On the Go

Rahul Gupta,a 21-year-old student who founded the NGO Global Environment Concern (GEC) in 2008,has been selected by Tata group as “India’s highly motivated youth” for his social initiatives. He will now travel to 13 destination over 18 days to meet other social workers and people working in the developmental sector across India. “I was selected from 18,000 applicants by a panel of 20 experts for my entrepreneurial potential and social work,” he says. Among his achievements is helping to educate over 100 poor children. Gupta’s journey started in 2007 when he travelled across India by train and realised what humans can do to a given space. “The local trains looked like trash cans and I realised that if we keep treating earth the way we do,it will also become a dumping ground,” he says. With a team of 30 members,he set up GEC. “During the forthcoming cross-country journey,I will talk about the initiative we run in Chandigarh and learn more about how social experts in states like Mumbai,Chennai,Banglore,Orissa,Hyderabad and Rajasthan function,” says Gupta.