Commonwealth Games - A big blow to Green Delhi

Only yesterday sections of Press have carried News Reports of 700 trees having fell at Siri Fort area for Games projects. This is tip of the iceberg. It has been going on since 2008 when nearly a thousand trees were cut or uprooted at DU for construction of a bigger stadium to host a game for Commonwealth with which we Indians are not remotely connected - RUGBY. The project envisaged transplant of full grown trees at different campus colleges, some nearly 100 years old. We can go around to see how many of them have really or successfully been transplanted, but a huge budget had been earmarked for it, and the poachers of woods had had a gala time then.
Unfortunately, all these happened with active connivance of the Vice-Chancellor Prof Deepak Pental,intrestingly from Life Sciences himself. I, along with Dr Ratan Lal of Hindu College,Ashish Bhardwaj, Chhatar Singh et al had formed a forum to protest this environment catastrophe and 'atyachar', but the then Union Environment Minister refused an appointment to us and Secretary of his Ministry had no idea whether tree felling was under his Ministry or the Department of Forests!
This is the report that appeared in The Hindu -

DU Forum on a mission to save trees
by admin — last modified 2008-07-29 13:45
The Hindu 29 July 2008
Parul Sharma
NEW DELHI: The Delhi University community comprising teachers, students and karamcharis has launched a campaign under the aegis of Environment Justice Forum to save the trees in front of the office of Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental on the campus.
The Forum claims that these trees, some of them over 150 years old, were being “recklessly and indiscriminately cut” as practice matches for rugby for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 would be held there.
“We are informed that the rugby event in the Games will be held on the campus and the University has selected its 100-year-old cricket ground for holding this event and its practice session. We are told that more than Rs.250 crore has been given to the University for it,” said a statement signed by the Forum. memebers
‘Environment catastrophe’
“The stadium has been razed and trees around it are being cut for decoration. The University authorities have got the permission to uproot 400 trees. More than 1,000 trees are to be displaced. Some of them are 150 years old and can’t be displaced,” it added.
Calling it an “environment catastrophe”, the Forum has decided to appeal to President Pratibha Patil and Vice-President Hamid Ansari, the Visitor and Chancellor of the University respectively, to intervene and stop this “massacre” of trees.
The Forum members have also appealed to elected bodies like the Delhi University Teachers’ Association and the Delhi University Students’ Union and are likely to approach the Union Ministry of Environment to discuss the matter.

Though I am not a great fan of Mani Shankar Aiyar, I support his statement that 'No body is indespensable'. Therefore, the three villains/vamp of Corruption Wealth Games,Kalmadi,Shiela Dikshit,MS Gill,be removed or else the Games are heading For Great Fiasco.