Sustainability, economic growth can co-exist: Iceland president

New Delhi, April 5 (IANS) Citing his country’s example, Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson Friday said sustainability and economic growth in India can go hand in hand and there was no conflict between the two.

“I don’t think there is any conflict between the two and the lesson from my country is that these two can go together,” Grimmson said in a speech on melting of world ice here.

Stressing that India needed to have a community of young scientists dedicated to studying glaciers, he said: “The core of my mission is to make people realise that we all now live in an ice dependent world. Greenland’s ice is melting forming new lakes and rivers”.

In India, he said there was an almost dangerous lack of scientific knowledge and there were young people who wanted to make glaciology their career.

The future of India will depend on whether it manages to get the AHA (Arctic, Himalayan, Antartic) moment, he said.

“We now search for a community of young Indian scientists in India who will be well placed to participate in not only cooperation in the Himalayan region but also in the international community on studying the ice-covered world,” he said in his lecture “The AHA moment: India and Our Ice-Covered World”.

“You (India) are the only part of humanity which is affected in a double way by the melting of the glaciers,” Grimmson said, adding: “Every political party, every individual in India has to be aware of this fundamental inter-relationship.”

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