Narendra Modi authors 'green' book

Gandhinagar: After having authored books about the Emergency and RSS leaders, and having published even a collection of poems, chief minister Narendra Modi is showing his versatility and range as a writer, with a new venture. The CM has now come up with a book about climate change, an issue believed to be close to his heart.

The book, titled 'Convenient action — Gujarat's response to challenges of climate change', speaks of the CM's vision to tackle the problem of climate change. It covers the various initiatives taken by the Gujarat government to transform the state into a low-carbon economy and build on a model of positive partnerships to tackle climate change.

"This book is like a 'green autobiography' of CM Narendra Modi. Climate change is threatening the world, but Modi and Gujarat have shown how to tackle it," said Sanjay Singh, chief publisher for higher education at Macmillan Publishers India Ltd, to DNA.

A senior government official said that the issue of climate change is very close to the CM's heart.

"Gujarat was the first state to have a full-fledged department of climate change, as per the CM's idea. The government has also initiated steps to promote green energy by encouraging environment-friendly power generation. The book may speak about these initiatives," the official said.
According to Macmillan officials, the book, to have four colours, will comprise 250 pages. It will be available in both hard cover and paperback editions, which will be priced at Rs695 and Rs495 respectively.

Singh said that the book took three years to write, while the publishing deal was finalised this year. He declined to reveal the size of the initial print order, but said that it would be a very big book launch. "There will be functions in Ahmedabad, and in other cities too.

The book will be launched internationally as well," said Singh.
According to government officials, former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will launch the book and preside over the function,to be held on December 21, while IPCC chairman RK Pachauri will be the guest of honour. The book will be available from December 22 onwards.

A lion claw made out of buffalo horns, dog skin!

Ahmedabad: Make fake claws using body parts of dogs, goats, mongoose, cows and buffaloes and pass them off as original claws of the king of the jungle! This was the modus operandi of 25 tribals arrested by forest department on charges of poaching and cheating.

The gang of 25 tribals from south India was arrested on Tuesday morning with fake claws by the forest department, acting on a tip off from volunteers

of Prakruti nature club.

This is the second incident in recent times where fake claws are recovered from tribals who gain entry from nearby areas in the sanctuary as casual labourers. Earlier, on January 9, the Amreli police had used a decoy and arrested two people in connection with selling fake lion claws. Two fake lion claws with nine nails were recovered. The couple had demanded Rs 1.5 lakh from the decoy for the two claws.

Officials said that a case of cheating will be registered against the gang as they were found cheating people by selling fake claws. Sources in Sasan said that the math is simple: a single fake lion paw made from a buffalo horn would cost just about Rs 2,500 - Rs 3,000. But if a paw is shown to the prospective buyer, a single nail would cost anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000 per nail.

And if any one wanted the claw with all five nails, it would be anything between Rs 50,000 and Rs 75,000. This prompted the cheats to go to great lengths to craft together a paw with claws using hair, skin and bones of different animals.

Officials said lion’s claws are sold like gemstones in parts of Saurashtra. These claws are worn for virility and as a status symbol. Fishermen venturing out to sea wear it to make them ‘lion-hearted’. The fishermen and members of a particular community are known to encase these claws in gold and wear them as pendants.

Sources said that the manufacturing of the paw with nails was complex. First a nail like structure was prepared from the horns of the buffalo and then it was fitted into the paw using the skin of dog

or mongoose. The paw was filled with dried flesh of a dog. Hairs from the mongoose and goats’ tail were used to give it an authentic look.

Officials said that to a trained eye, the claws were obviously fake. The final report, however, will be submitted by the Forensic Science Laboratory. Ramesh Katara, the deputy conservator of forest, said that prima facie the seized paw appeared artificial and definitely not that of a lion’s.

Katara further said that the 25 tribal people arrested from Kodinar town of Junagadh district hail from Shimoga in Karnataka. The arrested people include 10 men, 10 women and five children. "During interrogation, we found that these people have made it their business to sale fake body parts of lions and other endangered animals," Katara said.

Principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife) R Asari said, “These are fake claws. The gang has even used adhesives and oil colours to make them look real. The gang has used domestic cattle along with skin of dog and goat. But we are not taking any chances. The FSL team has arrived to check the veracity of the seized material.”
 
By :times of india

HC stays land deals in Gir periphery

Issue involves possession of land by non-Maldharis

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has stayed land deals in the periphery of the lions’ den – the Gir sanctuary – as the issue of possession of land by non-Maldharis in the surrounding forest reserve is to be resolved before the division bench.

Earlier, a single-judge bench held that the land was allotted to Maldharis towards rehabilitation purpose. But since the land was sold to other people, it frustrates the purpose of conservation of forest and hence should be taken back by the forest department as per the Indian Forest and Wildlife Protection Act.

After declaring Gir forest as sanctuary, the government in 1977 began shifting 845 Maldharis from the forest to the outskirts and allotted plots for their rehabilitation. Some 588 families were given land in the periphery of the sanctuary. However, revenue department later allowed them to sell the land to non-Maldharis and 292 plots were sold out.

