land, which sometimes leads to human and animal con-flicts.”

Carbon emmission through vehicles improper water management)

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When we see the root cause, it is deforestation, and climate change. Dr.M Anand Kumar scientist at NCF confesses “We can see the change, less and less rain but no data about this; what we can see is that: actually the global climatic change also shows its effect in Valparai, it’s not an ex-ception. At least when I came to this hills, it use to rain until 6 to 7 months in year. Now it was calm down for 4 months, maybe 2 months will be severe and 2 months will be raining only on morning and evening. So in really short time, I can witness such a dramatic change. That will affect the

vegetation structure also, even if we don’t have data about the conse-quences of climate change. We know that only by our experiences.”

After a long travel on their con-servative path, they struggled but educated every one about the issue and how to solve the problem. This happens with proper awareness cam-paign, people involvement is much seen in Valparai. They work united with forest officials and peoples. They are also extending their service by conducting awareness campaign, training programs for the watchers

and students. Dr.M.Anand Kumar explains incident where there was an ultimate co-operation and tolerance: “A woman who has one month old baby, called me at 2 AM because an elephant was standing outside of her house, attracted by jack fruits. She panicked, her baby was crying so she was not sure how the elephant is going to react to that sound. I told to her really clearly don’t run away; don’t move out of the house be-cause you cannot know how many elephants are around the house. We called the ranger officer and that took him 45 minutes to reach that place. And as the jeep cannot reach this village, he has to park the vehicle and walk. It’s also dangerous for him, but he has to reach that place to make sure she is safe. Actually they know that it has been no incident when people were on the house. El-ephant enter into houses only when no one is there. Best thing to do is to make noise, turn on TV, radio so that elephant know that it's some people inside the house. Next day she called us for saying thank you. People know that on some place they can actually get some support, that’s really impor-tant, that’s what we are doing it”. So when people knew the situation they react well, we should inculcate this kind of attitude, this will not be possible without co-operation between everyone.

WAR (Wildlife Association of Rajapa-layam)- srivilliputhur Wildlife Association of Rajapalayam or WAR for Nature, is a nonprofit organization established in 1999 to conserve the wild treasure of the Sir-villiputhur Wildlife Sanctuary and the adjoining areas of Western Ghats. It is a self funded organization run by a small group of enthusiast around that area. They have started this service before 15 years ago in the schools. Now WAR works with colleges, and started building Nature Club. A network has been established by

the old members of WAR and they started spreading the awareness of eco-system. So that, they not only in Rajapalayam, but also on nearby vil-lages. WAR have also started a new program for the school childrens, it is 6 months program. They have selected 20 schools in which 250 students will have several modules about climatic change, International biodiversity, Indian biodiversity and local. It is try, to give them an inter-active and analytic study on past, present and future. Students were asked to discuss with the family elder about the environment at their time and what is the present scenario, which will give them a complete idea about what conservation means and its present necessity. Already 400 students got benefited. Their success is on, explains Sub-ramania Raja, “Fear and ignorance are the biggest threats to those animals.” Well, we all know that the unfamiliar can be scary. The best way to fight the fear of the unknown is, of course, familiarization. Therefore, education is one of the main objec-tives of WAR. “If people know why an animal behaves in a certain way, they are less likely to feel threatened by it.”

WAR focuses on schools and col-leges to start nature education at an early age. By handing out fun filled information books with coloring pictures, songs, images and puzzles, WAR attempts to educate children about the behavior of animals. This way, instead of threatening or killing the animal, people will learn to stay calm and avoid conflict with it. Their main objective is to protect wildlife and their habitat, which is also most crucial for humans as well.

Change needed through educa-tion and awareness All the people, who involved in city as well as in, forest conserva-

tion, even separated by distance on a single voice says the need for change.

As Professor Navaraj explains: “Cli-matic change is a global problem and it is a potential threat, it will affect all country, everyone is a victim. All countries are worried about this changing pattern because it rapidly affects the environmental pattern. Climatic change is a very vast subject and it has innumerous branches where scientist working on there specialization like rock, soil, human , sea, organisim, etc. We also need lot of inputs from these specialization of climatic change to correlate, so we are planning to organize Inter-national conference on the climatic change. It would help all scientific community to be focused on their area of expertise.

In India scientific community is combating this situation, but there has been always a gap between the farmers and the scientists. When a scientist invents a new technique. It does not reach the beneficiaries due to the mindset of the people and fear, for example : everybody

know that alcohol spoiled the body, lot of advertisement are coming out, doctors advice to the people, other awarness campaign etc. But we can still witness the crowd on wine shop. Last Diwali they had approximately 400 crores of sale, this year they are expecting 800 crores. So awareness is given in many forms and doctors are advising: if you’re consuming alcohol you will be in trouble. But no one care, If they are not caring about their own health, how they can care about environment. So that's the mindset of the people when they should understand the gravity of the situation, and must change Furthere the Professor concludes: “Water one day will be so much less than people will have to buy water with gold, that will have the same value” ironies about the future.

