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TERRE Policy Centre inaugurated its initiative, “Rendezvous”, on 15th of January 2015 at Indradhanushya Environment Education and Citizenship Centre, Pune. It is a one to one interaction with the people who are working for environment and the ones who wish to work.

The very inaugural session indeed exemplified the title as the audience was observed to begin talking ardently and candidly to the speaker. The chief speaker for the inaugural session was Mr. Ranjit Gadgil. Mr. Gadgil works with Parisar to help establish sustainable transportation means in society. With Mr. Gadgil’s excellent manner of communicating not just through well-chosen words but also his gestures and entire persona speaking out the significance of the topic, the audience was obvious to be mesmerized and moved deeply. So much so, that the session which was planned to be for one hour continued for 40 minutes more than planned! This helped to reinforce faith in goodwill of men and women, of all ages and professions, to help world become a better place to live on.

The central idea of Mr. Gadgil’s presentation was to urge people to unitedly demand for transportation rules, means and modes with focus on facilitating people instead of cars. He said, “… constructing more and more roads will never solve the traffic problems. It is like stitching fatter pants in case of weight gain and not exercising to reduce the excessive fats. Activities like promoting public transportation, use of cycle, adopting walking practice and greening roadside will solve the problem.” The concluding takeaway of the session was “Design the city for people not for vehicles”

The idea was welcomed with flood of questions and queries by audience which comprised of young, old, men and women. The efforts of such fervent workers as Mr. Gadgil, when reach to masses, they come with motivation and source of unifying with like-minded people. As Mr. Gadgil appealed, common man should give up bothering about false-impression of status symbols (of using fancy, expensive and eco-hostile cars) and encourage using sustainable modes instead.

Number of ideas were discussed in the city’s waste management, reducing the GHGs due to traffic of the buses used for IT employees, efficient campuses etc.

Dr Vinitaa Apte, President TERRE policy Centre felicitated Mr. Gadgil and presented a token of thanks with a card-holder (made using waste newspapers) made under the Kalpakala initiative of TERRE. He was impressed by the idea as he connects himself to waste management issue also.