The forest department said, those Maldharis who sold their land actually went back to the forest. Hence the purpose for allotting the land was defeated. As per the state government’s declaration of the area as reserve forest, nobody except Maldharis should be allowed to stay or carry out non-forest activity on this land, which largely falls under the Mendarda block of Junagadh.

When the forest officials restricted one Anil Chudasama from construction on a land purchased in this area, he approached the authorities and later the high court. While the forest department insisted that such people who have purchased land from the Maldharis should be evicted, the revenue department had another take on it.

Last year, justice MR Shah appointed advocate Amit Panchal as amicus curie, who submitted a report that such land needs to be taken back. Accordingly, justice Shah held that Chudasama had no right to carry out construction or agriculture activity on the plot, though he was the third purchaser of the plot after the Maldhari sold it long ago.

The HC accepted that the land falls under reserved forest category. Moreover, justice Shah also directed the chief conservator of forest to inquire into the cases of 292 plots and decide as per the provisions of the forest act, which means that the land holding would be declared as illegal.

This had also an indication that the decision to allot land to the tribals in 1977 could be declared null and void. When this decision was challenged by Chudasama before a division bench, it ordered to maintain status quo on the land and clarified that the plot would not be sold without prior permission of the court.

Don’t become prey to lions: CJ
Ahmedabad: While ordering a stay on land deals in the reserved forest surrounding the Gir sanctuary, chief justice SJ Mukhopadhaya called for maintaining a balance between development and nature. The forest department has been maintaining that the increased grazing has resulted in decrease of prey for lions in the forest. Moreover, the forest officials have also been insisting that the sale of plots allotted to Maldharis be declared illegal, and non-Maldharis be evicted from the place. However, the petitioner claims that he has been deliberately harassed by forest officials due to other social consideration and his ownership of the plot is legal. To this, the chief justice commented, “Lions’ place has to be protected. You shift from the place before you become prey to lions.

By: TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NDTV-Toyota Eco Awards:Special Jury Award for Late Mr.Amit Jethva

Amit Jethwa: As the president of the Gir Nature Youth Club at khambha, Amit Jethwa had been active in fighting against encroachment of forests and poaching. He was also instrumental in the five year jail term of Bollywood actor Salman Khan for shooting an endangered Chinkara deer, a case that concluded after being pursued by activists for eight years. He campaigned vigorously against corruption among officers of the Indian Forest Service.  In 2007, he drew attention to the mysterious deaths of lions in Gir Forest including three that were shot within a few hundred meters of the Babariya forest guard outpost. The incident ultimately led to the uncovering of a large lion poaching gang. He was fighting a court case against illegal mining in Gir, when he was gunned down by 2 hired killers

Guns out in south Gujarat to kill man-eating leopard , Plz comment

The Wild Cat Has Killed Four Persons In Three Weeks In The Region



Times of india : Yagnesh Mehta

Surat: For the first time an order to shoot a leopard has been issued in South Gujarat’s forest region after the man eater killed an 11-yearold girl in the wee hours of Friday at Vareli Patna village in Mandvi taluka of Surat district. “In the past such orders had been issued in Godhra and Chhota Udepur. However, it is first time that an order to shoot a leopard has been given in South Gujarat,” said Deva Babu Ande, conservator of forest, Surat.

In Godhra, the order to shoot a leopard was issued in 2003 after it killed nine people. Similar incidents forced the authorities to issue an order to shoot the wild cat in Chhota Udepur in 2005. The order to shoot the leopard in South Gujarat comes in the wake of the wild cat killing four persons, including the minor girl, in Mandvi taluka of Surat district in a span of three weeks.

“The leopard has turned a man eater. We are taking help of a tracker, tranquilising experts and two teams which has two shooters to hunt down the leopard,” said Anil Vasava, deputy conservator of forest, Mandvi. The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the family of the deceased.

Kajal Rathod was sleeping with her mother, Lakhiben, in their house. Her father Ishwar was sleeping outside when at about 5 am a

leopard entered their house and attacked Kajal.

The leopard caught the victim from neck and dragged her outside the house. The victim’s screams woke up her mother who tried to save her daughter from the clutches of the fully grown wild cat but failed.

The victim was dragged to a sugarcane farm near the village around half a kilometre by the leopard. A group of villagers gathered on hearing Kajal’s parents shouts for help. The people followed the animal into the field which escaped on seeing the crowd. However, the leopard had eaten a large part of the victim’s body leaving only legs, one arm and the head.

Those who were recently killed by the leopard are Ravidas Arjun Valvi, 10, of Kamlapor village. He was attacked on November 5. Jasuben Daniya Chaudhary, 70, of Areth village, became the wild cat’s victim on November 13 while Priti Kiran Chaudhary, 21, was killed by it at Nandpor village on November 18. There were two other incidents of attack by the leopard in the area but the victims were fortunate to survive. Attacks on the cattle are a routine affair by the leopards in the rural areas of Surat district.

Meanwhile, a leopard was caught near Bhatkhai village of Mandvi on Saturday. However, forest officials believe it might not be the same man eater which had killed four people in the taluka.

