107-Year-Old Environmentalist Planted Hundreds Of Trees

Saalumarada Thimmakka of Karnataka is a legend. She is 107 years old and was awarded the Padma Shri earlier this year - an occasion where she reached out and blessed President Ram Nath Kovind. Ms Thimmakka and her late husband planted hundreds of trees along the highway near their home in Ramanagara district. Those trees, 70 years old now, stand strong. Ms Thimmakka recently successfully resisted plans to cut them down for road-widening in 2019. She celebrated her birthday with the students of a Bengaluru college, and of course - planted a sapling which she blessed. Maya Sharma spoke to the woman who is possibly the world's oldest environmentalist.