suruchi pande has been for over two decades teaching the importance of ancient vedic knowledge in saving the environment her reach has now crossed quite a few thousands and her contribution to the field is fetching her global recognitionalong with husband satish pande is part of the citybased ela foundation that conducts research on flora and fauna with other ngos and the forest department as well it has also created a habitat for flora and fauna to thrivethe foundation brings out the official magazine of the forest department but its most important function has been to make the youth awareour foundation has a small department at the garware college where we teach ecological perceptions based on ancient knowledge especially the vedas the course has been around for about five years but for about 17 years more i have been teaching the same thing at ela foundation besides organizing workshops in states such as uttar pradesh and gujarat pande told toi from the united statesat present she is in chicago to receive an award at the eponymous university of chicago and its oriental institute which organised the world congress of vedic foundations of management science pande received the isol community programme award for indigenous knowledge culture and heritage for her work in propagating vedic texts and tribal knowledge to preserve the environmentthe award ceremony was on september 11 exactly 125 years swami vivekananda delivered his famous speech at the art institute in downtown chicagoand though the vedas are often viewed as religious texts pande explained that all should read the text in more detailthe taittiriya aranyaka states that one of the greatest sins that man can ever commit is to pollute water the vedas often exhort people to preserve the environment but most people have only followed the ritual part of what the vedas proclaim she said