Thaindian News

Mumbai, Nov 10 (IANS) Several important landmarks and monuments in Mumbai, as well as across the country, will sport a blue look Sunday to create awareness of the silent killer diabetes, an official said here Thursday.

Places like the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, KEM Hospital, Nair Hospital, Siddhi Vinayak Temple and Abbott office building will be lit up in blue as part of a unique initiative for diabetes awareness, on the eve of World Diabetes Day, Nov 14.

The initiative has been taken up by HEAL Foundation and Via Media Group in association with health and family welfare ministry, the International Diabetes Federation, the Archaeological Survey of India and the BMC. The campaign is designed to prevent India from becoming the world’s diabetes capital.

Around 50 top monuments and buildings around the country will also be lit up blue under the ‘Abbott Diabetes Blue Fortnight-2011′ initiative.

These include Shaniwarwada Fort in Pune; the Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple, Old Fort, Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Humayun Tomb, AIIMS, Fortis Hospitals, Metro Bhavan (New Delhi/NCR), Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, Agra; the Imambara, Lucknow; Manek Chowk and City Palace Grounds, Udaipur; 13 Gates of Ahmedabad; Konark Temple, Orissa; IPHA Office, Shahid Minar, General Post Office, Assembly Hall and Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, and a few historical monuments in Chennai.

According to IDF’s Diabetes Atlas, the lifestyle disease affects crores around the world every year and claimed over one million lives in India alone last year.

“The need of the hour is to spread huge awareness about diabetes and we have taken it up right earnest with the Diabetes Blue Fortnight started since last year,” said R. Shankar, HEAL Foundation president.

The organisers plan to create more buzz about diabetes with the blue monument lighting to involve more stakeholders throughout the fortnight against the earlier practice of conducting activities only on World Diabetes Day (Nov 14), according to Swadeep Srivastava, CEO, Via Media Group.

The IDF organises similar awareness campaigns the world over by blue lighting of monuments like the Empire State Builidng in New York and others that evening.

The ‘blue’ campaign will be supplemented by diabetes awareness and prevention messages through FM, print media, and Internet, besides other programs to be launched Nov 14.