Dr. Anand Kumar of NCF in his con-culution adds “When I was studying in Bangalore, on a group of men one cut a branch of tree. So another man in cycle stopped and asked: “Why you are doing this? You know it’s a beautiful city and we are living with lot of trees. It such a beautiful thing

Wildlife habitat in Valparai ( courtesy Ganesh ragunathan NCF))

Prof Navaraj, Principal of Annai Fatima College in Madurai (Courtesy: Hopeforraise-mag)

Natural rain forest converted into tea plantations (Courtesy: Hopeforraise-mag)

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people's climate march: healing the world

why do you disturb that?” But now, if you go there and cut a tree nobody will ask, this is a complete change of attitude. You know human psychol-ogy work in such way that they can make fake ignorance. People try to ignore things intentionally. If we go and tell to the people, please love elephants they will do lot of pujas, spend huge million of rupees… But the thing is that it’s same people who trove rock into elephants. It’s not that they don’t know but they didn’t see the priority. Everybody have a value system. We really need to go there, so there people will adopt good be-havior. Change should come to each and every family. If you see the house how it’s maintaining that will tell you how people are good to manage environment. It’s depend of the value system, it has to be inculcate from the childhood himself like how to respect environment, how to respect others". This flaunting message conveys, that change should happen from oneself, should not make fake ignorance and value based education is needed. Everyone should change and not the climate at large scale.

Nevertheless people involvement and community awarness made sucess to obtain this sucess rate from the

peoples of Valparai to NCF as Ganesh Ragunathan chants: “People that I met are not protesting or disagreed with us. I’m doing this work since a long time now. They understand and are more sensitive. They have to accept the reality and they have also a major role to play there. Rangers can also discuss with people and play a major role on this part. Now people are more aware and are ready to give advice to some others people.”

Another example giving by Subra-mania Raja of WAR: “There was an amazing incident happened while we educate students. One of the poach-

ers son come and asked me how to stop his father and uncle from hunt-ing. We said you can complain to the forest officials and I gave number. He tried to stop his father and uncle, but it does not worked, so he called the official and complained his own father. This is one of the positive impacts that we have with child.”

The outcome of their words and vision was unanimous on current situation on the environment, no matter where they are located, their voice speak this naked truth: climate change is real and happening; this is the time for everyone to awake from our ingnorance and save the future generations. We cannot be blind with the scientific cautions any-more, India need a real vision about environment issue, but are we ready to make this problem on our prior-ity? We should it is time to change ourselves.

On the 23th September 2014, 2500 students and activists joined together on

the streets of Delhi to show the Government of India, that environment and

economy are the two sides of the same coin. This event simultaneously held

in various parts of the world. United Nation Climate Change Conference was

held at New-York., pictures of these events around the globe were shown to

the world leaders, to prioritize their agenda towards the climatic change. Peo-

ple need a long term solution, we should move ahead in this scenario.

Landslide triumph of the People

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“We did it!” roars proudly Ricken Patel, founder

of Avaaz, and promulgates “To-gether, we made history, but it's just a beginning.” The documentary film “Disruption” aim was fulfilled. 675000 people on march understand that we need to change our habits right now, we need to reduce our footprint, we need to reduce the per-centage of carbon in atmosphere, we need simply to calm down our exces-

sive consummation of energy. This is how the 350 organization start in US by Bill Mc Kibben and made an echo in Europe, Asia and Africa. 350 symbolize the exact part per mil-lion carbon that we can have on the atmosphere without causing horrible devastation. We already crossed the maximum level, and are running for more and more emissions each and every year. Without any prompt decision we are going to face many disasters more frequently. This problem is a well know fact by

the scientific community, the report “Intense Climate-Related Natural Disasters in Asia and the Pacific” on 2012 said: “Change in tempera-ture anomalies and in precipitation deviations norm across Asia and the Pacific have also been empirically linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions (proxied by rising carbon dioxide concentration). For intense climatological disasters in Asia and the Pacific, concomitant average monthly temperature anomalies are found to have increased and become more variable. The same is true of temperature during months when intense meteorogical disasters oc-curred.” Taking some few examples in India: Jammu and Kashmir this year, Uttarakhand disaster last year, Leh cloudburst in august 2010, rainfall in Mumbai in july 2005, all are the consequence to the climate change, which impacted all dimen-sions of the society: economy as well as social domain. The rural areas which represent 72% of the territory is announced to be more affected as this population is poor and mar-ginalized. On the Human Impact of Climate Change in India report told, every 1 degree increase in tempera-ture is likely to lead to a 5 to 10%

Proper water management should be followed

Subramania Raja of WAR association (Courtesy : Hopeforraise-mag)

Paris climate march on 21 st september (courtesy: Avaaz)

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reduction in yields of some crops. Food security and malnutrition will be one of the big issues, but the problem ex-pands, to migration of coastal popula-tion due to disasters will increase, bac-terial infection due to fewer resources of clean water, respiratory diseases, and dengue epidemics are some of consequence to the global warming. Gender inequalities, migrations and poverty are some of the social domain which will also be affected if nothing is done by politicians. This is a real challenge waiting ahead for solutions, but politicians views it too much far away from the politics and they prefer boosting economy now. For Ayesha Di Souza, coordinator of 350 Delhi: “Governments are just banded the problem by saying ok, we will give relief fund. But after this, no one speaks about it even last year Maharashtra had a big storm. This is the right of people to ask if disasters happen with such a big impact why we are still now going for coal?”

