The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has emerged as the first leader in the world who seems to have understood the implications of the looming food crisis and taken a practical step. Brown has issued a clarion call to his countrymen to wake up and stop wasting food. Will the G8 leaders support him in making this a worldwide campaign?
(More than 1,300,000 tonnes of food grain – worth millions of dollars – went rotten in storage over the past decade in India, officials admit.) (Read the BBC report here…)
The Independent reports: “Supermarkets (in Britain) will be urged to drop ‘three for two’ deals on food that encourage shoppers into bulk-buying more than they need, often leading to the surpluses being thrown away. The scandal of the vast mountains of food that are thrown away in Britain while other parts of the world starve is revealed in a (British) Cabinet Office report today. It calls for a reduction in food waste: up to 40 per cent of groceries can be lost before they are consumed due to poor processing, storage and transport.”
Ironically, a top British leader is now acknowledging the accuracy of the vision of Mahatma Gandhi, the arch foe of the British empire, that mindless consumerism would create a crisis sooner than later. Gandhi’s oft quoted words: “There is enough for everyone’s need…but not enough for everyone’s greed.” (For more on Gandhi pl click here…)
Let’s get back to The Independent story: “The (Cabinet) report says UK households could save an average of £420 per year by not throwing away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten. The Government is to launch a campaign to stamp out Britain’s waste food mountains as part of a global effort to curb spiralling food prices.
“Gordon Brown said he would make action to tackle the soaring cost of food a priority at the G8 summit starting today in Japan. At his first G8 summit as Prime Minister, Mr Brown will argue that the world’s richest nations must do more to tackle the food price crisis. He will urge them to halt the decline in funding for agricultural projects in Africa, so the continent can boost farm production by 6 per cent a year.” More here…
And here is the The Times report… And here…
“World leaders are not renowned for their modest wine selections or reticence at the G8 summit’s cheese board. Shortly after calling for us all to waste less food, Gordon Brown joined his fellow G8 premiers and their wives for an eight-course Marie Antoinette-style ‘Blessings of the Earth and the Sea Social Dinner’.” More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.