Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation among 7 Vasundhara award winners

PUNE: City-based non-profit organization Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) and Gandhian environmentalist Anupam Mishra are among the seven recipients to be honoured with the Vasundhara awards this year, which will be presented during the 7th Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival, which will be held from January 25 to February 2.
The names of the winners were announced at a news conference on Tuesday. The organizers will felicitate six activists and a voluntary organization for their work in the field of environment conservation and spreading awareness in society.
Dharmendra Khandal from Rajasthan, who is an expert on spiders and is currently working on tiger project, is among the awardees. A botanist, Khandal is involved in various field researches.
Another awardee, Jay Mazoomdar, is an eco journalist from New Delhi. He has covered issues like poaching, forest rights, man-animal conflict, land use, climate politics and forest economics.
Ramesh Gauns, a teacher-turned-activist against illegal mining in Goa, who fought against the government for five years and ensured that it laid down guidelines for forest conservation and reforestation, is among the recipients. All these activists will be felicitated on the closing day of the film festival at Yashwantrao Chavan auditorium.
The remaining three awardees, including BAIF, will be felicitated on January 27 at Balgandharva Rangmandir. Sandesh Kadur, a Bangalore-based wildlife photographer and documentary maker, and Asad Rehemani, director of Bombay Natural History Society, will also be honoured on the same day.{+.}
The theme of this year's festival is 'Conserve water, safeguard future'. The festival will be held at Balgandharva Rangmandir, Yashwantrao Chavan Natyagruha and the Ghole Road Art Gallery. Also, the organizers have decided to hold a similar festival in Pimpri-Chinchwad, which will be held between February 3 and 6, said Vijay Varma, chairman of the festival. Arti Kirloskar, convener of the festival, and Virendra Chitrav, festival director, were also present.
About 120 films from 35 countries have been selected for the seventh edition of the festival, of which 40% are about water, said Chitrav.
Varma said, "The theme of the festival is about conservation of water. The films, documentaries that will be shown during the festival are selected from various parts of the world where solutions on water crisis have been found. The idea is to share and impart success stories and make our audience and citizens aware. It will be helpful when some policy related to water conservation and distribution will be discussed."
Chitrav said the festival will be travelling to 25 cities in seven states.