Actually the climate change did not even give six months to the new government for showing it potential-ity and violence. Jammu and Kashmir flood was not only a human disaster but an economical sinister for India and Pakistan. In India, 284 people died and the economical “calam-ity” was estimated between 5000 to 6000 crore rupees, while in Pakistan 280 people died and many villages were destroyed. In October, it was the cyclone Hudhud which destroyed the coast of Andhra Pradesh and part of Odisha, the government announced 1000 crore relief to help the popula-tion.

An anonymous woman wrote on the social network Twitter: “After the @PeoplesClimateMarch my son asked what Earth is going to look like when he's at my age. I had no answer… #fightclimatechange”. This is also one

of the reason of this movement said Ayesha Di Souza: “Climate change is such an important issue especially for young people because their future de-pends on which decisions our leaders are taking now. That will impact not only future generation but also us.”

Students awareness

“Such big revolution can happen only by mass mobilization” as 350 orga-nization says. The 20 th September, three days before the 69th UN Gen-eral Assembly and a climate summit of world leaders, with the help of Avaaz and Greenpeace they did it: 675 000 people came into the streets all around the world for protesting against cli-mate change. In Delhi, 2500 citizens came to protest against coal mining and asking 100 % green energy for India and around the world.

Scientists Flooded on the Wall Street, because they know about the conse-quences of climate change, but their studies don’t seem to had have any impact on the society. During the hot summer of 1988, James Hansen, a climatologist of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administra-tion), testifies before the US Congress “the Greenhouse effect which has been detected risk to change our cli-

mate now”. He explained that if gases emissions are increasing each year like it was, the effect was likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2025 to 2050, accord-ing to these projections, and was not expecting to be uniform around the globe. Then he added ''It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.'' This important announcement came on the front page of The New-York Times but no decision was taken until now. Even the link between disasters and climate change was less noticed Ayesha Di Souza: “I think, it’s a fear” she argues, “Industries and govern-ment are so powerful, and obviously scientists get money from their gov-ernment or by some others big organi-zations for conducting their research. It’s also our aim to support them and said thousand and thousand of people are behind scientists and understand the problem.”

350 India started its campaign many weeks before in colleges, trying to convince youth people to join the march. “Young people know about cli-mate issue. They basically understand that the environment is on trouble. But they think the only solution should

involve only one level, like planting trees and cleaning the garbage” pur-sue Ayesha Di Souza, “but this is also their right to question the government at the national and state level about nobel energy.” 350 India try also to convert some technical text about climate change into a clear explana-tion and easily understandable for creating awareness to common public and start a debate about dirty energy. The Dirte Talks campaign is one of the event organizes by 350, they open the discussion on colleges about coal, how that’s impact the society, and what solution exist.

However not only students were at-tending for the march, Human rights activists, farmers, people living near to nuclear power plant was coming together for showing their disagree-ment with politicians. “We want to make Delhi march extremely beautiful and creative, a couple of weeks ago I have been on art space preparing for the march, we enjoyed to make replicas of human power plant, hu-man solar plant We want to show to the government that [youth] we care about environment, that should be visually understandable ” told Ayesha Di Souza.

UN Summit and results

But did governments care about the is-sue? The 23 september, 120 represen-tatives around the world was in New-York for the United Nations summit about climate change, conference was opened by the UN ambassador Leon-ard Di Caprio (actor and ambassador for climatic issue). On his inaugural speech, the actor gave an alert: “To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that indi-viduals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action. I am not a scientist, but I don't

need to be. Because the world’s scien-tific community has spoken, and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish […] The good news is that renew-able energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100% of the world’s energy needs using EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES, and it would create millions of jobs.”However, no real big decisions were taken. All Presidents and Prime Minis-ter made the promise to reduce their carbon emissions. The French Presi-dent Francois Hollande pledge 1 billion dollars to help poor nations cope with the effects of rising temperatures. On fact nothing about the nuclear power plant in Fessenheim in France or Jaita-pur running by Areva in Maharashtra. Two projects which worried the local population around, especially after the Fukushima reactors accident.

According to the Kiribati’s Pacific Islands President, Andre Tong: “We must get away from the ‘wait and see who is doing what’ style of leader-ship before deciding what needs to be done.” Pacific Islands are already threatened to simply disappear by ris-ing seas, and say rich countries need to do more for climate change. For the

citizens and activists of 350, all gov-ernments have responsibilities locally and internationally. Climate change will not have any border, it will affect not only countries who decide to not change their attitudes but also all of us.

China is today the number one on carbon emitter (28%) followed by United States (14%). But Indian eco-nomical situation is growing fast, and could easily catch up the develop-ment of its Asian neighbor. The deci-sion from Minister of Environment to change the constitution of the National Board for wildlife (NBWL), a statutory body under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, shows the economic priority of the govern-ment. This office was supposed to be constituted by 32 officials from various department, 5 NGOs and 10 conservationists or ecologists. But instead of having 5 members of the civil society, only two was nominated and not from NGO but Government background Foundation. The situ-ation was remaining after that the Supreme Court of Delhi find that it was a violation of Section 5A of the Wildlife Protection Act. But 130 projects was already cleared included a coal based plant near to the Gulf of Manner sanctuary in Tamil Nadu.

