Union minister Maneka Gandhi visits College of Defence Mgmt

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi today visited the College of Defence Management, Secunderabad here.
The minister addressed the course participants of Higher Defence Management Course (HDMC) and their spouses on 'Women and Child Development and Management of Stray Animals'.
HDMC is a prestigious course comprising 152 officers (Colonels and equivalent ranks of all three services) including from friendly foreign countries, a defence release said.
The topic gains immense relevance as the course participants are carefully selected and are expected to provide leadership roles in the Indian Armed Forces in the years to come, it said.
The spouses are accordingly expected to oversee the welfare of families of a large number of officers and troops, in their future capacities, it said.

Speaking on the occasion, Gandhi drew upon her childhood memories of growing up in military cantonments and identified with the audience based on her own familial connections with the armed forces, it said.
She exhorted audience to remember that every person consumes equivalent of seven trees per year of his age and hence it should be moral obligation by all citizens to plant equivalent trees as return to Mother Earth, it said.
She also emphasised that there is no reason to believe that tree plantations can be done only in monsoons and this activity must be carried out round the year, the release said.