Review 2008 and Mission 2009-2010 “Tourism for Peace”
Thursday, January 1st, 2009Dear Friends!
The year 2008 was quite exciting for us and the organization did indeed touch few new milestones.
As a country India has commanded more respect from the rest of the World as one of the largest economies and the largest repository of intellect and knowledge.But sadly, there can not be any denying the fact that our villages and communities have not benefited much from the growing GDP, large-scale developments, highest ever-recorded growth of the stock market and the successful space mission to the moon , though all these have marked 2008 as a very special year!
The year has also witnessed the suffering of the people and vast destruction of nature in the name of development projects such as the Teesta and Dibang Multipurpose river dams.The future of the wildlife looks grim with deepening Tiger crisis and the threatening projects such as a big port proposed in coastal Orisssa – an area which has drawn the attention of the world as one of the largest rookeries of the endangered Olive Ridley Turtles!
Just before the festive mood was about to set in, the country was shaken by unprecedented display of terrorism, violence.The serial blasts in Guwahati and Mumbai, the blasts in Gujarat and Jaipur gripped the country with unspeakable horror! With the nose-dive of stock market and economic recession millions of people have lost job and social security across the globe.
And the tourism , as the saying goes is one of the largest income-multipliers, faced the most challenging situation in the country and still continuing fighting with it.
But, the show must go on! Let us hope and pray for better days and also consolidate our strength and mandates to use tourism as a tool with more responsibility for the betterment of our people, our planet, our wildlife! Let tourism be the vehicle to enhance compassion, friendship,harmony in human civilization that has lived many thousand years despite calamities and wars! Let tourism bring PEACE -the item that the human society needs to restore most urgently and more profoundly at this hour than ever before!
May we declare the mission of Help Tourism for 2009 AND 2010: “TOURISM FOR PEACE!”
We wish you, your families a peaceful and prosperous New Year!
With lots of love, regards and appreciation.
Happy New Year!
–
Asit Biswas
Assistant Secretary & Founder Member
Association for Conservation and Tourism(ACT)
