LOOKEAST REPORT |
Chief minister Bengal Mamata Banerjee and her colleague in Tripura Biplab Deb could have grabbed the opportunity of participating in GLOBAL BAMBOO AND RATTAN CONGRESS 2018 (BARC2018) to be held in Beijing, China from 25–27 June 2018. The first ever global congress shall conduct ministerial summit on the UN Sustainable Development Goals with Bamboo and Rattan including high level dialogue on several livelihood and climate change issues and develop action plans and green economy strategies for the different poverty ridden regions of the world through innovative ways of using bamboo and rattan.
BARC2018
Both the eastern Indian states having very high potential to grow bamboo and use them in rural livelihood upliftment did not take serious effort to showcase their states in the upcoming event and thereby likely to miss implementation of any large scale eco–friendly developmental initiative linking disturbed landscapes of the states and mainstream business platform.
This congress could have provided framework for developing a very strong Bamboo policy for the India’s northeast region and address the climate resilience strategies for geo–economical development without hampering the global mandate to reduce carbon footprint
The theme of BARC2018 is “Enhancing South–South Cooperation for Green Development through Bamboo and Rattan’s Contributions to the UN SDGs”. The main agenda of the Congress will include high–level dialogues focusing on bamboo and rattan’s role in the UN SDGs and South–South Cooperation, climate change and green growth, technology innovations and industry development. There will also be more than 70 thematic events during the congress, with rich contents and unique visual impacts, which provide a broad range of dialogue platforms. Meanwhile, this Congress has invited Member countries of INBAR, as well as international partners from Asia, Africa and America, to jointly organise and showcase the achievements of various countries regarding bamboo and rattan development.
Whereas about a powerful delegates including law makers, administrators, scientists and researchers from India are attending the congress, there is hardly any representation in the congress from eastern and northeast India in spite of having a very high relevance with the theme BARC2018.
INBAR could successfully implemented such restoration projects in deserted African countries like Ethiopia, Ghana etc. There is no reason why this could not be implemented in so called “Jungle-Mahal”. The area disturbed by ultra–left outfits which is a national threat described by the Union Home ministry. The economic upliftment in these least developed areas using bamboo based initiative could be a successful EPA
This congress could have provided framework for developing a very strong Bamboo policy for the India’s northeast region and address the climate resilience strategies for geo–economical development without hampering the global mandate to reduce carbon footprint.
Bengal could have grab this opportunity to restore vast unproductive landscape, mostly western part of the state. As INBAR could successfully implemented such restoration projects in deserted African countries like Ethiopia, Ghana etc. There is no reason why this could not be implemented in so called “Jungle-Mahal”. The area disturbed by ultra–left outfits which is a national threat described by the Union Home ministry. The economic upliftment in these least developed areas using bamboo based initiative could be a successful EPA (entry point activity) in addressing the extremism.
Though provincial heads in India invited by the organiser of BARC2018, lack of pro activeness resulted in non-participation. Media reports suggests Indian embassy in Beijing sabotaged Mamata’s China trip schedule. Nabanna sources claimed that a proposed political dialogue with Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee members was scheduled. Banerjee, who was to leave for an eight–day trip to China as the head of odd 40–member delegation from her state. ■