Responding to the criticism for hosting the World Culture Festival (WCF) on floodplains fo the Yamuna River, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that Art of living (Aol) did not harm the ecology during the preparations for the mega festival.
While addressing the media, Sri Sri said that he will not hesitate to go to jail if he or his organisation has done anything wrong. “Jail was the birth place of lord Krishna. Aol is not harming Yamuna, history is witness that civilisations grows on river bank,” he added.
Responding to media queries on environmentalists’ petitions in National Green Tribunal (NGT), Sri Sri said that the foundation did not cut a single tree but only chopped the wild grass on wetland.
“Our team of environmentalists did a research before organising WCl event on the Yamuna floodplains. We chopped sorghum and we compensate the farmers for this,” said Sri Sri. He added that their workers are saint and they are dedicated to the Yamuna. “We have made the plan and will make the path to clean the Yamuna,” he said.
Talking to The Pioneer, Radhika Hoon, Aol’s official spokesperson said that they have stationed 1,000 bins at different sites and disposal of sewerage through suction tanks, the sewage is sucked through pumps and stored in suction tanks and disposed at designated locations of STP of Delhi Jal Board (DJB). There are four tankers for the disposal of waste material generated during the WCl event,” Hoon said.
When asked for his reaction to the reported peace mantra “Pakistan Zindabad and Jai Hind” should go together after Pakistan’s Mufti Muhammad Saeed Khan’s speech on the second day of WCF event, Sri Sri said, “I say this on international event of peace. I am requesting to political parties please keep politics on one side,” he said.
On the absence of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in WCF event, he said that Aol also invited them but did not get any feedback about attending the event.