Tree plantation drive: Some truths

This is my response to the mockery of tree plantation drives:

One needs to understand that nobody is planting 'trees' - they are only trying to grow 'plants'.

How many plants do you think survive in each tree plantation drive? The maximum percentage reached is about 70%. So, if you grow 100 plants, maximum of 70 would only survive and that too only if great care is taken.

Just take a look at this article:

http://indianexpress.com/…/2-cr-trees-plantation-drive-buo…/

To reach merely 33% forest cover, we need "400 crore" trees. So, all these tree plantation drives are actually not sufficient enough to cover that. We are not even talking about 50% forest cover, just 33%.

Everybody can plant tree saplings. One very important factor most of us conveniently forget is the rate of deforestation:

http://time.com/4019277/trees-humans-deforestation/

We have 400 billion trees of which 15 billion trees are cut every year. This means, if nobody plants anything, we will be out of trees in the world in just a few years - within our lifetime! The plants that you grow today will not become trees by tomorrow - they take their own time.

So, my request to such people who mock is that if you don't plant trees, it is fine. Please stop making fun of people who do! This is not just for our generation but for our children as well that such tree plantation drives happen and flourish successfully.

I offer no proofs, just complaints!

Breaking my blog silence after a long, long time! It has been 7 days since the controversies have been raging around Isha Foundation.

If a sane person looks back at these events, avoiding all the media hype created and emotional drama, let's see who has actually complained?

(1) A parent whose daughters have become monks against their wish
(2) A parent whose kid was expelled from Isha Home school for bad conduct
(3) A parent whose son has become a monk against her wish
(4) A police officer whose elder kid was again asked to be taken off by Isha Samskriti management

In all 4 cases, there is a clear vested interest. One may argue that anybody who opposes some XYZ organization will have a vested interest. Let me ask you a couple of questions:

"How many times have you changed your job because you did not like the manager? In that case, did you become dead against the organization as well? If so, would an otherwise emotionally balanced person call your anger against the organization professional or unprofessional?"

"How many times did you take your kid off the school because his / her teacher scolded them for some mischief they did? If you did, would an otherwise emotionally balanced person call your anger against the organization professional or unprofessional?"

If in both cases your answer was that it would be called 'unprofessional', why is the same logic not applicable to these allegations against Isha Foundation as well? Just because their sons or daughters did not listen to them or could not be controlled by them, they have turned against Isha Foundation.

Mind you, all of them have based their allegations only on their supposed personal experience but have not produced any proofs for it!

What the media has done with it though is take the allegation, blow it up several folds with emotional drama and made it all appear like facts. People need to understand and separate facts from fiction, before coming to a conclusion.

Once all the dust settle from the hue & cry raised by media, hope thinking minds and sanity prevail!