The header on the website says just 1411 left. A number which should start the bells ringing in your head. The panic button needs to be pushed and some action taken now. If it doesn’t happen it would probably be too late. Think about it our children asking us how our national animal looked in real and our inability to have them see it for themselves.
Some steps have already started. About a year ago, Aircel and NDTV in collaboration with the WWF-India have launched a campaign to save our tigers. Surely a commendable first step in an effort to create an outcry and awareness about the pity state of Tigers in India. Senior actor Mr. Amitabh Bachchan has also joined in as the campaign ambassador and helped to increase awareness through his blog.
Yesterday, (12th December 2010) NDTV organised a 12 hour telethon dedicated to discussions and programmes and in turn to generate donations for this cause. Various performances by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, Mohit Chauhan, Salim-Suleiman among others enthralled the audiences. In fact, at the end of it all they managed to garner a donation of more than 4.5 Crore Rupees.
Among others, there were ministers of state and tiger enthusiasts who were actively participating in the event. As correctly mentioned by one of them, this isn’t about politically motivating anything because at the end of it the Tiger would not vote for any party at the elections. Minister Kapil Sibal announced a meeting with the HRD, environment and Corporate ministers along with the representatives of all political parties and tiger enthusiasts in the coming February.
All these are definitely good efforts, but more needs to be done to create awareness in the rural and tribal areas. As these are the places where actually the animal is found.
How can we help? – a question almost everybody is asking of late. Go visit the website. Donate time for the cause. Help create awareness. Talk about it. Educated your children about the seriousness of the situation. Try and react when you see illegal activities which might be harming the animal. Small things like this put together can definitely create a big moment. For a change lets give back to the world and feel good about it.
