World Water Day 2010, with its focus on ‘Clean Water for a Healthy World', was celebrated in a unique manner in the city on Monday.
Jointly organised by the Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Ltd. (CNNL), in association with the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), Saragur, and the National Institute of Engineering and Design, World Water Day brought out the creativity of artists, who highlighted the unfolding crisis and the need for water conservation.
Around 40 students of the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA) portrayed their creative skills on canvas, creating posters on the topic ‘Water and Sanitation', while 30 students from various schools in the city were given an opportunity to paint on the same topic on the banks of the Kukkarahalli lake.
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The venue was selected in view of its popularity, and also because of the growing concern about the deteriorating water quality in the lake due to growing pollution. Public opinion was sought to be created in favour of conservation of water bodies. “An interesting aspect of the celebration was the depiction of the ‘world's longest toilet queue', to highlight the fact that only four of 10 persons in the country have access to a toilet,” said Ravikumar of CNNL. “We wanted to highlight the predicament of the last person in the queue,” he added.
There were other programmes including a street play by the Jagritha Bharatha Kala Tanda of SVYM, which was followed by a jatha and perambulation around the lake. Participants also sung and chanted incantations in an effort to draw public attention to the need for water conservation. World Water Day is held every year on March 22 and the theme coined each year focusses on the sustainable use of freshwater and conservation of water resources. It is a fallout of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992, following which the U.N. designated March 22 as World Water Day, in 1993.