Silver Lining ?

60 days back if some one would have predicted that I would be able to listen to any one of the 3 news pieces from the Indian government, I would have shrugged off my shoulders and asked the gentleman to stop day-dreaming. To be able to listen to these 3 news pieces on a single day surely seems like a fairy tale. Manmohanics surely is not new to India, as we are still reaping the benefits of 1991 market reforms. The last 5 year term also saw Manmohan bring about some landmark decisions like Indo-US nuclear deal, NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme) and 70000 crore farm loans waiver despite being under the LEFT scanner for major portion of his stint as PM.
News that is coming in is that Nandan Nelikeni has resigned from Infosys board and has been appointed as the chair-person of the Unique Identification Number (UIN) card project. And the post it seems is equivalent to a cabinet minister’s post. This project aims at providing UIN cards to each of the 1 billion Indian citizens over the period of 4 years and is expected to generate mini IT and other outsourcing projects worth 10000 crores. UIN project aims at creating a sort of an identification number analogous to the Social Security Number in US and EU countries. While I know its late coming, but its surely something that we all as Indian citizens can boast of the largest system in the world, when it actually is implemented. The system is all great, but I am more excited about the fact that a top brass corporate brain has been literally uplifted from India’s brightest company. While this is not for the first time that a corporate guy has been approached for a government project, but none can match the caliber of Nandan Nelikeni. While I have listened to Mr. Nelikeni over the years in various interviews, he seemed not all that keen to join politics, but his book IMAGINING INDIA surely threw up few clues that he might be interested in giving something back to India. What was more heartening is the fact that the PM himself had called up Nandan and persuaded him to take up the job. One more pleasing fact that has been brought up is that the entire process took only 3 weeks – decisions at the speed of thought. This might just be a decision when many able decision makers – Manmohan Singh, Nandan Nelikeni, Narayan Murthy and many others justified as to why they are called as able decision makers.
Another news piece that came up was the 100 day plan for education from Kapil Sibal. Kapil talks about abolishing the 10th board exam and replacing the 12th board exam with an All India common entrance test. Huge debate has already been raised whether he has gone overboard in disclosing his plan and many state boards have already opposing it. While I am not sure of Kapil being able to meet his deadline and implementing his plan in full, but Kapil has surely made his intentions clear to stay clear from the path (inclusion of Sanskrit and Jyotish shastra in education and reservations in IIM’s) that his 2 predecessors had followed.
Another newspiece which might not have gathered too much space on the media pages, but is quiet as important as the other 2 news in this blog. PM has asked for transparency and public accountability from his cabinet of ministers. He has also asked the ministers to publish quarterly report on their respective portfolios. No doubt, this is a step forward in the right direction.

Tiger, Tiger Shining Bright ??

It was very sad news that I received from this morning news that Cyclone ‘Aila’ has hit West Bengal and Bangladesh. Along with the news of about 50 people losing their lives in the burnt of Cyclone ‘Aila’, it is estimated that there would have been atleast a dozen tigers have seen their end with ‘Aila’. Sunderbans happens to be in the epicenter of the cyclone and it has resulted into a terrible loss to the Project TIGER efforts in the Sunderbans, which otherwise are considered as the safest among all the national reserves for the tigers. Sunderbans - where the land meets the sea at the southern tip of West Bengal, a stretch of impenetrable mangrove forest of great size and bio-diversity. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Sunderbans is a vast area covering 4264 square km in India alone. The Indian Sunderbans forms the largest Tiger Reserve and National Park in India and is a home to approximately 500 Bengal tigers in 2004 (not sure of the number though as there are contrasting figures available). The Bengal Tigers have adapted themselves very well to the saline and aqua environs and are extremely good swimmers.

