Prakash Javadekar
ENVIRONMENT MINISTER Prakash Javadekar decided to mark International Women’s Day with Swachata Sevikas in Pune. He was quick to point out that even on Diwali, he celebrated the occasion by spending time with waste-pickers “to understand their work and problems’’. The minister also announced that he had decided to spend his MP Local Area Development Fund for the construction of 50 big and 50 small garbage sheds to be designed by the organisation SWaCH.
For The Cause
TO MARK International Women’s Day, the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Sunday launched a project to push women’s rights through social media by collaborating with a social media platform Helo. With the aim to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality, the NCW will be launching several campaigns under #EachforEqual and #Women’sRightsMatter to encourage “millions of young women” to share stories on the platform in 10 regional languages.
Tracing Roots
SURINAME’S EMBASSY in India, which is headed by Indian-origin ambassador Aashna Kanhai, celebrated Holi in the traditional style on Friday. According to the 2012 Census of Suriname, 148,443 citizens of that country are of Indian origin. Indo-Surinamese made up 37.6 per cent of the population in the 1972 Census. Indians began migrating to Suriname in 1873 as indentured labourers, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and surrounding regions. The embassy called the gathering Phagwa — confluence of ethnics. It was attended by the capital’s diplomatic community.