Month: December 2019

Natural history notes from nature’s frontlines in India, for 2019

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The 500 plus stories we carried in 2019 had two overarching themes – the national elections and the string of extreme weather events that left India reeling. Amidst discussions of people’s issues and electoral promises, like little whiffs of fresh air came our stories that brought before the public wonderful creatures with whom we share our country.

Knowing about these species, their unique behaviours and habitats will motivate all of us, we hope, to do what we can to conserve India’s biodiversity. Our stories go beyond the popular tigers and rhinos and talk of lesser known and perhaps more interesting creatures that make their home alongside us.

India’s unique geography and evolutionary history have wrought biogeographical relationships between India and her neighbours. The Western Ghats has more in common with neighbouring Sri Lanka than the rather remote Himalayas, as this story on lizard evolution demonstrates. The Eastern hog deer, a denizen of the Southeast Asia, was found in Manipur at the Keibul Lamjao National Park. The deer in this area was earlier assumed to be the Western hog deer.

Before we move into 2020, here’s a roundup of the most interesting natural history notes we featured this year.

The swimming camels of Kachchh

The camel is the ship of the desert, but do they swim? Azera Parveen Rahman writes about the Kharai camels of Kachchh, which are dependent on mangroves for food. During monsoons, herds of these camels swim to mangrove islands and stay there for days. This spectacular event is under threat from rapid industrialisation and mangrove destruction. The National Green Tribunal made a decision in September to protect Kachchh’s mangroves, an important step in conserving the unique ecosystem.

The Gharials of Gandak

The population of gharials (Gavialis gangeticus), a crocodilian endemic to the Indian subcontinent, has gone up in the Gandak river in Bihar, reports Gurvinder Singh. A successful captive breeding programme brought up numbers from 15 in 2010 to more than 200 in 2017-2018.

The grizzled giant squirrel struggles to survive in the face of habitat loss 

The grizzled giant squirrel is endemic to some parts of southern India and Sri Lanka. A survey in Chinnar wildlife sanctuary has revealed that the population of grizzled giant squirrel has fallen by 78-85 percent, writes Manupriya. The species is listed as a “near threatened” species in IUCN Red List and faces threat from habitat loss and predators.

An SOS call for the ‘Tiger of Kaveri’

The orange-finned mahseer or hump-backed mahseer, believed to be endemic to the Kaveri river that flows through the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has been an enigma for anglers all over the world and a source of much debate among ichthyologists and environmentalists. The IUCN has red-listed the hump-backed mahseer, as critically endangered following a taxonomic evaluation and a scientific name, Tor remadevii. This has sparked differences of opinion among experts, writes Arathi Menon.

The barking deer enigma

The Indian muntjac or barking deer, one of the most primitive deer groups in the world, is found in forests across most parts of India. The species is fascinating to scientists because of its abnormally low chromosome number, writes Bhanu Sridharan. Females have six and males have seven, the least among mammals.

Horseshoe crabs: living fossils battling threats

The four extant species of horseshoe crabs in the world are imperilled because of overfishing for use as food, bait, production of biomedical products derived from their blood, habitat loss or alteration due to shoreline development. In India, where two species of horseshoe crabs are found, bycatch in the fishery sector and habitat loss are some of the most pressing challenges.

Why Tamil Nadu needs more palmyrah, the state tree

When Cyclone Gaja hit Tamil Nadu, it caused widespread destruction, but most of the palmyrah trees were unaffected and stood firm, writes Jency Samuel. Palmyrah is the state tree of Tamil Nadu and has ecological and economic value, aids biodiversity conservation and is climate resilient.

Recognise Himalayan wolf as a distinct species: study

The Himalayan wolf is a distinct species of wolf and shows unique genetic adaptations to difficult conditions in the Asian high altitude ecosystems, a study has found. Mayank Aggarwal reports on the study that recommends conservation of the keystone predator for the welfare of the Himalayan ecosystem.

Female seagrass flowers uncoil to reach pollen in undersea saga

A recent study has documented elaborate behaviour during pollination in the seagrass, Enhalus acoroides. In India, seagrasses abound in the southeast coast close to Gulf of Mannar, and on both archipelagos, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

The pangolin series: smuggling and illegal trade routes

The list won’t be complete without including our multiple stories on pangolin poaching: an interview with wildlife crime detective Samuel Wasser, how pangolin poaching to China is thriving as rhino poaching declines in Assam (by Anup Sharma), the illegal trade routes for trafficking (by Sahana Ghosh) and the status of the Indian pangolin in the Eastern Ghats.

