A budding scientist, environment conscious activist and above all, a crusader against climate change. Thats Jaswanth Madhavan (17), a class XI student of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School (Nungambakkam), Chennai, whose innovative ideas and responses to the challenges of climate change and global warming is jetting him around the world.Jaswanths eco-friendly initiatives began attracting international notice in November 2007, when he won an interna-tional competition titled ‘Energising Sustainable Communities, organised by the federal government of Australia, which attracted entries from 200 countries. His master plan to redesign the infrastructure of Chennai to equip it to face growing environm-ental deterioration, earned him the privilege of addressing a distinguished audience comprising the Australian prime minister and several Nobel laureates and environmental experts at the 3rd Interna-tional Solar Cities Congress held in February this year in Adelaide, Australia.
Hardly had this young environment evangelist returned from Australia when he had to pack his bags for the United Kingdom to attend a one week environment awareness training programme after being designated an ‘International Climate Change Champion 2008 following a project competition held by the British Council on February 4 in Chennai. The competition which attracted entries nationwide, comprised a preliminary round, followed by an interview in Chennai and a final adjudication in New Delhi. All finalists made presentations on climate change in India, which we defended against challenges by an eminent panel of judges who also evaluated our levels of motivation and enthusiasm, recalls Jaswanth who ascribes the development of his knowledge base to the support he received from his school and geography teacher, Mahalakshmi Ramjee in particular.

Jaswanth is also a keen gardener, writes Tamil poetry and plays the mridangam. But environment preservation is his prime passion. This month (May) he is scheduled to visit Japan to participate in the G8 Plus 5 conference as a youth speaker and in October hell be Oz bound again to attend an International Youth Coastal Conference.

Unsurprisingly, this young climate crusader aspires to pursue a degree in atmospheric sciences after completing Plus Two. I want to be fully qualified to combat the looming disaster of global warming, says Jaswanth.

Wind beneath your wings!

Nikila Srinivasan (Chennai)