The above news piece may be the making of another debacle after the SARISKA Shock for the tiger conservation enthusiasts in 2005. Those of who don’t know SARISKA, The Sariska tiger reserve is spread over about 881 sq km semi-arid region of western India's Aravalli Hill Range in Rajasthan and not too long ago, a trek to Tiger Point in Sariska Tiger Reserve used to almost guarantee views of the big cats and now antelopes graze with little to fear near a redundant sign depicting a picture of India's national animal. This was once considered as an ideal habitat given the plentiful supply of prey -- chital, sambar and wild pigs. The predators have disappeared from the reserve after its population of 14 tigers (controversial figure – many believe that 14 was an exaggerated figure even in 2003; the fact remains everyone has now resorted to the fact that there are no big cats in Sariska) was wiped out by poachers in the period between 2003 & 2005, a massive conservation scandal widely blamed on the negligence of the park and state government authorities. As an “apex predator”, the tiger heads nature’s food chain and holds the key to preserving the air, water and forests of our imperilled planet. By eating about 60-80 animals a year, a tiger keeps a check on the population of herbivores, who would otherwise denude the jungle of its every seed and root. Another tiger reserve going the SARISKA way is the PANNA national park in Madhya Pradesh where in only 1 tiger is reported to be seen last in Dec 2008. Efforts have been made to transship a female tigress from Bandhavgad to see if we can somehow breed tigers in PANNA.
One startling truth for the reason of the dwindling tiger population in the recent years is the paradox of income between the poacher and the forest guard. You could be a poacher, kill a tiger and sell it in black. Bingo! It brings you Rs 30 lakh overnight. Or you could be a forest guard and risk your life day and night to save the tiger from being poached. You could do that 30 years and still not make nine thousand a month. If you don’t laugh off this crazy math it is likely to stab at your brain during the endless silent marches in the brooding woods. I know this is not the only reason, but this can lead to activity among the grey cells of the administrators.









To get a macro perspective of the tiger conservation efforts, I have tried to plot the tiger population over the years. As always, this graph revealed a lot of truths around the TIGER and the tiger conservation efforts over the years. At the start of the 20th century it was estimated that around 40000 to 45000 tigers were dwelling in India’s forest cover. However the first 50 years of the century saw tigers reduced to only 5000, Thanks to the royal ways of the Maharajas and the British Viceroys and Governor Generals. In fact traditionally hunting was always considered a royal sport, however during this period, a special liking was developed for the tiger.
After independence, also the rate of tiger hunting was always on the rise, when the then PM, Indira Gandhi launched the Project TIGER in 1973. With the emphasis from the top and some good administrators, this project served as a silver lining among the grey clouds, India was able to seriously able to curtail the threat of Tiger’s extinction. You can see the growth of tigers in the NATIONAL reserves grow from 268 to 1400 in 20 years. Growth was also seen outside the NATIONAL reserves. However in India, good things don’t always last, the tide shifted back somewhere in the late 80’s and tigers were at risk again. The TIGER protection system had completely collapsed. While officials were busy misreporting the record of tiger numbers, poachers roamed about and cleaned the reserve out. Villagers here regard the tiger, and the park administration, as their common enemy no 1: they live sandwiched between the two, and are bitter about their desperately wretched existence and continued harassment. Due to the ban on tiger skin in India, the demand for tigers had reduced. However smugglers found some demand across the porous Chinese and Nepal border in the form of tiger bones for some Chinese Medicine and also the rich Tibetans buy a lot of tiger skin to show off their wealth and prowess during their local festivals. Also various urban development and mining development led to deforestation, which seriously has impacted the wild life population. One solacing fact is that the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama has urged his subjects not to resort to tiger skin in their traditional festival in Chennai last year and he hopes that the demand for skin would reduce in Tibet at least.






That graph revealed some shocking to the Indian authorities that the forest officials have been misreporting and exaggerating the tiger population; thanks to a primitive method of counting tigers and also did not want the alarm bells to ring. However in 2007, for the first time, a scientific method has been used for the tiger count in the said census, which has minimized the chances of manipulation and the tiger estimate now, is only 1400 tigers across India. It was evident that all was not well with the Indian tiger. It is this concern that led the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to personally intervene and review the conservation efforts. The Prime Minister described the state of affairs as the worst crisis of wildlife since the inception of the Project Tiger. The Prime Minister also asked for the Tiger Task Force to be set up, with a mandate to review tiger conservation and to suggest a new paradigm that shares the concerns of conservation with the public at large.
TIGER TASK FORCE was formulated under the leadership of Sunita Narain. The TIGER TASK FORCE report throws up some interesting suggestions like improvement in the forest protection force and their equipments, relocation of people settlements from the forest and since this cannot be done, improvement in the co-existence of tigers and people. Many suggestions were also brought up to increase the frequency and accuracy of tiger census. Also suggested was how do we increase the tiger tourism and how do we better utilize the revenue generated from tourism.

