Activists Protesting Against AOL's World Culture Festival At Yamuna Bank Call It An 'Absolute Mess'
Art of Livings World Culture Festival began with a spectacular display of various artistic performance at a mammoth stage on the Yamuna floodplains on Friday. The three-day event is being attended by delegates from over a hundred countries. The mega event was marred with controversies right from the beginning over environmental concerns Activists who are campaigning against the event have been complaining of harassment and intimidation.
Art of Living's World Culture Festival began with a spectacular display of various artistic performance at a mammoth stage on the Yamuna floodplains on Friday.
BCCL
The three-day event is being attended by delegates from over a hundred countries. But the mega event was marred with controversies right from the beginning over environmental concerns.
Activists who are campaigning against the event being held at the banks of Yamuna river have been complaining of harassment and intimidation by Police and Art of Living followers.
Vimlendu Jha/ Facebook
Vimlendu Jha/ Facebook
Vimlendu Jha/ Facebook
Controversial cleric, Swami Omji who in the past had threatened to kill Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was recently caught on camera threatening an environmentalist with murder for his opposition to the mega event.
Vimlendu Jha/ Facebook
While organisers painted a glossy picture of the event, activists say the reality on the ground is different.
"90% of the seats were empty, the entire area was one big puddle of 'keechar', people slipping and falling, waste all around, no security anywhere," Vimlendu Jha, one of the lead campaigners who visited the venue on Friday said in a Facebook post.
Despite the harassment he also said their campaign will continue.
Yes, environmental justice and action seems like a lost battle in our country and most of the mainstream indeed has...
Posted by Vimlendu Jha on 11 March 2016
Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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