@ThinkTank · 1:54
Environmentalism and Change: In Conversation with Asif Bhamla- Chairman of the Bhamla foundation and BJP spokesperson
It's the Eve of Republic Day, and I'm proud to bring you some of India's leading voices doing powerful work on the ground. There aren't many people who weave together a single vision across different causes, and it's even harder harder to find people who approach public life with a strong commitment to working on a range of causes and not just on issues which are perhaps relevant in a single area or constituency. And the organization I'm focusing on tonight is a strong embodiment of these values
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 4:53
Okay, apart from that we had a number of film people who originally resided from Banda who cut the imagination of my work with regard to social creating a social awareness social fabric with regards to various issues with the youngsters resorting to the usage of alcohol, drugs those were the very common subjects at those point times and we sphere ahead of those campaigns and of course then during elections came and then I became a part of the NSUI
@ThinkTank · 0:25
Ms. Bhamla, thank you so much for giving us that outline. And it's been a truly remarkable journey. And, you know, as an organization of such global stature, the common perception is that there isn't a lot of government support for the social sector and global foundations are finding it hard to sustain in India. So what you thought about that particular sentiment as someone who runs a global organization and that is Mumbai centric
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 3:36
Yeah, you rightly mentioned that as far as the support from the government, at times, we do face a lot of challenges. And I understand are like one of the NGOs, like many that exists in our country. If you see nowadays, when we started this foundation 25 years ago, we were very few. It was like NGO hotel. Every Lane has NGO and Bundle and Mahamunda like that. These things have started off
@ThinkTank · 0:54
So I wanted to get your view of how you see these elections that are coming up. How does one go about reading elections in Goa, for instance? They believe that there's factionalism within the party. There's a lot of problems that are happening within the BJP itself, which aren't probably being reported. So as someone who is involved vested in the Indian political system as well, how do you see the elections in Goa?
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 4:35
Because I think they somewhere feel that there is and they're joining there is a minority candidate with the BJP is also pitched in one of the constituencies in up and I think this time around if you see even in Goa of course there are two or three of them I know have left because of the tickets have not been granted so I think the BJP doesn't want to repeat the candidates if you see they have changed their chief ministerial candidates also in so many States and there has been no human crime has it been in any other States like even a Congress even tried to do that in a state like Punjab and you're seeing that now render is with the BJP so having said that in spite of the changes the care of the party is United they understand that the transformation is there it's for the greater good and I think if you ask me comparatively in all the States BJP seems to be on a position that it would secure absolute majority Punjab also this time with the way things are going Congress is on a distributed I would say house venturing there I'm sure the face of it App is going to eat into a lot of secular and Congress votes so there is going to be a split and now with captain himself coming into the strength of the BJP because it was a good tall face that was missing
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:32
And here in the States, we always look at government as being tied to big money, big Corporation, big agenda that is not necessarily good for the environment. So the environmental organizations are always trying to do grassroots efforts to make changes in spite of the government and in spite of the corporations. Do you feel like that is similar in India?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:53
I also have a few follow up questions. The first one is about infrastructure of your country and your vision for changing infrastructure to be more aligned with environmental standards. And specifically, what areas of infrastructure do you see having the biggest hope for you where things can change and because there's better use of money and resources, it will impact the environment. I'll pick a low hanging fruit, I guess, which is the sanitation and garbage and septic systems. I know there's innovation all the time
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:43
My third question has to do with education specifically to the Bhamla Foundation, which has done so much to impact different sectors and lift people from a place of ignorance to a place of understanding and action. What programs are you really excited about right now that teach multiple generations about the environment, about what to do about actions to take? What are you seeing for the next year or so in the next couple of years where education is really going going to make an impact on the environment?
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 4:31
So there is where organizations like us, at least in a country like India do utilize and come in place and we try to utilize that the CSR in larger interest for greater good. You
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 4:10
There is a sizable amount of pollution which the government has to deal with with people commuting every day has to deal with whether it's by the roadways, whether it's the Railways. So it will of course take time, but the consciousness has risen to utilize the infrastructure to the optimum usage for sustainability. That is the thing. And once that is there think we may take a little more time than other countries, but I'm sure we are there to make sure that this does happen. In reality
Asif Bhamla
@AsifBhamla · 4:10
Beautiful question, Deborah. Some question of my interest. Very certainly environment consciousness has increased so much, especially in the millionaires, if I may say that that the youngsters I mean, right from the age of standard four to grade five and onwards, there is so much of consciousness which maybe even we were given this environment in a very congenial way by our producers with the kind of pollution and with the kind of climate change and mitigation the young generation, the millionaires are very concerned
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:39
And you speak of how large India is, and it's a challenge, but it's also an inspiring way to see how things can propagate out when they're right, when they're wrong, they stay stuck and they don't grow, and they don't move through the different networks because they're bottlenecks somewhere, because they don't have the right ingredients