Friday, August 8, 2014

Hide and Seek with Teerthams

This month we have exciting report on Dharmar Teertham. After identifying the Teertham area which was a plain sand dune and after the initial ceremonies, we started digging. And we discovered a huge beautiful traditional water body emerging as the sand dune got cleared. The centuries old structure made with lime mixture has a wonderful finishing touch and is mostly intact even after centuries of being buried under the sand dune. In the Green Rameshwaram project we have a host of works done by our team of workers at Rameshwaram. The Tamil month Aadi that overlaps the English months of July and August is filled with local festivals and pilgrimages. So people flock the island in thousands and we have been using this occasion to conduct mass outreach programmes. We have distributed literature on Green Rameshwaram and have also had scores of them visit the Green Rameshwaram exhibition that we have organized. We have also conducted the Green Rameshwaram awareness programmes in many schools, panchayat commons as well as university study centers. Green Health Camps have been conducted at the villages in the island through which people are sensitized to the green herbal traditions and resources available locally.

Use of local traditions for creating awareness about Green Rameshwaram and novel ways of social engineering have been discussed in the previous brain storming session about which also you can learn here. In our publication section we have brought out the definition of Ozone depletion. You can see how the Ozone hole is still a problem. We also have an eco-toon on how the natural processes are cyclical while the industrial processes are linear. In our 'happenings' section we have Dr.Kamalasaanan Pillai explaining some new agricultural technologies to the farmers along with Azolla technology. We also have some good press reports on 'Green construction' as well as 'Green Rameshwaram'.

In our wisdom section we have David Suzuki the famous ecologist explaining how sensitivity to hidden costs can make us reduce our consumption. Sri Aurobindo's passage explains how the awareness of the hidden Spirit will make us shed the mechanical view of nature and see it as an organic phenomenon imbibed with sacredness. We have a passage from Fritjof Capra that speaks about the hidden connection between the biological systems and social systems.

You can find it all here and Happy reading! A very happy independence day!

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