TIGER is an interesting animal and unlike most of the predators, it prefers to live alone. The tiger society revolves around the breeding female, who starts breeding at three-four years of age in a relatively fixed home range. She has tenure of five-seven years before she loses her range to a vigorous competitor. The adult male tiger has a larger range, overlapping several breeding females — three on an average. In favorable conditions, females give birth to litters of three-four cubs once every two-three years. When roughly two years old, the young are abandoned by their mother and these are known as dispersing transients (floaters) by biologists. Tigers move 10-15 km per day. Transient tigers can move over hundreds of kilometres in search of new homes. Ideally there should have an increase in the tiger population every year. However, the young tiger, in search of territory, moves beyond the protected enclave to the world outside. Once there were forests outside the reserve, and the tiger had survived. But now the landscape is degraded. Poor people live there. They live on the forests. But no investments have been made to improve their habitat. Wildlife managers say that the tiger cannot be protected within the ‘enclaved islands’ that our reserves have become. In the last tiger ‘census’, more than half the big cats were found not inside but outside the tiger reserves. These are lands which the tiger shares with people. But as the forests degrade in the landscape, the habitat shrinks. The protection of the tiger is inseparable from the protection of the forests it roams in. But the protection of these forests is itself inseparable from the fortunes of people who, in India, inhabit forested areas. Thus, any regulatory or enforcement regime that wishes to throw a protective ring around the tiger must take into cognisance that, apart from the tiger, the protection equation contains two other variables: the forests and the people that live in and around it. This is the unique situation conservation in India has always faced and tried to grapple with. If we work hard, we can protect a few hundred tigers in the protective islands of our reserves. If we improve our enforcement, we can protect a few more. But if we really want to safeguard the future of tigers, we will have to regenerate our forests.

Lets HOPE that PM’s personal interest in TIGER conservation would try and emulate and surpass the results achieved by project TIGER in the 1970’s.
PS: Despite the dwindling tiger population, some good news is flowing in from the Terai region of the Himalayas where the number of tigers is actually increasing! A significant growth in tiger population has been observed in the Corbett National Park, the Rajaji National Park of Uttarakhand, the Dudhwa National Park of Uttar Pradesh and the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar.