(This story first appeared in india.mongabay.com)

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The life of Sonny Mehta — the Fred Astaire of editing

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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When he used to visit New York as a London-based publisher in the Seventies and Eighties, Sonny Mehta would often be asked whether he was related to Zubin Mehta, the conductor, or Ved Mehta, the New Yorker writer. “No,” he would reply, “I’m the other Mehta, the untalented one.”

Such tongue-in-cheek self-effacement was typical of Ajai Singh Mehta, to give him his full name, who died on December 30 at the age of 77. He headed legendary American publishing house Alfred A. Knopf for over three decades, publishing several Nobel literature laureates, Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize and National Book Award winners, as well as hugely popular authors from Michael Crichton to Jackie Collins. In Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton, he is described as “a man of taste, integrity, deep loyalty to his authors.”

His wife, Gita Mehta, sister of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, is known in her own right as a director of documentaries for UK, European and US channels, for being an NBC correspondent from Bangladesh in 1971, and for Karma Cola, her wry 1980 book on “marketing the mystic East”.

Mehta was the son of career diplomat Amrik Singh Mehta, who represented India at the United Nations office in Geneva, and later in Damascus, Bucharest and Vienna, among other locations. He thus had a peripatetic childhood, studying at Sanawar School, India, and Sevenoaks School, the UK, from where he went to Cambridge for degrees in History and English Literature.

An ability to forge personal bonds 

He made his mark in the world of London publishing when he co-founded Paladin, which brought out The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, his former Cambridge friend. He also relaunched the Picador imprint, which published several writers who went on to have glittering literary careers, among them Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, and Graham Swift.

In 1987, he moved to New York to join Knopf, being recommended to the owners by the man he replaced, Robert Gottlieb, who was leaving to edit the New Yorker. “It had to be Sonny Mehta,” Gottlieb later wrote, “who not only had the crucial passion for books of quality, and the knowledge of how to publish them, but who had something I lacked— a significant presence in the world of international publishing.”

At Knopf, the soft-spoken and frequently taciturn Mehta overcame cultural barriers with a well-honed literary instinct, an ability to forge personal bonds with writers, and a skill for marketing. As Gita Mehta once recalled, “When Sonny published Love in the Time of Cholera here, he said: I’m not going to mention that Marquez got a Nobel Prize so that people are frightened. I’m just going to sell it as a great, great love story.” The way he himself put it was: “A publishing house generates its own vitality…by showing what they’re publishing. Too many people have bitten the dust because they’ve delivered an ideological statement and then not delivered the goods.”

He devoted the same attention and care to not just prizewinning volumes by Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy, but also those such as Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and EL James’s Fifty Shades series. He soon was seen as one of the most influential publishers in the world, receiving the 2015 Person of the Year Award from Publishers Weekly and, more recently, the Maxwell E. Perkins Award which honours “the work of an editor, publisher, or agent who over the course of his or her career has discovered, nurtured and championed writers of fiction in the United States.”

Belief and optimism

“The biggest kick,” he once said in an interview with the New York Times, “is reading something new and exciting and then getting other people to share your enthusiasm. Beyond all the cant and hypocrisy in publishing, that’s what it’s all about.” Authors were quick to sense his belief and optimism. Haruki Murakami, of their first meeting in 1991, said, “He had a quiet way about him, a special style of his own, and I knew this was someone I could trust, and work with for a long time to come.” John Banville commented, “he loves books, their content, their design, the heft of them in the hand,” and Anne Tyler, more pithily, referred to him as “the Fred Astaire of editing”.

Speaking to Dave Eggers for a Vanity Fair profile a few years ago, Mehta remarked: “On a good day, I am still convinced I have the best job in the world.” It’s a job and an industry that his skills, and his delight in discovering great manuscripts, have immeasurably benefited from.

Sanjay Sipahimalani is a Mumbai-based writer and reviewer.

Read his columns here.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Railways hikes fares, the first since 2014-15

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Railway will raise fares by up to 4 paise a km, the first such hike since 2014-15, as it looks to expand passenger amenities and facilities at various railway stations and trains.

“It has become imperative to increase the fare marginally without overburdening any class of passengers,” the rail ministry said in a statement.  “Fast modernisation of Indian Railway will be achieved through this fare revision.”