Avaaz’s founder and director, Ricken Patel adressing to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon the

petition signed by 2 millions of citizens asking 100 % green energy. (courtesy : Avaaz Agency)

People’s climate march in Delhi (Courtesy: Avaaz)

building a new world Before that the world starts to hear about climate change, some green crusad-

ers were already trying to create awareness about this issue a long times back.

Sir. A. Gnanaprakasam was one of them. At 76 years old, the old green man is

still leaving on the area of Pudukkottai, near to Aranthagi, following the foot

path of the green legendary Nammalvar

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“People are demanding better plan” argue Ayesha Di Souza “A plan which will not impact the environ-ment. We understand that it will boost the economy on that pres-ent on the next two years but what about the future when we don’t have forest anymore, when we are a really polluted air, when we don’t have water? This is important for young people asking this question because we are making decisions right now only by thinking to the present.” The Supreme Court gave three months to the government for proposing envi-ronment regulator after consultation with State government. During this time the committee will not be able to take any decisions. This time will be also necessary for considering The Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers Act (or Forest Rights Act) of 2007. The Minister of Environment, Sir Prakash Javadekar would like to amend this act which was enacted by Parliament. What the law said? Well, any companies who want to set up an industry or mine in tribal lands, it had to first seek the consent of forest dwelling communities. The law was supposed to define the real purpose for the acquisition of forest and protect the tribes. The government would like to

amend the act for giving priority to commercial investment without the consent of tribal communities. The Supreme Court had also pointed this plan which will reduce the forest area of India.

For the Minister of Environment the emergency is not on conservation and protection of the forest but on the economical issue, and more precisely on reducing poverty. “The moral principle of historic respon-sibility [those countries which have historically emitted the most] cannot be washed away.” remind Sir Prakash Javadekar during the UN summit about climate change, remembering that economical revolution was done before in the west without asking for environment, but he pursue: “Sir Na-rendra Modi is very much interested in climate change and environmental issue. He has proved it in Gujarat for 12 years that both conservation and protection of environment along with development is simultaneously pos-sible. We are serious. (Modi) is com-mitted (on climate change issues). We are doing our action but it is not at somebody's dictation, it is on our own volition” he told.

The government has already started

the new campaign “Cleaning India (Swachh Bharat Abhiyan)” during the Gandhi Jayanti, inspiring by one of the wish of the Mahatma himself. If the image of the Prime Minister tak-ing a broom for cleaning the street will possibly influence others citizen in India, this simple things is so far not enough. Education should also be given on the school about the risk of burning the waste outside, pol-lution of water by deversing waste into it, recycling waste management, recycling water. All this topics are not new and lots of disparities are there in India.

Another UN Climate Change Confer-ence will take place in Lima (Peru) in December before the official meeting in France in 2015, once again many Prime Ministers and Presidents of diverse nations all around the world will sit together, then activists and environmentalists will still manifest for trying to make change. Because still our planet is warming and if no one makes this on his priority then our child will be so aware about environment but the time of change will be over. It’s also our responsibility to respect our land by taking some good habits, and definitely reduce our emissions of carbon.

Smiling as the evocation of his memories , Sir A.Gnanaprakasam

is all the times happy to share this moment with the few visitors on his house and showing his “natural farm-ing”. The way was too long for the world, to clearly understand the ne-cessity to start from the beginning of the nature. Sir A. Gnanaprakasam is born before the Independence, a period where India lost the most im-portant part of his forest: “The British destroy 50% of our forest by plant-ing tea, coffee and exotic plants, so that had influence on climate change. But still now we are following this sys-tem.” That creates awareness on this strong man, definitively ready to fight

for the nature.

Interested by the nature, since the age of 10, farming became is profession. A normal farmer with the strange idea of planting trees on the entire farm: “For me it was a source of income, and not spending. I grow a tree; then I had fruits for mine and others” he explains. But it’s only on 1980, after his travel to Singapore, he realizes the importance of trees for the environ-ment. A. Gnanaprakasam remembers the daily rains on the city on total op-position with the Indian climate much dry: “I ask couple of farmers out of curiosity; they reply it was due to lot of trees each and everywhere in the

city. So I came back with the mission to make India greener.” Determined, A. Gnanaprakasam forced his village to plant lot of trees with the hope that one day India will be entirely covered by forest, like a green umbrella to pro-tect us from the climate change, and to pulse the economy of the country, as according to him: “Trees are like gold; they make you self-reliant and provide income.”

His life totally change on 1985, when he met the Green legendary , Nam-malvar, a scientist of the Agricultural Regional Research station becom-ing a strong activist for environment and on the defense of poor farmers.

Students fighting for their future on 21st september in Delhi (Courtesy: Avaaz Agency)

Sir A. Gnanaprakasam (courtesy: Hope For Raise)

knitting minds, through technology A success story of a farming community, they are self-reliant by the technol-

ogy, to empower themselves with their united voice on the air, through their

own FM (Vayalaga). Milestone of MDTFF near kottampatti. Tune 90.4 MHz to

hear the unheard………………..

15 16

Mostly in cities we use FM radios for entertainment while driving

cars, other than this people to-tally rely on Televisions and Internet. When you pass through the city and reach its outskirts, you can feel and start viewing the green landscape of the country side, where people lack many facilities from city. Kottampatti is also located in the country side of the Madurai district, 54 Kms away consisting of many villages adjacent.

