Dubai-based Indian teenager helps recycle 25 tonnes of e-waste
Dubai: A Dubai-based 15-year-old Indian girl has launched a campaign, which helped in the recycling of 25 tonnes of electronic waste in the Gulf nation, according to a media report on Friday.
Riva Tulpule, a student of grade 10, got the idea to start the campaign while clearing out drawers filled with broken devices in 2016, the Gulf News reported.
While shifting to a new house a few years ago, Tulpule found lots of disused electronics while helping her mom clear out drawers. This sparked the beginning of her campaign WeCareDXB' that she said has collected over 25 tonnes of e-waste for recycling in over four years, the report said.
"I had asked my mom why we can't we just dispose the items we don't need. She told me they need to be tacked in a special way but we were not sure exactly how to go about it. So that made me curious and I decided to do some research into it, which led me to this cause," Tulpule was quoted as saying by the report.
She said many people just dump old devices and appliances in the general waste as they are not aware of the options for recycling them.
Raising awareness through social media and word of mouth, WeCareDXB has enlisted volunteers students, professionals, the general public to collect the items for recycling e-waste.
Tulpule, a student of GEMS Modern Academy, got in touch with Dubai-based EnviroServe, an electronics recycler and processor, to hand over the collected items.
In December last, she held her latest collection round, rallying friends and the wider community to drop off over 2,000 broken laptops, tabs, mobile phones, printers, keyboards and other items. Over 60 students from 15 schools had signed up for the 10-day campaign.
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Wayanad LS bypoll: Priyanka crosses lead achieved by Rahul in 2024 Lok Sabha polls
Wayanad (Kerala) (PTI): Top Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was on Saturday comfortably cruising towards her maiden electoral win from Wayanad in Kerala, as she surpassed the lead achieved by her brother Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls earlier this year with party leaders and ally IUML predicting a big win for her amid the counting trends.
The Congress-led UDF's candidate from this hill constituency, Priyanka, extended her lead by over 3.8 lakh votes after five hours of counting of the ballots in the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll, according to the Election Commission.
Reacting to the lead achieved by Priyanka, Congress' ally Indian Union Muslim League and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said she would get more votes than her brother Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha polls in April this year and will win by a record margin.
"An amazing first trend on counting day is the massive early lead for our leader @priyankagandhi ji in Wayanad, Kerala, by-election. People of Wayanad are surely going to record in victory margins today and Priyanka ji will make Parliamentary debut with a grand win," Reddy said in a post on 'X'.
IUML supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said that going by the trends, Priyanka will get more votes than what Rahul got and the majority she achieves would also be higher than that of her brother.
A similar view was expressed by IUML's national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty.
On the other hand, BJP leader Anil K Antony, earlier in the day, had claimed that though Priyanka has achieved a good lead, her victory margin would be less than what Rahul got in the 2024 and 2019 LS polls in the hill constituency.
According to the latest EC figures, Priyanka had a lead of 3,82,975 with 5,78,526 votes. LDF's Sathyan Mokeri was behind her with 1,95,551 votes and NDA's Navya Haridas was in the third spot with 1,04,947 votes.
Rahul had got 6,47,445 votes and won by a margin of 3,64,422 votes against his nearest rival, CPI's Annie Raja, in the LS polls this year. In 2019, he had got 7,06,367 votes and had won by a margin of 4,31,770 votes.
After winning from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh as well, in this year's polls, Rahul vacated the Wayanad seat, and the party nominated his sister Priyanka, paving the way for her electoral debut.
The bypoll turnout in Wayanad, which has over 14 lakh registered voters, was around 65 per cent, a decline from the close to 74 per cent in the LS polls held in April this year and much lower than the over 80 per cent turnout in the hill constituency in the 2019 general elections.
The counting of votes commenced at 8 am with postal ballots being taken up first.
The strong rooms, where the EVMs were kept, were opened more than an hour before counting began.
The bypoll for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat was held on November 13.
Of the 16 candidates who contested, the main contenders are Priyanka, ruling CPI(M)-led LDF's Sathyan Mokeri, a political veteran, and BJP-headed NDA's Navya Haridas.