The “marginal increase in fares” will cover only the non-suburban sections. The increase in fare will be on tickets bought on or after January 1, 2020. No excess fare (difference of fare) will be charged from passengers who have booked tickets before January 1, the ministry said.

The fare revision is as below:

• Ordinary Non-AC classes : Fare increase by 01 paisa per km.
• Mail/Exp Non-AC classes : Fare increase by 02 paisa per km.
• AC classes: Fare increase by 04 paisa pe km.There will no increase in suburban fare and season tickets.

Since the last fare revision in 2014-15, there has been a steady up-gradation and expansion of amenities. That apart, the burden of 7th Pay Commission on the railways has necessitated the rationalisation of fares, the ministry said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Protesters attack the US embassy in Baghdad

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Protesters attacked the US Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday and the ambassador and other staff were evacuated as anger over US airstrikes on Iraq erupted into violence.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump accused Iran of orchestrating the unrest and said Tehran would be held responsible.

The protesters and militia fighters stormed and burned a security kiosk at the entrance of the US Embassy but did not breach the main compound as security forces and embassy guards fired tear gas and stun grenades, Reuters witnesses said.

They threw stones at the gate while others chanted, “No, no, America! No, no, Trump!”

Iraqi special forces were deployed around the main gate to prevent them entering the embassy. US-trained and -equipped Iraqi Counter-Terrorism forces later reinforced them.

The US planes on Sunday had attacked bases belonging to an Iranian-backed militia – an action that risks drawing Iraq further into a proxy conflict between Washington and Tehran at a time when mass protests are challenging Iraq’s political system.

The attack on the Kataib Hezbollah militia was in response to the killing of a US civilian contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base.

“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will,” Trump said in a tweet.

“Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the US Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified.”

The two Iraqi foreign ministry officials said the US ambassador and other staff had left, but they did not say when. A few embassy protection staff remained, they said.

A few hours into the protest, tear gas was fired in an attempt to disperse the crowd and some of the militias encouraged protesters through loudspeakers to leave.

Security guards inside the embassy also fired stun grenades at protesters outside the gates of the compound. Reuters correspondents heard at least seven loud bangs.

“We have delivered our message, please leave the area to avoid bloodshed,” one announcement said.

‘CLOSED IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE’

Iraqis have been taking to the streets in their thousands almost daily to condemn, among other things, militias such as Kataib Hezbollah and their Iranian patrons that support Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government.

But on Tuesday, the militias sprayed “Closed in the name of the people” on the gates of the US Embassy and smashed the surveillance cameras around the building with bricks and stones. Some set up tents in preparation for a sit-in.

Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, and many other senior leaders were among the protesters.

“Americans are unwanted in Iraq. They are a source of evil and we want them to leave,” Khazali told Reuters.

Khazali is one of the most feared and respected Shi’ite militia leaders in Iraq, and one of Iran’s most important allies.

Kataib Hezbollah is one of the smallest but most potent of the Iranian-backed militias. Its flags were hung on the fence surrounding the embassy.

Militia commander Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, also known as Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, and Badr Organisation leader Hadi al-Amiri were also at the protest.

Abdul Mahdi has condemned the airstrikes, which killed at least 25 fighters and wounded 55.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Rally in crude oil prices to sustain in 2020, say analysts

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Crude oil prices have been volatile in the year 2019 but they are on the track for their biggest annual rise since 2016.

Brent has gained about 24 percent in 2019 and WTI has risen roughly 36 percent for the year.

Supported by a thaw in US-China trade dispute and supply cuts pledged by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and its allies, both the benchmarks are set for the biggest yearly gain in three years.

“Ever since December 6 when Opec decided for deeper output cuts from March 2020 onwards, the sentiment has turned bullish. Tension in the Middle-East is another positive factor. Hence in the anticipation of lower supplies, the market is positive,” said Jigar Trivedi, Fundamental Research Analyst – Commodities, Anand Rathi.

On the domestic front, MCX crude oil has appreciated by nearly 10 percent in December.

Given the 10-percent rise, a possibility of technical correction could not be ruled out, said Trivedi, adding that the trend, however, remains positive.

Going ahead, the rally in crude oil prices is believed to sustain in the upcoming six months of the year 2020.

Trivedi expects WTI oil to find support at $58/bbl and move higher towards $64-67.5 per barrel.

On MCX, Crude oil may trade in range facing resistance at Rs 4,600 per barrel while taking support near Rs 4,250 per barrel.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow