On the sidelines of the ongoing Simhasth Kumbh Mahaparv in Ujjain, a large international conference was inaugurated on Thursday to deliberate on a vast spectrum of socio-economic issues.
The three-day event, organised by the Madhya Pradesh Government, was inaugurated by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Rajya Sabha member Anil Madhav Dave, Swami Shri Avadheshananda Giri ji of Mahamandleshwar, and Pranav Pandya, chief of All World Gayatri Parivar.
The over-arching theme of the conference is “living the Right Way”, and a Simhasth declaration is expected at its closing which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of Sri lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, are expected to attend the conference.
On the inaugural day, several sessions were held, featuring experts from India and around the world. The Krishi Kumbh session, chaired by KS Gopal of CEC Hyderabad and Chaitanya Krishna Rao from Sri lanka focused on developing sustainable approaches to farming and agriculture at a time when pressures on land and water resources is increasing and the threat from climate change looming large.
Another session on Kutir Kumbh dealt with small and medium scale enterprises. It was chaired by Chandrasekhar Sahu, Chair of Chattisgarh’s Finance Commission and Fons van der Valden of Amsterdam’s Context International. At a third session on women’s right, titled Shakti Kumbh, Bangladesh’s Golam Rehman underlined the success his country had achieved in ensuring better development indices for women than India despite the economic disparity between the two nations. The session was chaired by Neelam Gorhe, MlC from Maharashtra and Nurgul Djanaeva from the Kyrgysztan Women’s Forum.
The plenary session, titled Swatchata Sarita Kumbh, focused on sanitation and cleanliness, which of course fed into the Union Government’s flagship Swachchh Bharat Mission. The scourge of open defecation was repeatedly highlighted, with Chief Minister Chouhan, who also spoke at this session, announcing that his Government will now make toilets at home a prequisite for all panchayat election candidates. Chouhan acknowledged the Government of Haryana’s lead in this matter, and his announcement was received with much cheer from the audience.
Notably, Chouhan as well as his co-panelist Vinay Sahasrabuddhe of the BJP both highlighted that just constructing toilets in every home and declaring a village Open Defecation Free is not enough to fight the problem on a long term basis. Both accepted there have been quite a few cases wherein toilets are built but not used because of behavioural challeneges. Men like the morning walk, Chouhan said, while women like to socialise, said Sahasrabuddhe, citing research studies from more than 40 villages in two different States. Chouhan also mentioned that some villages were bringing about changes by involving children who whistle at those going to defecate in the open in the mornings.
At the panel, Professor Masahisa Nakamura from Japan’s International lake Environment Committee also shared his experiences with lake pollution in urban centres. He spoke about washing machine detergents polluting lakes and how pressure from the public led to green legislative measures which in turn compelled the industry to fall in line. This should finds resonance in India. In Bangalore, for example, there have been several instances in recent years wherein the city’s water bodies have either become frothy and bubbled over onto streets or caught fire because of the chemicals from sewage water.
The session was also attended by Chidananda Saraswati of Parmarth Niketan, Rishikesh and chaired by Anil Madhav Dave.