Riteish Deshmukh at the spot in Sai village where river dredging work is on. Express photo
AFTER actors Nana Patekar and Makrand Anaspure set up NAAM Foundation to raise funds for drought-affected farmers in Maharashtra, another popular actor Riteish Deshmukh has stepped forward to do his bit for the people of parched Marathwada.
Riteish, son of late chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, was picked as the brand ambassador by the Art of Living Foundation, under whose aegis the people of Latur have launched a massive effort to increase the storing capacity of the Manjara river, the lifeline of Latur that has gone completely dry. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said he would put in his best efforts to ensure the success of the Jalyukt Latur campaign.
“Not only for Latur, but I will do whatever I can for the entire drought-hit Marathwada region,” added Riteish.
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He said he was still in discussion with activists about the exact nature of his role as the brand ambassador. The actor had donated Rs 25 lakh for the campaign. His brother Amit Deshmukh, who is an MLA from the region, donated Rs 75 lakh.
Mahadev Gomare of Art of Living Foundation said Riteish was expected to help raise funds for the water conservation project launched last month. “The project is worth Rs 7 crore. We are not taking any help from the government. It is entirely a people’s initiative,” he said.
The foundation has till now collected Rs 4 crore.
Gomare said they expected Riteish to raise funds from his contacts, especially in the Hindi and Marathi film industry.
Riteish said he would decide about it after holding a dialogue with the activists.
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Last week, when the announcement was made regarding Riteish being made the brand ambassador, the actor visited the spot to witness the dredging work on Manjara river at Sai village and tried to understand how the project would benefit the people of Latur.
An 18-km trench is being dug in the Manjara river from Sai village to store water during monsoon. Work on nearly 3 km has been completed so far. The deadline is May-end. The NAAM Foundation launched by Patekar and Anaspure has been extending financial assistance to drought-hit farmers and also setting up water conservation projects. “We have no truck with them… they are doing it independently and so are we. Both the organisations are working for bringing relief to the parched region of Marathwada,” said Gomare.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More