The main profession in these villages is agriculture. These farmers totally relay on the monsoon and seasonal rivers, tank irrigation was the con-

ventional and these people had been following for centuries, essentially these tanks provide as a source for providing supplementary irrigation during monsoon season, innumer-able small water holding structures called ponds have been in existence in many parts and some were con-structed even after Independence for multiple uses including irrigated agriculture. Although many of these ponds are primarily meant for inland fresh water aquaculture, they have also been used for multiple purposes like irrigated agriculture, livestock and other domestic uses. Tank irriga-tion has thus a rich heritage on ac-

count of long historical antecedents in various regions of India. Over cen-turies, tanks and ponds constituted an important supplementary source of water to the distressed poor.

A famous engineer Sir Arthur Cotton during the British tenure proclaims, that natives had constructed many tanks at various soils

So, people around these village join together to protect and maintain these water bodies, so they formed Madurai District Tank Farmers Federa-tion under societies Act in 1997 with 4500 farmers as members. MDTFF

At this time only, he came to know about “organic farming” and “natu-ral farming”: “He was the first fore-runner to speak about the bad impact of fertilizers. Until this year, I was still using chemicals on my own farm, but after this particular meeting I started natural farming, so 30 years ago.” A revelation for him. He started his “natural farm”, as he lets the plant to grow naturally without any Human in-terference. Now, he has on his garden filled with green treasure, where all plants have its proper medicinal val-ues for the body, and fruits and veg-etables had making them self-reliant and more healthy.

Creating awareness

“Since this time, I would like to bring many people into organic farming. I would like to be an intermediate be-tween government and farmers, who are sometimes lost with administra-tive work for getting subsidies. Now, I'm the president of the Pudukkottai District Tree and Herbs Growing Wel-fare Association. Along with people interesting by this issue we started to document it for the common people.” Sir A. Gnanaprakasam, felt he was

speaking to the walls, is now making lot of hopes on the future generation.He has started to provide free healthy food on schools, like spinach, and he is constantly infusing ideas about or-ganic farming to the students that he met, as the new generation is more ready to accept the change. “I saw many health problems since I'm born. For example: when I was child, the vil-lage has only one hospital for 10000 patients and only 100 will be really sick. Now, we have 100 hospitals which have more than 1000 peoples sick. This scenario happens because of unhygienic food. This is also a problem with farmers, but the Gov-ernment should look deeply into the problem and take actions. It's also a global awareness that people should not care only about feeding their stomach, but most about the quality of their food. I hope many people will also start the same things than me on all part of India.”

To educate the people we have to show them how farming was done before chemicals, a message that in-numerous of farmers are not ready to follow. The calculation is simple for an exploitation of 1 hectare; a farmer

will need 15 tones of bio-manure on organic farming, when they need 100 kg only on conventional farming, they are not ready to take risk and work hard. “So we are planting chemi-cals, we are preserving our food with chemicals, we are eating chemicals, so we are getting sick and we once again are taking chemicals as tablet.” ironies A. Gnanaprakasam. For the old man, this is the problem of the mono-culture, which has totally changed the South Indian food habits: “Before we were eating cereals, spinach fruits and vegetables. Now, we eat rice each and every day. That also impact environment and our health. We lost our old traditions and scientific meth-ods, as the Kalasam on each temple is for preserving the seeds of cereals; in case, if rain destroys whole city, still we can get seeds from temple kasalam. This foreseeing and ancient technology is lost.”

A. Gnanaprakasam could speack a long times on the necessity to convert into organic, but at least he expects that this message could one day be relay by the government or some common man like him.

The natural farm filled medicinal herbs (courtesy: Hope For Raise)

The team of Vayalaga FM, left on right side : O. Rajalakshmi, V. Anudharani, S. Sonaimuthu, P. Sundarapandiyan.

(Courtesy : Hope For Raise Mag)

Redemption of the education.(RTE) Right To Education

Mr.C.Jesudoss educational and child activist in Madurai elucidated the im-

portance of Right to Education RTE. Privatization of schools in India is at very

larger scale. In Tamil Nadu 72% of schools are owned by government, now

the trend is in deterioration due to privatization of schools. The Government

has allotted a mandatory 25% reservation for under privileged students and

students from excluded community and it is herculean task for activist and

administrators. “Private school thinks that school is their boundary and no

one can enter into it” this kind of thinking is strong in the private schools

and they are not ready to implement RTE says Mr.Jesudoss

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applied for the community radio on 2008 and after long screening process, Vayalaga FM was on the air in December 2011. “This success was not one farmer success; it was the success of entire village, to acquire the license for broadcasting through community FM” remembered proudly the program designer Sunda-rapandiyan. Now the FM covers a ra-dius of 15 Kms, and it reaches nearly 100 villages. Vayalaga has established 20 villages knowledge centers in ad-ditional to this radio, where a farmer can get basic information about government’s e-governance and on agriculture; these centers are devel-oped in order fill the gap of technol-ogy from those of cities.

