RECENTLY, over 2,000 citizens participated in a unique protest along the banks of the Mula-Mutha river in Pune by hugging trees — just like the 1973 Chipko movement to save trees in the Garhwal Himalayas.
Here, the protest was aimed at opposing the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)’s ambitious riverfront development project along the Mula-Mutha, which involves the removal of more than 3,000 trees from an 11-km stretch of the river. In addition to causing damage to the riverine vegetation along the river, the project, which aims to address ‘flooding’ and make. . .