Plz comment

RTI activist’s killer nabbed from Mumbai

Ahmedabad: Mumbai crime branch officials nabbed Sailesh Pandya, the man who had shot RTI and environment activist, Amit Jethava. Pandya was absconding since Jethava’s murder on July 20. He was nabbed on Tuesday on the basis of a tip-off received by Mumbai cops about a gang of criminals operating in the area. The cops have also seized a revolver from Pandya. Police sources say that it is the same weapon used to kill Jethava opposite Gujarat high court.


According to sources, Pandya was hiding in Mumbai and was in touch with other criminals. Sources added that Rajiv Kadam, additional commissioner of police (crime), Mumbai had got information about a criminal and found Pandya during a search. During questioning, he said that he was wanted in Gujarat in connection with a 2010 murder case and two attempt to murder cases of 2008.

When TOI contacted city crime branch officials, they feigned ignorance about the development. However, later, after contacting their counterparts in Mumbai, city police officials confirmed the arrest. According to a senior official, a team will start off for Mumbai early on Wednesday to get custody of him, after Mumbai police completes the formalities.

Jethava was shot dead at point-blank range by Pandya, along with another man, Pachan Shiva. The duo came near Jethava when he was coming out of Satyamev Complex opposite HC on July 20. Officials said that Jethava’s role as an activist had hindered some projects in protected forest areas. This had irked the powerful mining lobby.

In subsequent investigation, four persons were arrested for the murder, including Shiva Solanki, nephew of Junagadh MP Dinu Solanki, Bahadursinh Vadher, a police constable, Pachan Shiva, Vadher’s friend and Sanjay Chauhan, who pointed out Jethava to Pandya.

by: TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Environment Ministry Team Visits India's Largest Nuke Power Plant Site

MADBAN VILLAGE (Ratnagiri): A 14-member team of the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) finished inspecting the proposed site for India's largest nuclear power plant (10,000 mega watt), which is to come up in this scenic coastal village, in less than two hours on Thursday afternoon.

As declared, the team did not meet the villagers who have been opposing the project for the past five years. However government sources said that there was nothing wrong with the visit which was a site inspection trip of the MoEF expert assessment team. Union minister for environment Jairam Ramesh had promised the villagers that the environment clearance for the project would be given only after all the doubts of the villagers had been answered.

The nuclear plant which is to come up in the form of six reactors of 1,650 mega watt each, manufactured by the French firm AREVA, is slated to come up between a large grassy plateau and the shore.

The MoEF team which came in a luxury bus under police escort, was spotted going to the plateau at 10.30 am. It left the site at 1 pm. Since it takes an hour to reach the shore from the laterite plateau which has no roads, villagers estimated that the expert team would have had less than half an hour for inspection. "We learnt that the expert team was accompanied by officials of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India. In all fairness, they should have met us also," said Pravin Gawankar, president of Janhit Seva Manch Samiti, Madban. "This only strengthens our suspicions that the government is trying to hide something," he added.

"The Indian government is obviously in a hurry to clear this project before the visit of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy in December," said Satyajit Chavan of the Konkan Vinashkari Prakalp Virodhi Samiti, which is also opposing the host of thermal power plants that are coming up in the two coastal districts of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.
Only a handful of the villagers have accepted the compensation cheques and the rest are resolutely opposed to the nuclear plant on environmental grounds. One of their objections is that Konkan is in the seismic zone 3 and is prone to earthquakes. On Dussehra, the villagers defied prohibitory orders and lit bonfires of the new compensation package announced by state revenue minister Narayan Rane whose son Nilesh is the MP from Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri.

The police is now using this incident to round up activists of the Samiti before the 'Jail Bharo' agitation of the villagers on Friday. "The police have raked up some old and concocted cases against our activists to prevent us from gathering in large numbers," said Gawankar. The police had come to arrest him too when he was speaking at the rally at the fishing village of Tulsunde on Thursday afternoon. But he got wind of it and escaped by boat.


Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Girl mauled by leopard, dies

Rajkot: A 10-year-old girl was dragged away and killed by a leopard at a field in Dhari taluka of Amreli district on Monday night. This is the second such incident in last 15 days when a leopard has killed a child in the region.


According to reports, victim Laxmi Devi Pujak and her family had come to the village to meet her aunt. The incident happened in the night when Laxmi was collecting firewood from the field in Dangawadar village. The leopard pounced on her and dragged her to an adjacent field. Hearing her screams, villagers rushed to Laxmi’s help. But by then, the big cat had escaped, leaving behind her body.

The incident has caused panic in the village, especially as this is the second such death recently. Earlier, an eight-yearold tribal girl was dragged away while she was sleeping at night in an open hutment at a farm and killed by a leopard in Dhari range of the Gir sanctuary. Chandrika Bamaniya, a native of Jambua district in Madhya Pradesh, and her family had moved to Gopalgram village in Dhari taluka of Amreli district for labour work in agriculture. The family was sleeping in a makeshift arrangement in an open agriculture field.