 
The World Joins NDTV and Toyota’s ‘The Greenathon’ Over Rs 2.4 crores raised for TERI’s ‘Lighting a Billion Lives’ Money raised will light up 67 villages and 4000 households. Mumbai, February 09, 2009: NDTV and Toyota’s Greenathon saw many environmentally conscious people from across the globe come forward to take the green pledge and adopt villages by donating for TERI’s ‘Lighting a Billion Lives’ project that aims at solar powering villages across the country.
This 24-hour nonstop effort for the environment received an overwhelming response by country’s leading corporates, top Bollywood stars, musicians, environmentalists, NGOs and educational institutions and generated over Rs 2.4 crores. Some of the generous donors for the campaign were Shilpa Shetty; Shahrukh Khan and Billu team; Lalit Modi; Yuvraj Singh; Sanjay Dutt and family; Preity Zinta, Nokia; Coca-Cola and, Aarav, son of actor Akshay Kumar.
Actor Shilpa Shetty adopted 4 villages and set the momentum to be the first highest donor soon followed by Shahrukh Khan and Billu Team who adopted 5 villages. Akshay Kumar’s son- Aarav became the youngest donor of the campaign by adopting a village. IPL’s Lalit Modi adopted the largest village without lights while actor Vivek Oberoi who also sponsored one village, pledged to continue the good deed every year. Also stepping forward were Sanjay Dutt and family who adopted 2 villages; cricketer Yuvraj Singh; campaign ambassador Preity Zinta; Preity’s mother; actor Arjun Rampal and Nina Pillai, amongst others.
Some leading corporates also showed their solidarity towards the cause, the highest donors being Coca-Cola and Nokia who sponsored 4 and 3 villages respectively; S Kumar’s Nitin Kasliwal adopted two villages and Bombay Dyeing’s Ness Wadia adopted one village. Other corporate who donated to the cause were: Toyota Kirloskar Motors; ARM Embedded Technologies; SRF; Rexfam Hindustan Tin Works; Ozone Group; Wizcraft; Qualcomm; Dentsu India; Luthra & Luthra; Namita Gautam, Director, Sheela Group and Asian Roots Spa’s Kamyani Kanwar, amongst others.
Bollywood stars like Bipasha Basu, Celina Jaitley, Nagesh Kukunoor, Aftab Shivdasani, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Madhuri Dixit, Kailash Kher, Farah Khan, Diya Mirza, Kunal Kapoor, Tushar Kapoor, Shaan, Govinda, Sunidhi Chauhan, Raageshwari and Shilpa Rao and Sukhwinder Singh lent support to this campaign by signing solar lanterns which would be auctioned at a later stage.
Actor, model and ‘Marathon Man’ Milind Soman ran for 24 hours at a stretch, covering 60kms, to raise funds for the campaign. He started from Yashraj Studios, covering prominent places like Juhu Beach, Bandra Reclamation, Haji Ali and Trident Hotel and returned the same way.
The Greenathon, a 24-hour programming initiative dedicated to create environmental awareness, which commenced on Saturday 7th Feb 09 at 7pm was inaugurated by Dr. Prannoy Roy and Dr. R K Pachauri. The Greenathon was hosted by Vikram Chandra and Preity Zinta while Cyrus Broacha kept the viewers entertained for 24 hrs with his witty humour. Simultaneous relay cleanup activities were conducted in Delhi and Mumbai as part of the campaign.
The clean-up drive at Qudesia Ghat, Yamuna in Delhi organized by NGO- Swecha involved several activities like music concerts by bands- Advaita, Parikrama, Mrigya, Menwhopause; canvas painting by artist Anjolie Ela Menon; monument building using waste paper and a graffiti canvas to express one’s thoughts on the polluted Yamuna. Attending the event were renowned politicians, celebrities and environmentalist like Sandeep Dixit, Naveen Jindal, Rina Dhaka, Nafisa Ali, Daler Mahendi, Shibani Kashyap and Mike Pandey. Many excited school children and university students thronged the venue in large numbers to participate in the relay clean-up of the river bank.
Mumbai sea front clean-up activities saw the presence of Bollywoood stars like Preity Zinta, Raveena Tandon, Sonali Kulkarni, Prasoon Joshi, Luke Kenny, cast and crew of TV show Jasuben Jayantilal Joshi Ki Joint Family and BMC Commissioner Jairaj Pathak.
The supporting sponsor for ‘The Greenathon’ was Vodafone. The lines for donation are still open and donations can be made through Mchek and demand draft.
For Mchek: SMS “[donate] [space] [amount]” to 56388
For users in India only. Standard VAS charges apply.
Cheque/DD: Send in favour of ‘The Energy and Resources Institute’ payable at New Delhi, mail to Greenathon, NDTV, Archana Complex, GK 1, New Delhi-110 048.
