Environmental Activist Ashish Kothari to deliver 7th Dr Verghese Kurien memorial oration

Jamshedpur, Dec 30: XLRI- Xavier School of Management is set to organise the 7th Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Oration in memory of the Founder of AMUL Dr. Verghese Kurien, popularly known as “the Milkman of India” on January 16, 2021.

This year, the oration is to be delivered in virtual mode by Noted Environmental Activist Ashish Kothari Founder-member of Indian Environmental group, Kalpavriksh. He would deliver the oration on the topic “Ecoswaraj: Recovery Towards Justice and Sustainability”.

 Fr. P. Christie, S.J. director of XLRI, commented, “Dr. Verghese Kurien was an ingenious thinker, a revolutionary, and a social entrepreneur who ideated the world’s biggest agricultural development program. It was his “billion-liter idea” which made dairy farming India’s largest self-sustaining industry, with benefits of employment, incomes, credit, nutrition, education, health, gender parity & empowerment, breaking down caste barriers and grassroots democracy and leadership. XLRI instituted the oration in his memory to commemorate his legacy through propagating and disseminating the idea of an empowered, equitable and sustainable society.”

Fr. Christie further commented, “We are extremely happy to have Ashish Kothari deliver the 7th Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Oration this year. His vast work on environmental issues like environment interface, biodiversity policy, and alternatives would help our students understand the current global environmental issues and inspire them to work for the greater good.”

 “Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Oration on Sustainable Development is our humble initiative to pay tribute to the great visionary,” said Prof. Raghuram Tata, Chairperson of XLRI’s Fr Arrupe Center for Ecology & Sustainability. “With this annual oration, we aim to inspire and inculcate values of social entrepreneurial spirit in budding business leaders and social entrepreneurs”, he added.

 Ashish Kothari is an Indian environmentalist working on environment & development issues. He is one of the founders of Kalpavriksh, an Indian environmental NGO. He has been associated with peoples’ movements like Narmada Bachao Andolan and Beej Bachao Andolan. Kothari has also been a teacher of the environment at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. He has also been a guest faculty at several universities and institutes and Mellon Fellow at Bowdoin College, USA.

Ashish Kothari has been a member of Steering Committees of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP) from 1998 to 2008. He has also been a co-chair IUCN Inter-commission Strategic Direction on Governance, Equity, and Livelihoods concerning Protected Areas (TILCEPA) from 1998 to 2008. Ashish Kothari has also served on the steering group or governing board of the CBD (Convention on Biodiversity) Alliance, the ICCA Consortium, and Greenpeace International. At present, he is the chairman Greenpeace India’s Board.