|
Kali Bein film bags award
WSN Bureau
 JALANDHAR:
After
the project to rejuvenate the historic Kali Bein won accolades, its
documentation, which captures the spirit of unprecedented efforts on
tape, has also been garnering recognition and applause. ‘Kali Bein -
The Black River’ has bagged the Indian Documentary Producers
Association’s (IDPA) Gold Award for an inspiring depiction of an
enlightened leadership, mobilizing people’s participation in the
solution of an environmental issue.
The film,
directed and produced by Surinder Manan, bagged this award in the
category of Best Film on Environment for IDPA Awards of Excellence
2007. Earlier, the documentary had also been screened at VIBGYOR
International Film Festival-2008 (India) and Barcelona Asian Film
Festival-2008 (Spain). It has now been selected for screening at
ECOFILMS International Film Festival-2008 (Greece), Manan told TOI.
It may be mentioned here that IDPA is India’s single largest
association of producers of documentaries, animation films,
advertisement films and TV programmes.
The
60-minute-long film depicts how the rivulet, which had been
associated with the socio- cultural-economic life of the people of
the region since ancient times, fell prey to urbanization,
commercialization and industrialization. How the insensitivity of
people to environment and their apathetic attitude turned it into a
dumping bin of garbage and pollutant chemical waste, due to which
the stream vanished, before finally dying. The biggest irony was
that all this happened though Kali Bein holds immense religious
significance as it’s believed that the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak
Dev, got enlightenment here.
The film
documents how a movement started by Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal for
the stream’s rejuvenation witnessed public participation before the
160-km rivulet was finally cleaned. It may be mentioned here that
former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had highlighted the model of
cleaning of Kali Bein at various international and national forums
and has been emphasizing its replication elsewhere in the country
for cleaning of water bodies. He has also highlighted that its
rejuvenation not only had historic and environmental importance, but
it impacted the socioeconomic conditions also as its drying up led
to depletion of underground water, and consequently, the adverse
impact on agriculture. It may be mentioned here that while Kali
Bein’s rejuvenation corrected the problem of water logging in its
catchment area near point of origin in the area along the down
stream, the subsoil water table has been recharged considerably.
7
May,
2008
|
Read Also
