Music industry leaders join hands for a national water movement

Mile Sur icons Piyush Pandey and Louiz Banks reunite to lead the project

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai, 17^th February, 2020: India, the second most populous country in the world, is staring at a severe water crisis as it nears ‘Day Zero’ conditions when the taps run dry. Time is running out and there is an urgent need to act now. While the government and social organisations are focusing on various water projects, the issue has reached a point that it needs the support of its citizens to snowball this cause into a national movement.

PaaniKaTeeka, a project created by IdeaHive Media Pvt Ltd, a social enterprise currently focussing on Water, Education and Job Creation has partnered with the legends of Advertising and Music - Piyush Pandey and Louiz Banks - for a music based project to make the voice of water reach every corner of the nation. The duo, who will be reuniting after the iconic ‘Mile Sur’ anthem,  have garnered the support of music industry leaders like Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Ghoshal, Shaan, Vishal Dadlani, Harshdeep Kaur, Neha Bhasin, Pankaj Udhas, Salim Merchant, Sivamani, Mame Khan, Rakesh Chaurasia, among others to join hands with the campaign for water consciousness.

“Music has the capacity to bridge cultures and create a momentum unlike any other art form. If you look back in time, artists have always risen to the times and needs of the nation. And when it means coming together to create a unified voice to conserve water, which is a precious natural resource, it is only natural that we, as artists, take it upon ourselves to drive efforts collectively to help our water-stressed nation. PaanikaTeeka is a great initiative and a step in the right direction to create long-term sustainable ways of preserving water and promoting water-protecting ecosystems,” said veteran musician Louis Banks.

“It’s a blessing to be able to get the support of industry leaders and domain experts who have believed in our vision with PaanikaTeeka. The objective of the campaign is to make this project a citizens’ movement and work towards a water-secure India,” said Dilip Moorkoth, Founder PaaniKaTeeka and the Director of IdeaHive Media Pvt Ltd.

PaaniKaTeeka has designed an integrated project, which will work at multiple levels of advocacy and impact at the grassroot level. It is aimed to bring support to 1000+ villages of India as one of its major impact mechanisms, besides working on bringing a behavioural change across the nation. PaaniKaTeeka has partnered with Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) as its knowledge partner, National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and Emergy Enviro (A SINE IIT Bombay Company) as its Advisory and Technical partners who will work closely to make this project into a national movement.

                          

About Us

PaaniKaTeeka - Founder: IdeaHive Media Pvt. Ltd.

IdeaHive Media Pvt. Ltd. is a social enterprise, created with a vision of building initiatives that enable a better community around us. IdeaHive specialize in the creation and management of Social Impact Projects across varied subjects that matter to the nation and our people. Their key focus is to best utilize integrated marketing and consumer engagement mediums to create awareness, facilitate behavioural changes, give voice to pertinent issues that affect society and through the support of domain experts, bring impact on ground.

PaaniKaTeeka - Knowledge Partners, Advisory & Technical Partners

WOTR:  (PaaniKaTeeka – Knowledge Partner)

Establishedin 1993, the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) is a non-profit that engages at the intersection of practice, knowledge and policy across scales and in collaboration with stakeholders from across sectors. Headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra, the WOTR group has worked and supported work in over 4,800 villages across 8 Indian states, namely, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha.  It has impacted more than 3.70 million beneficiaries and trained over 475,000 persons from 27 states of India and 63 countries and collaborated with 230 NGOs/ Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs).    

      

NEERI: National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) is a research institute created and funded by Government of India. It falls under the Ministry of Science and Technology of Central Government and is a pioneer laboratory in the field of environmental science and engineering. The Institute earned recognition from various International bodies, such as WHO, UNICEF and UNEP as Centre of Reference for environmental science and technologies. NEERI was nominated as ‘Stockholm Convention Regional Centre on Persistent Organic Pollutants for Asia Region’ in September 2010 and has been endorsed as the ‘Regional Centre for Capacity Building and Technology Transfer’ at COP-5 Meeting held at Geneva.

ATREE: The Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), is a global non-profit that generates interdisciplinary knowledge to inform policy and practice to achieve environmental conservation and sustainable development. ATREE is the 2nd highest ranked socio-environmental think tanks in Asia (www.atree.org).

Emergy Enviro: EMERGY Enviro, a SINE IIT Bombay company was established to provide solutions to Environmental Issues. Professionals from India and across the globe, researchers, experts from IITs besides in-house experts have collaborated to offer wide range of strategic and tailor made solutions for specific environmental and sustainability issues.