New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) would start a new course on Environmental Law, for the upcoming session commencing from July 2010. The newly-launched post-graduate diploma course would be run by IGNOU, in collaboration with the World Wide Fund's (WWF-India) Centre, for Environmental Law (CEL). As per sources, the CEL is already offering an online diploma in environment law and has so far trained 500 students.
V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, IGNOU Vice Chancellor, said that real development will happen, only if the environment is sustained. He further added that the new programme will present the right perspective of development to the students. Mr. Pillai mentioned that IGNOU is also interested in introducing programmes in conservation of species and biodiversity. IGNOU may also offer these programmes to other universities. The collaboration with IGNOU is expected to increase the reach of the programme, to a wider section of society.
Ravi Singh, Secretary General and CEO of WWF-India, said the new course would hopefully spread knowledge and awareness about environ-legal matters, to the masses. According to Mr Singh, the main issue faced by environmentalists in the present times is the dearth of knowledge among the common people, about the repercussions of climate change and dwindling number of species.
