Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi is an environmentalist, green activist, and the founder of Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO), a

Dehradun Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...

-based voluntary organization. His work majorly includes developing sustainable technologies that are ecology inclusive economy for ecosystem development. He has coined GEP (gross environmental product), an ecological growth measure parallel to GDP. GEP has been accepted as a growth measure by the state of Uttarakhand on 5 June 2021. He was selected as the man of the year by ''Week Magazine'' in 2003. He is a recipient of the

Jamnalal Bajaj Award Jamnalal Bajaj Award is an Indian award, for promoting Gandhian values, community service and social development. Established in 1978, by the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation of Bajaj Group, it is given annually in four categories, and usually presented ...

and is an Ashoka Fellow. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

, in 2006, for his contributions to Indian society. He was also awarded

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

, third highest civilian award in 2020 for environmental conservation in

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

. Dr. Joshi appeared in the Kaun Banega Crorepati, Karamveer episode aired on 25th December 2020.

Biography

Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi was born on 6 April 1955 at

Kotdwar Kotdwar is a city, municipal corporation in Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand, India. It's just 101 km from Pauri town , the district headquarter. It is the eighth-largest city in Uttarakhand. Its old name was "Khohdwar", which means the ga ...

, in

Pauri Garhwal district Pauri Garhwal is a district in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Its headquarters is in the town of Pauri. It is sometimes referred to simply as Garhwal district, though it should not be confused with the larger Garhwal region of which it is ...

, in the present day

state of India in a family of farmers and secured a master's degree in botany and a doctoral degree in ecology. He started his career as a member of faculty at the Kotdwar Government PG College but resigned the job in 1979 and founded ''Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization'' (HESCO), a non-governmental organization. Under the aegis of HESCO, Joshi promoted research and development of new environment-friendly technologies for the agricultural sector, tapping the local resources. He is supported by a team of 30 people, and the group is known to have been involved in the dissemination of knowledge on eco-friendly techniques and technologies in 40 villages in the state. His concept of ''gross environmental product'' has since been adopted by the State Government. Dr. Joshi has launched several social programmes, based on resource-based rural development, such as ''Women Technology Park'', ''Technology Intervention for Mountain-Eco System'', ''Ecological Food Mission in Mountain'' and ''Women's Initiative for Self Employment'' (WISE) and has been reported to be successful in providing the villages with water mills, composting pits, toilets, plan-based drugs and herbal pesticides and rainwater harvesting techniques. Finding uses for a local shrub, ''Kurri'', which had been considered a weed, by utilising it for making furniture, incense sticks and using the left-overs as fodder was one initiative developed by Joshi. He is credited with over 60 articles and ten books on the subject. Ashoka, the social entrepreneurial network, elected him as their Fellow in 1993. The

Indian Science Congress Indian Science Congress Association(ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation of India with headquarters at Kolkata, West Bengal. The association started in the year 1914 in Kolkata and it meets annually in the first week of January. It has a ...

awarded him the Jawaharlal Nehru Award in 1999 and

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...

magazine selected him as the ''Man of the Year'' in 2002. The Government of India included him in the 2006 Republic Day Honours list for the civilian award of the

and the same year, he received the

for his efforts in the ''application of science and technology for rural development''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Joshi, Anil Prakash Recipients of the Padma Shri in social work Scientists from Uttarakhand People from Pauri Garhwal district Indian ecologists Social workers Indian environmentalists 20th-century Indian botanists Social workers from Uttarakhand Ashoka India Fellows Living people 1955 births

Biography

See also

References

External links