Karuna Das

After a very successful first year that helped light-up 55 villages with solar power, NDTV and Toyota have announced the launch of Greenathon 2. Greenathon 2 will focus on our everyday activities that harm the environment like the use of plastic and wastage of water. Our campaign ambassador this year is Priyanka Chopra who is urging people to do their bit to save the environment even if it is a tiny step. "This is a fantastic initiative. I'm a part of the young generation who questions almost everything. But we need to understand that it takes little things for something to become big," said Priyanka. "Youngsters often ask - 'What can we do?' But I believe it is only the simple things we can do that can bring about a change. Get involved in such initiatives, spend a weekend doing something good for the environment and you will feel happy... let's make the earth a better place," she added. The first edition of Greenathon, a campaign initiated by The E...

The company that had partnered with NDTV in March to create the Greenathon, India's first 24-hour programme on the environment, is still thinking green. Toyota Kirloskar Motors launched a massive tree-planting drive, but with a difference. Six-year-old Varun is working hard on a holiday. So is little Aryan. Tough job after all, to create a forest out of plain land, as Toyota Kirloskar Motors has set out to do, on the outskirts of Bangalore at their campus in Bidadi. Part of a 6,000-plus crowd that planted 30,000 saplings on Sunday, Aryan is thrilled with the results. When asked as to how many trees he planted, Aryan replied excitedly, "Eight!" Mango, neem, banyan, 51 native species were chosen. For that was the advice given by renowned Japanese ecologist Dr Miyawaki to Toyota when the company sought his advice. "Only the real native vegetation has sustained the typhoons, the natural disasters like fire, tsunami etc. If we put exotic species, they grow very fast, but ...