ON A MISSION TO BRING ABOUT A POSITIVE CHANGE
VARANASI: Be it engaging with budding artists to paint or teaching over 500 school children the importance of conservation of trees, Ekta Shekhar has been striving to spread a message to save the environment. She has led several awareness marches in Varanasi and adjoining areas to make people aware about the environment to motivate people to plant more saplings. She also organised a solar energy based auto rickshaw rally between Varanasi and Lucknow, covering Allahabad and other cities on the way. In May, she organised a unique protest in which activists marched with coffins and demanded the Pollution Control Board officials to take measures for controlling pollutions. They also staged a sit-in protest with coffins.
“Nature provides free air to breathe and free water to drink. Forests thrive and rivers flow freely in Mother Nature’s lap. But man’s greed led to indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources which has resulted in global warming,” Shekhar says.
She, however, is confident of bringing a change with the support of people by motivating them to plant more saplings. At present, she motivates people to turn to solar energy based vehicles and other equipment that can be operated through solar energy to reduce the dependency on electricity. Her husband Ravi Shekhar says, “She is going to become a mother next week as she is nine months pregnant. Even in this condition, she organised a demonstration and walks for the cause of environment. .”