Dr. Jitendra Singh plants sapling on birthday under Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
On his birthday, Union Science and Technology Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh turned a personal milestone into a public act of conservation — planting a sapling at his New Delhi residence in honour of his mother, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam (One Tree in Mother's Name) campaign on Friday, 6 November 2026.
Sharing the moment on X, Dr. Singh wrote: 'On the occasion of my birthday, at my residence in New Delhi, I had the privilege of planting a sapling in the name of my revered mother, under the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign initiated by honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Let us all join this campaign, resolve to conserve nature, and plant a tree in our mother's honour.'
What the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign asks of every citizen
The Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam initiative is a citizen-led tree-plantation drive built on a simple, emotionally resonant idea: dedicate a sapling to your mother. By anchoring an environmental ask to something as universal as maternal love, the campaign sidesteps the usual fatigue around green-cover pledges and makes participation feel personal rather than obligatory.
Indian ministers and public figures periodically share their own participation in such drives precisely to lower the threshold for ordinary citizens — the implicit message being that if a Cabinet minister can pause on his birthday to plant a tree, so can anyone else.
A birthday ritual that doubles as a policy nudge
Choosing his birthday as the occasion adds a layer of symbolism that the campaign's design actively encourages: linking a joyful personal moment to a lasting environmental act. The sapling planted at Dr. Singh's New Delhi home joins what organisers hope will become a nationwide count, with participation levels and total trees planted serving as the campaign's key metric going forward.
India's broader push for increased green cover and biodiversity protection has made mass-participation plantation drives a recurring feature of the government's public-outreach calendar — and the Maa Ke Naam framing has given this particular drive unusual staying power in social sharing.
One tree, one mother's name — and the ask, now amplified from a minister's feed, is as simple as it gets.