A few personal coordinates

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Before I present the Paper
A few personal coordinates This is the City of
Guwahati from the Map of India
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This is the Institution

• That made me an Engineer
• Shaped me as a Teacher Counsellor
• Inspired to make efforts towards Sustainability

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My Paper
Networking Young India For Sustainable Development
is Dedicated to my parents without whom my life
would have been unsustainable
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My Family
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Why this theme out of so many?

• Benefits of Networking
• My training as a Communicator
• My supreme faith in children youth
• Disillusionment with existing polity and society
• My strong involvement with ST Popularisation

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Sustainability in India

• Very ancient concept, widely documented
• But contexts have been changing fast
• Sustainable to unsustainable?
• What ails this great country?

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Root cause of all problems
Explosion of Population

• Population in the year 1947 340 million
• (year of independence)
• Population in the last Census 1040 million
• Nothing else has multiplied 3 fold in these 57
  years!!
• Not food, neither energy, nor infrastructure.

Can India be Sustainable ?
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Analysis of Reasons

• Too much of centralised Planning
• Development against Gandhian Principles
• Clear division between India and Bharat
• English education legacy outstripping others
• Low literacy and awareness levels

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Lamenting for
what we dont have will not solve the
problems. So we decided to convert our problems
into opportunities. One major thrust area has
been popularization of Science Technology

• Impart right kind of knowledge through formal
  systems
• Train young people through non-formal systems
• Create love for scientific methods
• Stand against evils superstitions
• Promote sustainable development in all aspects of
  life

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VIPNET Clubs
A new Dimension in Education

• Created in 1998 by Ministry of Science
  Technology
• Existing and Fresh units offered free
  Registration
• Intellectual support provided from the beginning
• Trainings, workshops, seminars, contests
  organized
• Voice to opinions through dedicated Newsletters
• Dedicated websites, electronic connectivity
  provided
• Excitement of Networking felt by all units

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Strength of our Efforts

• Conceived out of necessity not for fun or
  pastime.
• Rejection of reckless grants endowment
  policies.
• Promoting Learning by Doing philosophy.
• Constant linkages between actions and community.

• Utilizing the vast strength of networking.
• Train on sustainability without revivalism.

Give one fish to a person he will be fed for a
day. Teach him how to fish he will be free from
hunger.
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Spread of VIPNET

• 80 of Indian States Union Territories covered
• 6000 active units registered till date
• Rural clubs clearly outnumbering urban
• Variety of activities regularly carried out
• Accountability fixed, quarterly reports sought
• Popular issues are

Health sanitation Astronomy celestial
phenomena Explaining science Use of folk art
forms behind miracles media Rocketry
associated Ecology environment phenomena Ham
radio Hydroponics
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Achievements of VIPNET

• Stand against reckless tourism Kempty example

Drinking water clean-up revolution Ratlam example
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Achievements of VIPNET
Fight against social evils Kandhamal example
Forest management, resource sharing JFM case
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Achievements of VIPNET
War against population explosion countrywide
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Three Major Influences
Mahatma Gandhi Priest of Non-violence

• Left every comfort in life to identify with the
  masses
• Without a single bullet, earned freedom for India

• Defined Sustainable Development by actions
• Could foresee disasters before they struck

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Three Major Influences
George Washington Carver Sage of Tuskegee

• Rose from slavery to great heights of scholarship
  
• Gave freedom and voice to the African-Americans
• Revolutionized agriculture in the Southern USA
• Life of rare courage and sacrifice

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Three Major Influences
Rachel Carson Mother of all Environmentalism

• Challenged the might of the industrial lobby
• Exposed pesticides agrochemical industries
• Fought a lonely battle to ban DDT in the USA

• Gave environmentalism a new connotation

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ECOCENTRIC versus TECHNOCENTRIC view

• 400 million poor Indians looking for decent life
• An eco-centric view would never pull them up
• A techno-centric view would defile environment
• International treaties actions ineffective at
  times
• Current initiatives lopsided affected by
  corruption
• Indians highly confused about sustainability
• Solutions must be home grown, not imported

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Concluding Remarks

• India possesses tremendous psychic energy
• People survive amidst all odds and adversities
• Sustainable principles are inbuilt in our culture
• Spiritualism plays a palliative role in most
  cases
• Indians are very intelligent resourceful people

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Therefore

• We are surely going to emerge out of our crises
• The new generation will play the proactive role
• Indians act as a UNIT during calamities
• Unsustainability is nothing but a calamity

Thinking globally, acting locally India would
once again emerge out the impasse to take the
leadership worldwide. Optimism and
innovativeness, running high among all Indians,
are the fuels of this great sustainable
development war.
One failure leads to another so does success.