Chronicles of 6/6

As I am going through this most leisurely time of my life (Never would I have ever imagined and nor would I ever of experiencing such a period in my life again), I have been forced to read a lot of stuff from all sources. One of the manuscripts gave me this interesting quote to ponder “A lion wakes up everyday and starts running after a deer to survive. A deer wakes up everyday and starts running from a lion to survive. So the point is that it does not matter whether you are a lion or a deer. You just have to keep running.” So very true!! We as homo-sapiens also tend to follow this maxim inherited from our evolution partners and therefore are always on the run, except when a series of events happen to go against you.
Flashback!! Another of those weekends was approaching and I was pondering over my mind, that it was almost 6 weeks that I had not visited the place of my genesis and it was a long enough frequency that I had not troubled my mom. But then another thought struck me, saying that it would be better off visiting next week end since it coincided with my birthday and it was a long time that I frequented in Belgaum on that special day and the very thought, that I may plan out some outing with my near ones, helped me make that quiet an easy decision at the end. (Wish I did travel that week and it was worth while travelling again the next week end) Well Friday evening, planned out a party with my department buddies (The ceiling amount proposed for each occasion, was such a big hit – we almost had a party every fortnight). Well, this time the venue was Banjara Hills and it was almost midnight that we reached home. Just went through the news headlines on NDTV, before I realized that the results of those tiresome cardio sessions were showing up. No!! I am not talking about the weight, but it was a pain that I had developed in my left ankle (Fortunately, my weight also reduced by about 5 kgs in those 2 months – never knew that I would regain it back again soon). Having the burden of pain in the left ankle, before retiring to sleep, I thought I would skip my cricket game tomorrow (Would have been an wise decision).
Chirping birds – While they did manage to wake me up as usual in the morning, I was late by atleast an hour (Got up at 7:35 am – Wish that I got up further late). I was in 2 minds whether to go and play or rest for the day; but the thought of Tomato Omlet at Roopali and the image of ducking out on a rising delivery on the slippery surface of the pitch after the lashing showers in the last couple of days just pushed me out of the bed (Wish I never succumbed to the temptation) and there I was on the bike, with the Radio Mirchi’s Masakali dhun accompanying me all along my way. The ride in the early morning fresh chill (So what, if it was eight in the morning) as a result of the first showers after a scorching hot summer is just something that cannot be described with words. By the time, I reached the ground, it was almost the end of the first game and I was just resting under the tree behind the wicket keeper. When it was time for game 2, I was selected in the batting side and I was asked out to open the innings. I denied the request to open and opted to bat lower down the order (Wish I did honor that request). Having denied the batting, I thought I would umpire the game and had started my walk towards the non strikers’ end, when I was asked to join the bowling side (just to balance the 2 teams up) and I said a reluctant yes to the offer (Wish I had rejected the offer) since I was very excited to be in the batting side. Fielding close on either side of the wicket was my preferred position and now days I don’t have to fight for it, since people give up that position for me. I took my fielding guard on the leg side, when one of my close mates asked me if he could field in that position and asked me to go to Long-on (Wish I said NO). Four overs later – a dropped chance (a fairly difficult one though) and misfields from my co-fielders on the boundary line had just pumped me up when a ball was hit in the midwicket area. I thought that the ball was close for me to field it up and prevent the second, however when I did run towards the ball, the ball was beckoning me and was hurriedly inching towards the boundary line. I just increased up my speed and just when I thought that I had the chase under my control and would stop the boundary, I was down there rolling myself on the ground atleast 3 times, before I could hear a scream “Abhya” (I suppose it was AJya who yelled) and saw the ball roll over the boundary. Till then I was not sure (am still not sure) what had happened to me in the last minute, but I recall the next moment, the whole team was around me and I was explaining to them that I have just lost my control my right leg. I had a look at the place where I rolled and found a small depression caused by the stream of the rainwater which I believe I stepped into. When 20 plus engineers are given a problem, more often than not, they come up with many solutions and here the problem was how to take me to the hospital. Out of the many solutions, one was quickly finalized and there I was being man-handled (for sake of sanity, don’t take the literal meaning) by 5 people and even the rest of the gang one did a good job in putting across in a Santro – quiet a back door entry literally (I was later appraised by my cousin doctor, as to how critical job was it to transfer me in that condition, since even if I had been slightly mishandled, there was a very high risk of damaging a main nerve - forgot the name and thus I was deprived of yet another of those complicated operations and a very taxing recuperation). We reached Deenanath hospital and I was being transferred to the casualty ward via a stretcher. After the painkilling injections, I was taken to the X-ray room and in about 20 mins, I had that bouncer of my life – I had fractured my right femur bone, (yes the strongest and the longest bone in the human body!!) and had to be operated to insert a steel rod. More bad news to follow, the recuperation time was 8 to 10 weeks – this news certainly was a yorker and it literally blew my pulse rate up in the sky. Phone calls and messages were being used at will to inform all the affected ones.
Long after that 7 hour long mid-night operation, when I was transferred to a private ward and there I was watching a T20 match and an insurance ad was being aired where a girl with a fractured leg sitting in a wheel chair, being mobilized by her boyfriend are enjoying the rain in a lush green lawn.
Jiyo Befikar - Bajaj Allianz Ad

Watching that ad, as usual, I was tempted to write – Wish I had somebody like that; when I realized that instead of one, there were dozens of them who were willing to hold that fractured leg up for me, so that I could walk again. Mates, Never ever in my life (I know for sure, I would never be in the future), had I felt more secure to stand up tall on my feet.