STATE TIMES NEWS
UDAIPUR: A three-day National Vikalp Sangam or the Alternation Confluences held at Vidya Bhawan Prakriti Sadhana Kendra, a Nature Education Interpretation Centre in the Aravalli hills of southern Rajasthan, Udaipur concluded on Thursday.
Vikalp Sangam brought together more than 100 practitioners, thinkers and researchers of alternative initiatives across the country to learn from each other, build alliances and collectively evolve alternative futures that are ecologically sustainable and socio-economically equitable.
Participants from Jammu and Kashmir included Tsewang Namgyal from Snow Leopard Conservancy, India Trust, Leh, Tashi Morup and Rinchen Dolma from Ladakh Media and Arts Organisation (LAMO), Tsewang Rigzin Journalist, Dr Shaikh Ghulam Rasool from J and K, RTI Movement and Shaheena Parveen and Lubna Rafiqi from Mool, Kashmir.
Sangam was hosted by Swaraj University and other co-hosts organisations with a focus to share key points from the Sangams held in 2014-17 and to review what has been achieved and the way forward. An evolving core group of 41 organisations has been set up to coordinate the planning of the Sangams.
Five key spheres, seen as an integrated whole, re -emerging in the new contexts of the 21st century, discussed during the 2017 Vikalp Sangam at Udaipur include ecological wisdom, integrity and resilience; social well-being and justice; direct and delegated democracy; economic democracy and cultural diversity and knowledge democracy. Vikalp Sangam held in Ladakh in 2015 had stressed that it was a myth that tourism is the major economic mainstay of Ladakh, and that in fact the contribution of agriculture and pastoralism (and particularly of women) was under-emphasised because not all of it involved monetary exchanges or incomes. Another point made was that electricity is not the only energy source needed, but more important was heating energy, which is more appropriately solved not by hydro plants but by architectural changes (such as passive solar heating). The problem of garbage and over-use of tourist spots such as Pangong, haphazard construction and traffic in Leh, lack of benefits from tourism going to villagers, and others were mentioned and recommendations on how to tackle these were brought up and accordingly the recommendations were submitted to the LAHDC in 2015.