News…….
A scanned news item from 'Asian Age' which reported on the wildlife photography exhibition.
" How many colours are there on a peacock" ? " Why did the mongoose not attack the snake"? These were some of the many questions raised by the young children who were taking
part in 'Akshara' theatre's summer camp in the capital. The children were reacting after a screening of 'Sarang- The Peacock' . Ms Jalabala Vaidya, noted theatre artist and Dr.Susan Sharma, producer of the film responded to the questions and clarifications
from the youngsters.
Cathay Pacific Environmental Education Program for 2002 announced the winners for this year- Samira Sukhija and Tanmay Kale from Mumbai and Devangana Jha and Shilpa Ruby
Simon from Delhi. IWC.com was associated with the program in Delhi. An exclusive online chat for the winners and Cathay
officials was organized on the website in June 2002.
Views…….
" We have been through all Northeastern states ( of India ) and to us the best place in terms of environment seemed Arunachal Pradesh. Tripura was fine in terms of environmental
plans such as long term teak wood plantations, reforestation etc. Nagaland is almost bald because of slash and burn, same with Mizoram where we mainly saw second hand growth. The hills of Manipur to us seemed to be in a better state, same with some areas of
Meghalaya (especially south). Garo hills seemed to be in quite a good state.
Regarding fauna we had the best experiences in Tirap district of Arunachal where we could hear herds of hoolocks during the day and lizards at night. Also experiencing the
changes of atmosphere on an evening in the jungles of Siang (Arunachal Pradesh) was most impressive. West Kameng rainforest (especially in an area called "The Fog hole" was very very beautiful and appeared quite untouched. The high altitudes of Tawang / Bhutan
border seemed to be intact as well. Kaziranga of course is nice and the people are doing great work there. We haven´t made it to Namdapha, but to Keibul Lamjao in Manipur. It seemed huge but not very populated to us - but that impression could be wrong. We
were very much impressed by the prevalence of the habit of still hanging animal skulls on people´s houses - especially in Mizoram and the Naga territories. The problem with that is that people become more and animals become less - prestige remains and animals
become extinct sooner.
Of course all in all pollution seems less in the Northeast than in Indian metropolises such as Delhi or Calcutta. The Northeast in general has the potential of being an exceptional
terrain, if environmental issues may be heeded intensely and deforestation gets banned by carefully introducing other cultivation methods such as terracing to the people. But then again all these developmental aspects are so complicated that surely we are
not the right people to discuss them invaluably.
I hope this little excursion nevertheless was a bit helpful to you."
Dr. A. Stirn
Dr.Stirn@t-online.de (peter.van.ham)
"India's GNP per capita goes up when a chicken is born, but goes down when a child is born. Why? Because we place a value only on items of consumption, which a chicken is
and a child is not"
-Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar in 'Swaminomics'.
( Compiled by
Susan Sharma )