The main theme of the radio is non commercial, and exclusively for the agriculture. These programs are dedicated to these villages, and by farmers and to the farmers. This air-wave webs the 100 villages together under one roof through the powerful media. All the workers in the radio are from the same village commu-nity, which makes them feel they are working in their own community radio. There are 7 people working in the radio, as radio jockeys, operators and field executives. The radio has its own advisory committee consisting of five elderly people, five teenag-ers and five women to appraise and instruct them on farmer-friendly pro-grams. “We started with our farmers’ money, so we are very cautious on spending them wisely,” confesses station manager. The success was, with minimal investment and massive enthusiasm FM airs it program for 5 hours, in two time slot of 2 hours 10:00 to 12:00 in the morning and 3 hours 3:00 to 6:00 in the evening. Vayala-gam FM act as knowledge center of the whole community, the farmers share their cultivation experience and new or conventional methods, as this valuable information spread through

the air to other villages.

Influencing the change

The radio has changed many farm-ers to practice organic farming, by conducting debate on this farming method. The outcome of these pro-grams created a major impact on the farmers using fertilizers. The reason of changing to organic farming is global warming; on the other hand main reason was health issues too. Program designer explains “people are well aware of this, but they fear to practice it; this method is not new, as their ancestors practiced this, we act as platform to discuss with farm-ers already practicing organic and with field expertise”.

Many awareness programs is given and covered by the FM, and they witness these impacts of these awareness, now people in these vil-lages on birthday, wedding or other functions plant trees instead of gifts. FM repeatedly broadcast the utility of bio gas (made out of cow dung) for cooking, and was also a major success, on educating green energy. Awareness on water management, in order to cope up the water scarcity, they encourage drip irrigation meth-

od, the expertise suggestion and help is provided through the airwaves. Other than agriculture, they also con-duct veterinary camps for vaccinating the live stocks. Forecast the disease which can affect both plants and animals, with the help of experts’ suggestions through the FM. On the entertainment part, we visit villages in hunting for talented villag-ers; who sing folk songs and these songs are rarely heard these days in villages, radio avoids commercials songs because of their copy rights and expensive, these programs is very demanding and people ask for repeated broadcasting.Apart from these programs, they also conduct informative programs for children and women. Like educa-tional programs for the high school students, motivational speech by teacher on public exams. For women, health awareness by doctors and some basic house hold tips. These people use this radio as a medium of growth; they unitize this medium to their community, by their own community radio (Vayalaga FM 90.4 Mhz).

Education a fundamental right

The goodness about RTE is, it en-sures that education is the fun-

damental right of every citizen in India. The law formulated on 2002 provides low cost education for stu-dent between 6 to 14 years old. But the Act came into effect only on 1st

April 2010. The crux of problem is privatization and non surveillance of private schools. In India, Tamil Nadu is in better position compared to any other states in the country. The devel-opmental indicator shows Tamil Nadu falls under top 5. “We activist do criti-cizes RTE to do better throughout In-dia” says Mr.Jesudoss proudly.

As education has been commercial-ized and good demand for schools, these private institutions brand themselves as CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and ICSE (International Certificate for Second-ary Certificate) streams. Educational activist like Mr.Jesudoss always advo-cate, “One stream of education to all,

V. Anudharani a member of Vayalaga FM (Courtesy : Hope For Raise Mag)

Mr C. Jesudoss, child activist in Madurai. (Courtesy: Hope For Raise)

searching the roots of yoga in india

After the Prime Minister, Sri Narendra Modi, asked on UN Assembly in New-York to

adopt an International Yoga Day, the First Secretary in the Permanent Mission in India,

Sri Prakash Gupta told "While India is considered as the birthplace of innumerable sports

since ancient times, Yoga offers a holistic approach to health and well being globally, and

is one of the several concrete manifestations of globalization, that through the exchange

of best practices, promotes better individual lifestyles, which are devoid of excesses of all

kinds.” Well, International Yoga Day could occur each year on 21 june, but, what do we

know really about this practice created by Jains?

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irrespective to all class and communi-ties. If every child has equal educa-tion, their knowledge and level skills will grow equally; as they can com-pete equally throughout the country. Samacheer kalvi (equal education for all) is a very good initiative by Indian government, as there won’t be any partiality on Government schooling and private schooling” Private schools versus Govern-ment school

We are living in the era of educational awareness among the parents. Every parent in Tamil Nadu wants their chil-dren to go to school and live better. We cannot say government schools don’t meet the standard; there are many committed teachers, as well as young learners. The education has been commercialized by the pri-vate schools, by branding streams, displaying children’s achievement of public exams; as advertisement to woo many parents to get admission in the schools. Mr.Jesudoss confesses “In our experience we see children suffering in private school, their free-dom is curtailed. For example in Na-makal alone there are many residen-tial schools, we call them as broiler schools, as they are similar to hybrid chickens “. The children were trained in way that they yield high marks. Par-ents consider marks rather than the interest of the child, a child should grow good environment and people around them. When a child did not get this fundamental thing, it is a hu-man right violation of the children.

Change needed in education pol-icy

Government of India is marching to-wards the path of privatization. They already privatized health and educa-tion sector. There should be policy change due privatization, else it would be very tough for the Government schools to survive. Throughout Tamil

Nadu every school is supposed to fol-low RTE. Excessive awareness is given on RTE. Many public interest litiga-tions have been filed against schools, which do not follow RTE. There are many unidentified cases exist, so we need a policy change on privatization. If this change happens, that will im-pact millions of children and parents.

Fear factor

People are aware with RTE but they don’t have courage to fight against

Jina, the conqueror of mind

We can find some proof of the existence of Yoga during the

Pre-Vedic and Vedic civilization; how-ever Jains and Buddhist cultures made this discipline on the center of their re-ligion. Between 900 to 500 BCE, the country was divided by many king-doms around the Ganga, as the land was more fertile. Kings were jealous and greed, so wars were not unusual. On this time of political instability and high violence, young rulers started to

questioned their spirituality and way of living. One of these moral revolu-tions was known as Jina, the victori-ous, in English, Jainism.

The teaching of Lord Buddha was one of their dissident as they were also practicing meditation, but for some others reason their fundaments were not able to find a deep anchorage in South India, where Jainism was on his apogee. The leader of Jains com-munity, Lord Mahavira left his Royal family to embrace a spiritual way of life. He became a monk, and chosen

meditation to attain Moksha (Nirvana in Sanskrit), the total annihilation of mind.

Jina means the conqueror of mind. As a soldier; the follower of the doc-trine has to acquire a healthy soul in a healthy body, work and meditation will rhythm his day. Ascetic life started by renouncing to their families and desire, the main focus of Jains was to fight against their evil mind. As they believed that they have to find the truth by their own experience, they renounced to the concept of God and scriptures.

In order to control their emotions as anger, desire, jealousy, laziness, hun-ger, they followed a strict and rude life of ascetics. Aimsa, the non-violence was one of the important doctrines for all Jains. Non-violence not only re-ferred to Human but to all creatures in the Earth. Sweeping their way with a natural broom of peacock feather be-fore to walk, not taking bath for not disturbing even a bacteria, and keep-ing silence for blowing out less CO2 were some common practices for Jains. But the first and undoubtedly

these schools. Even after RTE act passed by Government, still donation and extra fees are requested by the private school. In Tamil Nadu all gov-ernment schools are free for pursu-ing education. We have Government order, we use it as tool for advocacy and implementation of RTE. Parents are careless not because they are not aware of RTE, but they fear children’s future. These private schools use it as a weapon for their business.

Jains cave of Sittanavasal (Courtesy: Hope For Raise)

dauntless rescue, on a war zone

During the conflict between Iraqis and American in 2003, Lawrence Anthony,

a South-African conservationist, decides to rescue the national zoo of Bagh-

dad. Far away from pessimism, this courageous testimony gives us the impe-

tus for taking action for the planet

Up to which point are you ready to go for defending a cause? At this

question, Lawrence Anthony could have reply, until the end. “Babylon’s Ark: The incredible wartime rescue of the Baghdad zoo” is a testimony of his travel to Baghdad during the Gulf conflict in 2003 for saving the captive animals, prisoners of the circumstanc-es on their cages, incapable to escape from the war.The author is known for his best-selling books as Elephant Whisperer, Babylon’s Ark and The Last Rhinos, all reviews of the Lawrence Anthony’s memories of his adventurous life as conservationist in South Africa.At the origin of this incredible res-cue, was the sad episode of Marjan, a lion of the Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan, found by the American Force totally dehydrated, half-blind, and starving alone on his cage, that Anthony was reminding by watching the TV news about second Gulf conflict. In order to change the end of the Bagdad’s zoo, he decides to leave his quiet game reserve of Thula-Thula in South Af-rica for the war zone in Iraq. Without any ideas about war time zone, but a strong empathy for the animals, he starts his crazy travel helping by two Kuwaitis sending by the Kuwait City Zoo.

In Baghdad, Lawrence Anthony pro-jected us on strange atmosphere totally different from the little infor-

mation that he got on the TV news: “Everything was tense. It was as if something brittle was about to shat-ter. I couldn’t understand it… surely Baghdad was a liberated city? I had seen the footage on TV of Saddam’s

statues falling like giant metal domi-noes. I had heard the reports that his fedayeen were on the run. That the Iraqis were rejoicing in the streets… There was no rejoicing in this street. In fact, all I was aware of was a creepy

BABYLON'S ARK

By LAWRENCE ANTHONY

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most difficult step on their ascetic life was the plucking of hair. During this ritual of passage, followers have to show their real commitment and their engagement for taking Diksha and becoming a monk. They will be help by their Guru for the first time, but af-ter this they should do by themselves which complicate more the task, so instance pain could make them to re-nounce. However, only a smile should cover their face.

These rude exercises to conquer their mind lead them to a really powerful spirit than nothing could trouble, even torture or pain. On this way medita-tion was their main practice, and a precious weapon for Jains to live this extremely rude life.

The Digambaras of South India

“We supposed with more and more insurance that Jainism was introduced in South India by merchants.” told the senior epigraphist, Pr V. Vendalam. Jainism was constituted by two sects : Svetambara and Digambara, both were following a rudest ascetic life and had 24 Tirthankaras or Masters. The Svetambaras were located in North In-dia principally in Rajasthan and Guja-rat, they were wearing white clothes, and counted on their masters, 1 was a woman out of 24 tirthankaras.. It was not for the Digambaras, who were na-ked, only men, and deeply silenced.

