Padma Shri awardee environmentalist Jadav Payeng has requested the global leaders to call for a week-long lockdown across the world to strike a balance in the eco-system.
While speaking on the ongoing Bodoland International Knowledge Festival in Kokrajhar Payeng said, “I would like to request to the 800 crore people of the planet to think towards striking a balance of the ecosystem. I feel if we can give a lockdown for a week in a year globally, the balance of the ecosystem will be back gradually. I’m saying this from my personal experience.”
The four-day knowledge festival is being organised by Bodoland University with active support from the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) government.
Payeng also mentioned how he had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to preserve forests and green cover in India. He said, “I have personally written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that we can’t bring development by destroying forests. We must safeguard our forests and nature. The development at the cost of nature is a curse.”
He further advocated for 60 percent reservation for women. “Women play a vital role in building human resource. And eventually, that will help in striking the balance of the ecosystem,” said Payeng.
While delivering the speech, Payeng recalled his early days when he started to plant trees in 1979 which eventually turned out to be a huge forest after 30 years.
Several seminars took place on the themes like quality education, sustainable agriculture, behaviour change, science & technology, gender empowerment, communication and media, human rights, child rights & protection and peacebuilding among others during the second day of the festival.
Previously, the festival was inaugurated on Monday in the presence of several dignitaries including Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, Padma Shri awardee philanthropist and diamond exporter Savji Bhai Dholakia, SECMOL founder Sonam Wangchuk, Bollywood actor and philanthropist Vivek Oberoi among others.
