MNRE to Organise Global Student Solar on 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi

To commemorate 150^th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and to promote the Gandhian idea of sustainable living, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in association with IIT Bombay, is organizing the Global Student Solar Assembly on 2^nd October 2019. The day-long event scheduled at Indira Gandhi Stadium Complex, New Delhi will see participation of over 10,000 students from across the institutions from National Capital Region and Delhi. These students will be accompanied by their trainers who would provide them hands-on training on how to assemble their own solar study lamps.

With the severe threat of climate change looming large, world is increasingly turning towards Gandhian ideas of environmental care and sustainable living. Gandhi Ji’s concept of non-violence went beyond human race and envisaged non violence towards environment as well. His maxim that, “The earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed” has to be our guiding principal in our fight against climate change. For India fight against climate change is a matter of faith and commitment. India has committed to reduce its carbon intensity by 33-35 % by the year 2030 and to install cumulative renewable energy capacity of 175 GW by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030.

This Workshop aims at sensitizing young minds about energy sustainability and environmental care. While making their own solar lamps, the students will also get introduced to the concept of self sufficiency – another idea that was so close to the heart of Mahatma Gandhi.  At the end, all students will switch-on their self-assembled solar lamps in remembrance of Mahatma and will take pledge of non-violence towards the environment.

Two Guinness world records will be attempted during this workshop, (a) sustainability lessons to the largest number of participants at a single place (b) largest number of solar lamps lit together.

In addition to the event at New Delhi, similar workshops will be organised in other Indian cities and also in foreign countries. It is expected that more than 1 million students in 60 countries will join this global event on a single day and will become Renewable Energy Ambassadors to carry the message green energy far and beyond.