Art of Living to coach forest officers on personal excellence
October 27, 2017  10:33
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'The Art of Living Foundation of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar will coach Indian Forest Service officers of the ministry of environment, forest and climate change on 'Building competencies for personal excellence' at a 'one-week compulsory training course', to be held at the foundation's international headquarters in Bengaluru this December, reports Jay Mazoomdar in the Indian Express.    

Incidentally, the AoL is embroiled in a legal battle with the National Green Tribunal over the alleged damage caused to the Yamuna's flood plains by its World Cultural Festival.  

AoL has been empanelled under the department of personnel and training's in-service training scheme since last year and 'conducted three similar training programmes commissioned by the department for all wings of the all-India services since November 2016, where the participants were mostly IAS officers,' reports Mazoomdar.  

Pushp Dant, national director (government programmes) of Art of Living, cries off from sharing details of this or previous training programmes citing that they are private contracts with the government, but confirms that the December 18-22 event will be their first one exclusively for forest officers.   

Asked about a possible conflict of interest in AoL conducting an event for its officers, Siddhanta Das, director general in the environment ministry, tells the Indian Express: "The (NGT) case should not be linked to this training programme, which has nothing to do with matters of forest administration. We send small batches of officers for such programmes to different government and private institutes. It's a routine matter."

'The Art of Living's proposal to the ministry mentioned Rs 6,500 (plus taxes) per participant per day as fees. The ministry's sanction letter to the NGO, however, put the course fee at Rs 15,000 per participant, plus Rs 7,500 as reimbursement for boarding/ lodging during the course,' reports Mazoomdar. Apart from this, the environment ministry will pay AoL a course free of Rs 6 lakh for the entire batch of 36 officers nominated from different states.

You can read Jay Mazoomdar's report here.
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