Way back in 1998 some 30 like-minded people—farmers—teachers and some others came together to start a Think Tank like as a rural experiment in experience sharing ; then it was known as the River View Discussion Forum. Our founding president was late Mr. MP Krishanan Nair- a superannuated well known teacher and the secretary was the retired PSC member late Dr. MC George. The Director was Dr. KM George, a former UN Professional.
2) Taking cue from the UNs SDGs, we have renamed our forum as Sustainable Development Forum ( SDF) and from January we incorporated another vibrant organ to the SDF, as 2023 was declared as the International year of millets. Thus in January SDF gave birth to the Global Millets Foundation as a Registered entity with very many life family members and ordinary members in its role.
GMF is a registered NGO with Dr. KPP Nambiar the erstwhile –UNFAOFISH Director as its Executive Chairman assisted by several national and international members as a policy making body with advisory capacity. Both SDF and GMF have an effective membership strength of some 120 professionals .
Our motto is to know and proclaim , not to argue and win. We are non – political and non- religious in our outlook an d approach. Our creed is,
“ together we form the garden”. “And winner we think—winners we become”.
We have conducted some 165 sensitization seminars since 1998 mostly on health, environment, education, agriculture, developmental challenges, Vaassttu Vidya, etc. So far our seminars were attended by a total of 11,060 participants and practitioners.
Our speakers:
We had some outstanding national and international speakers to address us so far. Some of the names include:
Mr KP Kannan Former Director of ADB; Dr. Prem Nair Dean of Amrita Medical College; Dr. KC Chakravarthy former Dy Governor Reserve Bank of India, Dr. RV Jayakumar, Dr Philip Augustine; Coir Board Chairman Dr. Christy; Mr. Amat Dayanand; Prof Sacha Stone of USA; Rev Dr. Mulamoottil; Prof Dr. Ittyacahans, Dr. Mathew Abraham; HG Osthathious, HG Dr. Koorilose, HG Dr. Athanasiuos, Dr. Sunil George—Calicut, Mr George Paul of Synthite Group of companies; Air Marshal Madhusoodanan; Dr. George P Abraham, Dr. Shal Kakkatil, Mr PH Kurian IAS, Justice Narayana Kurup, Dr. PV Ouseph, Dr. Mathew Parakkal, Dr. Sojan Iype, Dr. R Raghavan, Dr. Tom Babu, Dr Pratheep Kottam, Mrs Neetha Pratheep, Mrs Sophia, Mrs Fausa ,Mr Nazar the Kerala Millets Man, The erstwhile Kerala Agricultural Minister Mr. PJ Joseph and a host of professionals from India and abroad.