Beginnings of an Environment Saviour....

I was in my college library today flipping through some books, gathering material for some research that I am doing. I was all engrossed in the books when suddenly in Mark Blaug's (ed.) book on Economics of Education I found this old postcard from 1983, 5 years before I was born. So this one is addressed to some member of Kalpavriksh and is an invitation to a debate on "The Political Economy of Environment in India" at the Faculty of Arts, University of Delhi by C.V. Subba Rao. Inquisitive, I checked on further. Kalpvriksha is an environmental action group, established in 1979 and works on environmental awareness, campaigns, litigation, research, and other areas. It has taken a position on a number of environment-development issues, more often than not confronting the state through measures ranging from protest letters to street demonstrations. Now, seemingly a very active organization, the postcard dates to a time when they had just begun working for a very important cause. According to their website the organization was actively involved in protests against the destruction of the Delhi Ridge and also the Chipko Andolan amongst many other important issues.

It's amazing to see that post was once so important. Having been the Secretary of the Economics Society of St. Stephen's, I myself have been involved in organizing talks and lectures, and these days it's so easy to communicate. We would just use e-mail or SMS to spread the details. But in 1983 it was different, even the landline I believe would have been expensive. Yet, people did all the hard work to invite people to talks using the resources they had. I am sure it has been an amazing journey for Kalpavriksha and I hope that they are very successful in the work they started and are continuing to do. Cheers!