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Neem
Meets wakes up to some bitter truths:
Neem
the wonder tree of the 21st century, has been
rediscovered .A clarion call to wake up to the economic,
ecological and social potential of this India’s wonder
tree has been given by the four –day world conference,
Neem 2002,which started its deliberations here on Wednesday.
Speaking
on the occasion, noted rural activist Mohan Dharia extolled
Neem as the golden tree of this century and the Kalpavriksha
for India, and called for setting up a task force
immediately to study its potential and suggest steps
required to achieve it. He regretted the absence of decision
makers or their representatives at the conference.
Godrej
Agrovet chairman Nadir Godrej welcomed the guests with a
poem expounding the importance of the Neem tree in the
country and called upon the decision makers to take
immediate promotional measures before china becomes a real
force. R. C. Saxena, chairman of the organizing committee,
said the Neem tree in Sanskrit is called arishtas-redeemer
of all kinds of sickness in humans, animals, plants and
society as a whole.
He
lauded the efforts of the Neem foundation in creating a
platform to revive interest in the tree at the international
level. He was also appreciative of the half century of
dedicated research put in by H. Schmutterer in exploring the
tree’s potential.
He
said India couldn’t remain complacent against China’s
agenda of planting 14 million Neem trees in one single year.
P.
Pushpangadan, director of the national Botanical research
institure, deplored the fact that Chinese who came to India
several Hundred years ago to learn ayurveda, were beginning
to steal a march over India in present times, and squarely
blamed the lack of proper documentation of research and
general complacency in the country for this state of
affairs. He was also critical of the reactive approach
adopted by the Indian policy makers, who protested only
after other countries began patenting products that were
manufactured from Indian natural resources.
Already
there are 157 patents of Neem based products worldwide and
the number is only going to increase. The need of the hour
is to establish Neem as the national tree.
Source - Economics
Times, Mumbai Bureau, 27th November, 2002
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