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Indian bags UNEP environment award

Indian scientist Ashok Khosla on Thursday bagged the prestigious $200,000 UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize for introducing low-cost eco-friendly technologies.

The award will be presented on November 19 at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, a UNEP release said.

The prize, sponsored by the Nippon Foundation and founded by the late Ryoichi Sasakawa, has been awarded annually since 1984 to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the management and protection of the environment.

"Khosla has worked tirelessly to demonstrate both theory and practice of sustainable development through his teaching and fostering of environment-friendly and commercially viable technologies," the release said.

The UNEP described Khosla as a man who offered "pragmatic, sensible and life changing solutions" to burning issues.

Most of his recent work has been achieved through "Development Alternatives", a group of organisations headquartered in New Delhi, which he founded in 1983 to help bring people and nature directly into the design and implementation of India's development strategy, the release said.

Welcoming the award, Khosla said, "This award is really for the work of the many, many partners and collaborators with whom I have been privileged to work over the last 40 years. It is a wonderful, if unexpected, tribute to their efforts at the desk, in the laboratory and out in the field, courageously experimenting with ideas and action that were mostly unfashionable and often directly opposed to conventional development thinking."

PTI

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