Discussion on book showing Indira’s passion for Nature.
Discussion on book showing Indira’s passion for Nature GUWAHATI, Aug 30 – Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has been viewed as an iron lady with a dynamic political legacy.
Former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, author of the book Indira Gandhi: Life in Nature, has unveiled one of the nation’s greatest leader’s journey as an environmentalist and conservationist.
Ramesh revealed details, chapters and insights from the book through the eyes of Indira Gandhi and said that the leader saw herself as “a child of Nature, who grew up in Nature, who lived with Nature and became a Prime Minister of Nature”.
He called her compelling, charismatic and controversial but an environmentalist at heart, who found her inner peace in the company of birds, plants and stones, staring at the universe of constellations, living in the hills and protecting the forests and wildlife of India.
Many breakthrough ecological reforms and environmental laws shaped up during her regime as the first and only woman Prime Minister of India.
A “wildlife saviour”, she is the reason India’s wild tigers and forests have a lease of life.
The Forest Conservation Act, 1980, Wildlife Protection Act 1972, Water Pollution Control Act, 1974 Air Pollution Control Act, 1981, and the Ministry of Environment were all instituted and enforced by her.
Citing examples of her commitment towards nature, even as she was busy with the Seventh Non-Aligned Summit in Delhi, she took time out to write to the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan on protecting the Siberian cranes.
She declared a ban on the felling of green trees in the Himalayas and encouraged introduction of environmental education and awareness.