On 4th January, one of India's most successful Humanists organisations celebrated its 80th Anniversary. The Periyar Self-Respect movement, Dravidar Kazhagam is one of the largest member organisations within IHEU with about 200,000 supporters. The celebrations, presided over by the inspiring president of Dravidar Kazhagam, Dr. K. Veeramani, were combined with a State-level conference of the Rationalist Forum of Tamil Nadu. The celebrations included an evening parade that completely blocked the centre of Chennai for over an hour, taking 40 minutes to pass the reviewing stand. With Babu Gogineni, Levi Fragell, and Dr Vijayam, leader of the Atheist Centre, Vijayawada, I was privileged to attend the ceremony and to address the estimated 16,000-strong crowd.

The following day, we visited the "Periyar village" Periyar Nagar near Thanjavur, home of the Periyar Manniamai Engineering College. This college with 1600 students is the only technical college in India catering exclusively for women (although it's senior classes have now become co-educational). The 40 Ha site is ecologically self-sustaining with all waste products recycled either as fertilizer or as bio-fuel. The technical college has adopted 65 surrounding villages under a government-supported PURA scheme (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas). The Periyar implementation of PURA has been applauded by government ministers and the press as among the most effective. So far just six of the planned 65 villages are involved in the project which includes the provision of microwave telecommunications to villages without, until now, even a telephone. After a ceremonial tree-planting, a visit to the herb farm and an inspection of the 200 kW bio-gas electric generator, we visited one of the villages where we were met by a 100-girl guard of honour from the volunteer semi-military National Cadet Corps. There we used the teleconferencing link to send greetings back to the engineering college and also met the doctor who heroically covers six of the project villages.

In Trichi, a city of about 2 million people, we joined the evening celebration of Periyar Day at the Periyar campus. The campus houses 10 professional training colleges covering subjects from IT to pharmacy. The 4000 students lined the road into the campus in welcome. We also met the staff of a home for orphaned and abandoned children on campus whose director had herself been a child at the home. The highlight of the celebration was a stage show - a combined pop concert and revival meeting, complete with strobe lights, dry ice and 120dB sound system - in front of about 5000 enthusiastic students, parents and staff, with traditional dances, songs in praise of Periyar, mime shows, and concluding with short, inspiring speeches from the visiting dignitaries. "You are part of a world wide humanist movement. Periyar's humanist message is not just for Tamil Nadu, not just for India, but for the world."

The work of the Women's Engineering College on sustainable communities, and their rural development and women's empowerment programs are all first class. Many of the women's empowerment projects involve the Periyar Organisation for Women Empowerment and Renaissance (POWER) founded in 1998. They have already established over 500 women's self help groups in the state. I would like to see IHEU working to support one or more of their projects.

Roy Brown is President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union