yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Sentient beings or shooting targets? Published on Sanctuary Asia website on 25 th April, 2016. Thanks are due to Cara and Sanctuary Asia . Compilation of media coverage on the topic here .  ** A professor at North Eastern Hill University had once starkly put across how on the one hand the Meghalaya state government promotes the rich biodiversity of the Garo Hills, not only in the state but across the region, and on the other it actively pushes monocultures, including rubber, in the area. Monocultures that slowly strangle biodiversity. I was reminded of this last month on coming across orders passed by the Central and State governments that allow the culling of select species. This at a time when we are talking of curbing the loss of species to anthropogenic pressures, of landscape conservation based on structured information and reasoning, of banning dolphinariums, and of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change itself issuing advisories supporting

Human support for biodiversity Nimesh Ved and Pankaj Joshi This piece finds place in Deccan Herald on 12 th April, 2016. Thanks are due to Ritesh, Mahendra, Vipul, Astha, Yogesh, Akshit and the teams at Sahjeevan and SJS. We also thank Anitha and Deccan Herald. All images are by Astha and depict the Kachchh landscape. We were looking at the state-wise numbers of Biodiversity Management Committees (BMC) in the country. Madhya Pradesh stood atop the list with 23,743 and Nagaland at the other end with 10. However, what left us surprised was the number of committees in the largest state, Rajasthan. The state had only 31 to its credit. The number for these committees which are to be set up in every local body — urban and rural — stands at 3,405 for Gujarat.  There would be factors at play to account for the stark variance in numbers and these need to be looked into, but here, we will focus on our experiences in Kutch. We are a part of a team that attempts

I had been on them a couple of times but finally we took the local train, to enjoy the train. The journey from station nearest to home to the last station on line, Arts College to Falaknuma, cost 5/- per person. A quick check – after return – on the fare for cab for the route pointed to 300/- and indicated consuming thrice the time. Some Sunday evenings we go to Lamakaan to soak in events; today as if we were going to another city. Not only did the constructions outside give the feel but also the people we shared the coach with. Falaknuma station I had walked on for about 20 odd minutes when, during a return journey from Bangalore, the train had taken an unscheduled halt. My memory was restricted to an interesting quiet about it, a long structure – rooms stitched together for storing goods and a double-decker train. The red and yellow train was present today as well and the storage space appeared equally laid back. Google Earth, April 2016, Falaknuma Station and accompaning G

A ltai H imalaya, N icholas R oerich, O ne of those books that leaves the reader in awe, in silence, 

Snippets from a talk by Rahul Bose at Lamakaan My  memories of Rahul Bose: We enjoyed ‘Everyone Says I am Fine’, one of us did not recognize Rahul Bose when he comes towards the end and in recent months I have unsuccessfully searched it on You–tube. Then there  was Shaurya which  I had enjoyed. The first movie though was the stunner Bombay Boys with him singing on the road at night. Other than ‘Matunga’ we got most of the lyrics wrong then! And yes there was an interview during Doordarshan days where he talked of walking, climbing in Panchgini where I got to know he was our rugby captain! How he began: He talked of his visits to his masi’s home at Bombay and how people used to come for not only chai and conversations but also to sleep. On days that he too slept there, he could see – early in the day – 14 bodies lying in the morning in the ten feet by ten feet room. The single room home – as if – used to expand at night. Lamakaan too gave him this feel.  When hearts

Frontier Despatch carries this article in its 1 st April, 2016 issue. Some of the participants were handling binoculars for the first time and I needed to go slow. We began with the basics. I shared of how beautiful the birds appear when seen with binoculars as compared to that with the naked eye. Then moved on to using them; wearing them over neck and adjusting their width, observing objects with either of and both the eyes, selecting objects to view – far and otherwise, and putting focus to use. We deliberated on the need to keep them away from moisture ( especially in a place like Mizoram ) and, as is the case with binoculars, how not to ‘clean’ them. As we walked more we learnt how to make better use of the bird-book as also discussed body-parts of birds, local names and specific species – bulbul ( for example ) became Black Bulbul or the Red-vented Bulbul. One participant also brought a Mizo book on wildlife to look up local names – it surely helped. I observed that some o