Maneke Gandhi visits CDM

Hyderabad: Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi visited the College of Defence Management in Secunderabad and addressed the course participants of Higher Defence Management Course Serial No.13 (HDMC 13) and their spouse on an important topic of “Women and Child Development and Management of Stray Animals’.

HDMC is a prestigious course comprising 152 officers (Colonels and equivalent ranks of all three services) including from friendly foreign countries. The topic gains immense relevance as the Course participants are carefully selected and are expected to tenant apex leadership roles in the Indian Armed Forces in the years to come. The spouses are accordingly expected to oversee the welfare of families of a large number of officers and troops, in their future capacities. Among the audience were 30 ladies, spouses of the participant officers of HDMC who are undergoing a nine week structured programme on “Social Awareness & Life Skills for Responsible Citizenship" (SALSRC). This is a certificate programme being conducted by CDM for the 2nd year, in association with Osmania University (OU) and All India Management association (AIMA).

The Union Minister drew upon her childhood memories of growing up in Military Cantonments and identified with the audience based on her own familial connections with the armed forces. She remembered how her mother would pledge to make the Cantonment and the surroundings ‘cleaner and greener’ than what they first moved into. It remained a major source of inspiration and memory which guided her own values and activism. She spoke of how important role was played by the Ladies in the armed forces and how they can be role models in sphere of Women and Child Development and Management of Stray Dogs. She exhorted audience to remember that every person consumes equivalent of seven trees per year of his age and hence it should be moral obligation by all citizens to plant equivalent trees as return to Mother Earth.

Maneka Gandhi also emphasised that there is no reason to believe that tree plantations can be done only in monsoons and this activity must be carried out round the year. She exhorted the ladies to start a mission to plant trees with commercial and health benefits such Tamarind tree and coined the word “Mission Imli”. She gave examples where women groups can acquire skills to produce quality items rather than limiting to simple products and thereby make substantial livelihood choices.

Rear Admiral Dushyant Singh Chouhan, Commandant College of Defence Management, conveyed the gratitude of CDM faculty, student officers and members of SALSRC certificate course members to the Hon’ble minister for her highly inspirational talk at CDM and time given to this CDM from her very busy schedule.