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LUCKNOW, INDIA, August 7, 2002: The Prime Minister’s dream project of building a golden quadruple around Lucknow received a set back on Tuesday when 400-plus schoolchildren stood in the way of bulldozers, all set to raze three acres of green belt to ground near Gomtinagar railway station. The schoolchildren fought a battle of wits all day with officials of the Lucknow Development Authority, police forces, bulldozers of the National Highway Authority of India and some private contractors, who were to pull down over 2,500 trees, which these schoolchildren of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan had planted in the green belt and had nurtured for a decade. While government officials, accompanied by the latest machines and police security, had the task of beginning the US$65 million dream, the students and their teachers had only will and determination to save their efforts and the only green belt of the area, which supplies priceless oxygen. The impasse continued till late in the evening and both the parties have petitioned the governor.

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