The Digambaras were living out of the society; they used to stay deep into the forest for meditating without any disturbance. For attaining meditation, Jains used to fast few days on the week, when they are able to control their hunger, they could start medita-tion for 8 days continuously. Many sculptures shows the last stage of meditation called Sallekhana, the only way for breaking the cycle of reincarnation according to Mahavira. “It’s the ritual, fast to the death. We Jains regard it as the culmination of

our life as ascetics. It is what we aim for, and work towards as best route to Nirvana” explained Mataji on the famous novel Nine lives. As monks are standing or sitting and finally pass away with a smiley face, due to star-vation during a long meditation, they consider this last act as their final tri-umph over death.

While, others considered the life as a gift from God, Jains thought life as miserable, and religion as an experi-ence. Their philosophy was perfectly logical: They believed on cause and effects theory, the Dharma and Kar-ma. According to the law of universe a good person should have a good life, and no action is happening with-out their proper causes. These causes could also be finding on some previ-ous life. But if people choose to em-brace a monk life, then they could change their Karma. Sallekhana could only break accumulation of Karma, and help the soul to join the universe, eternal and pure. The concept was finally adopted by Brahmins by accul-turation.

Madurai’s Jainism heritage

Finally Jainism disappeared slowly as they were not able to find some royal support for making their religion as a majority. The Jains in South India started living on the Hill, where Hindu followers were coming on pilgrimage to gave them food and gifts. By accul-turation they finally built some tem-ples that we can still visit in Madurai, as Edaganatheswarar in Thiruveda-

gam, they also integrated pujas and the concept of Gods.

This moral revolution had influenced many domains in Tamil culture. As they were rejected the concept of God, they had a great impact on as-trology, they also develop the Tamil literature.

But Yoga is one of a major influence given by Jainism, as a culture of disci-pline for mind as well as for the body. It became famous in America due to the success of the speech about Hin-duism of Smami Vivekananda.

Nowadays, more and more Americans are practicing Yoga to reduce health problems, stress as the US President, Barack Obama himself: “Yoga has be-come a universal language of spiritual exercise in the United States, crossing many lines of religion and cultures,... Every day, millions of people prac-tice yoga to improve their health and overall well-being. That's why we're encouraging everyone to take part in PALA (Presidential Active Lifestyle Award), so show your support for yoga and answer the challenge.”

The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, would like to export this part of the Indian culture by creating an International Yoga Day each 21 june. US, Canada, China, Japan, Brazil and South Africa have already signed the draft resolution. Yoga become a sym-bol of the India culture abroad and cannot stop to create some adepts.

sensation slithering up my skin like a snake.” The city had struggle lot of bombing, damaging buildings and common facilities as generator or pump for water. The zoo and the Saddam’s Palace where Anthony and his team found three lions and their cubs, two dogs, and an ostrich were particularly impacted by the conflict. However, saving animals by feeding them with food and water could be thought as really simple idea, but it was definitely not then everyone was starving, and looters were ready to steal anything which could make their life easier. But, step by step, Lawrence Anthony convinces is five member staff of zoos, Americans soldier, and international conservationist about the utility of his mission. No doubt, the protagonist was charismatic enough to keep his team involve on the issue. Because of the situation, as he came as a conservationist without knowing about the conflict, the situ-ation takes another aspect for him. As the episode of the false “suicide ostriches and the young soldier” epi-sode shows: “Stories of suicide bomb-ers pouring through Iraq’s sieve like borders were commonplace.[…]And here some giant fowl were charg-ing him [the young soldier]. Was this some new tactic? Were these suicide

ostriches? But hang on, there were some Iraqis behind them, holding on to the stampeding creatures’ wings with grim determination. And be-hind them was an armored troop car-rier with an ostrich neck sticking out the top. What crazy mirage was this? Was the bird actually driving?” Actu-ally were nothing more than ostriches running on the Saddam’s Palace Park. Brutality deal lot of times with irony on this second topic of Lawrence An-thony’s adventures.

Even if the book is more concentrate on the rescue, and is not a war life testimony but the tension is depicting with more sincerity. As Anthony did, we can easily understand what the team of the zoo was living each and every day, taking care of the animals like normal working days, until anoth-er war episode, a new twist and turns. We can also easily feel the anger of characters when everyone is trying to fix the wound of the conflict and finally fail for standing more strongly again and again.

Doubt about Human faith was a rou-tine for Anthony during his short stay in Iraq. What about cruelty? Shall we let these animals leaving like this? Shall we reinsert them on the wild? Is

it normal to consider these 35 rescues on 700 as an Iraqis national treasure? And what’s next?

Lawrence Anthony, finally, want to be far away from miserasbilism, this is not only a testimony about the rescue of Baghdad Zoo, this is a testimony to us for taking actions for the Earth. The rescue appears as a revelation to him; as well as for us, about how we are threatening our planet: “Why we do willingly inflict harm on the only home we have? Most people intrin-sically have empathy with nature. Ev-erybody I speak to is against cruelty to animals; everybody wants fresh air, open spaces, unpolluted rivers, and a healthy livable planet. So why do we so dreadfully abuse our sole life-support system?” The book open to the creation of Earth Organization, focus on “Why do we, so mindlessly abuse our planet, our only home?”, just with few people making the dif-ference, working for the nature, with the nature and bringing awareness about the issue. Lawrence Anthony thought that environment needs the help of everyone who want to take part of the fight, and ask us indirectly this question: up to which levels are you ready to go for defending your planet?

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