Focus on green at flower show

BANGALORE: Announcing a new green initiative for Lalbagh, Principal Secretary (Horticulture Department) Vandita Sharma said, “On Friday, Lalbagh is celebrating 100 years of flower show. This year onwards, the show will have green landscapes as its main focus.”She was addressing the second edition of the Green Landscape Summit 2012, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry with ‘Transforming Indoor and Outdoor Landscapes’ as its theme. Sharma signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) in order to increase joint work on identifying and improving the existing parks in the state as well as providing green landscapes for all government projects in the state.The IGBC has started a student chapter in which engineering students will be asked to give their inputs to the green initiative. The IGBC will also make efforts to include the subject in the curriculum.Dr Chandrasekhar Hariharan of the summit said, “The demographic switch from rural to an urban organisation is going to be a major challenge for urban planners. With the country set to add 100 more cities in the next 20 years, we have to focus on proper planning.”An extensive landscape directory with around 2,000 listings, including government ones and architects, and a new website - www.greenlandscapes.in - which was launched on Thursday.