Guests in our balcony

The purple sun birds were regular visitors at our third-floor balcony garden. Other avian visitors, like pigeons, mynahs and sparrows, also came but there was something special about the not-so-common sunbirds. Unmindful of the Delhi summer they would appear from nowhere tweet sweet nothings, steal nectar from the conical buttercups, nestaciums, nayantaras and then disappear. They were a couple, the female yellow and grey, and the male a deep iridescent blue that glistened like a gemstone in the sun. Their visits were fleeting as the sunbirds never sat in one place, more often hovering like hummingbirds as they sucked the nectar from flowers. Flitting from this flower to that they would disappear into the nearby neem and jacaranda trees as soon as we appeared on the balcony. It made me proud that these birds were regular visitors at our hanging garden.

Then one day I noticed the pair hovering in our balcony rather frequently. They had become bolder too, no longer fleeing on seeing me. “Are they looking for a nesting site,” I thought. The plants and creepers in the balcony-garden had formed a bower, a canopy of sorts, it was a micro forest, a tiny ecosystem in itself. It could be an ideal place for nesting. “But then why should the pair choose a concrete balcony when they had a mini forest right beside our building blocks?” I reasoned. For two full days the tweeting couple kept frequenting the balcony like prospecting tenants, unable to decide. By the third morning my fears were confirmed when I saw the female fixing tiny thread like materials on the bamboo bridge that held the ivy branches.

I was thrilled. This was the ultimate tribute to my garden. “The sun birds are building a nest in our balcony!” I announced to Sangita and the kids. My excitement was contagious and I had a hard time holding back the family from disturbing the winged visitors. Soon I declared the balcony out-of-bounds. “No one will disturb the birds,” I ordered firmly. Luckily for us, the netted doors ensured that we could watch the birds while they couldn’t see us. It became our new pastime, watching the birds building their nest. Sorry, not birds, it was just the female that made tireless sorties carrying tiny threads and shreds of cotton wool in her beak. I kept wondering, “What happened to the male? Had he abandoned his wife? Perhaps he was collecting the building materials at the other end…Worst, perhaps, he had found another female.” I felt sorry for the lady sun bird. Male sun birds were generally monogamous. Was this fellow an exception?

Then on the third afternoon the male suddenly appeared, inspected the balcony, then the half-built nest, twittered and vanished. Just like all other males, I thought. But it was some solace; the thought that when the kids came out of the eggs their father will be around. “Dad, where will she lay the eggs?” it was my kids asking, breaking into my reverie. Even after three days the nest was just a rag-tag blob hardly resembling a home. But seeing the hard working female I was sure there would soon be a proper nest where she would lay her eggs. “Had the pair cohabited or would they do so only after the nest was ready,” I asked Sangita. She laughed. By day four the nest had taken a bulbous shape. Days five, six and seven the female bird spent most of her time bringing small cotton-like feathers that she padded inside the nest. The newborns would have a soft comfy home!   

Then there was no sign of the birds for an entire day. Another day and they were still not visible. I hurled accusations at Sangita. She had this habit of hanging the wet clothes in the balcony despite my express orders not to disturb the birds. She felt guilty. I had a sinking feeling that the birds had abandoned the nest. That’s when I spotted them cohabiting in the neem tree. So they built home first before planning the children. ‘Smarter than us humans, what do you say?’ it was my wife looking at me sarcastically. The next day the female was back at the balcony, bringing us relief. From that day the female started spending time inside the nest. Only its small head and large beak would protrude out of the nest. Spying on whether she was present in the nest became a new pastime. Her tiny head holding a disproportionately long hooked beak always peeped out of the nest. “I think she’s laid the eggs,” Sangita gave her opinion. One afternoon while she was away I climbed onto a chair and peeped inside the nest. There were no eggs in sight. “Perhaps they are deep inside the hollow,” I tried to explain.

Several days went by and the children began to protest, being unable to visit the balcony without drawing their father’s ire. Sangita too resented the idea of not being able to have her evening tea under the ivy. I had a difficult time trying to convince them. “Why don’t you understand, your presence will scare the bird!” I tried to explain to the children. They mocked, “Why don’t you understand, this is our home.” In trying to help the sunbirds raise a family, I was alienating my own. I wondered how many more days it would take for the eggs to incubate. And then I had a flash; “Google it!” The answer was found, ‘14-15 days for a yellow breasted sunbird’. That meant we had another ten long days or so to go! Those were long and hot days. The female would spend most of the afternoons away from her nest as though she had lost interest in her eggs. It was only in the nights that she sat without break in the nest, warming the eggs.   

During those days the male was never seen, and just when we thought he had abandoned his wife he appeared one afternoon, tweeted raucously, announcing that he was still the master of the house.. er nest! “Just like all men,” the thought crossed my mind yet again. Meanwhile, it took so long for the eggs to hatch we nearly lost interest in the nest and its occupants. And then the torrid summer heat prompted us to take a weekend break in the hills. Friday night we talked and Saturday morning we were gone. In six hours we were in a different world, dodging clouds that had invaded the hills impairing my driving visibility from time to time. For two days we had forgotten all about our Delhi home including the sunbirds. When we returned on Monday night, tired, the birds were the last thing on our minds. When I woke late the next morning there was no sign of the birds. I looked at the forlorn nest and was convinced that the birds had abandoned it.

“Tweet, tweet..” It was the mother bird! She was there, carrying a speck of food, a tiny green worm, in her tiny beak. And then she hopped onto her nest and clung to it, disgorging the food she was carrying. “The babies are born!” I screamed as wife and the kids huddled outside the verandah door to get a look. No we couldn’t see the newborns nor hear them. Perhaps they were too young even to squeak. But I was convinced they were born. Moreover, there was a perceptible change in the mother sunbird’s behaviour. Earlier she would “tweet-tweet-tweet…” a hundred times before entering the nest with a short “tit”. Now her tweets were more like a whisper, and she was more circumspect in entering the nest, making sure that the chick’s location was not revealed to predators such as us humans. There was another surprise confirming the addition(s) in the family. Like his wife, father sunbird too was ferrying tiny worms and insects for the little ones. “So he’s not exactly as uncaring as I thought,” I told myself. And he was no longer loud and raucous like earlier. Parenthood mellows you!

For the next few days we watched the parents disgorge food into the nest with unfailing regularity. It’s only on day four after our return that we noticed the open beaks of the young ones. There were two. Like a magic box they would spring into life, open mouthed, the moment one of the parents arrived. Food taken, they would disappear inside the nest. It was strange that the newborns were started on a high-protein non vegetarian diet when most of their adult life they would be living on the nectar from flowers. While mother sunbird spent the entire day foraging for food, in the evenings she would return to roost in the nest. It was a marvel how three birds, however tiny, could fit into that little bulb of a nest. Soon our interest in the routine of feeding the chicks began to wane; until they were exactly a week old.

It was Sunday. And to break the monotony of the week I made myself a screwdriver, vodka spiked with orange juice and ice. The heady feeling had just begun to soak in when I was jolted out of my wits. I sprang to my feet and screamed. The nest was being raided by a hawk! By the time I barged into the balcony shooing, the startled hawk had flown back into the cover of the neem and jacaranda trees across the small park in our housing society. I saw a few tender feathers floating down the air, a result of the scuffle as the hawks wings got caught in the clothesline. Then the defiant hawk began to scream furiously as though annoyed by my action. The nest was damaged but only slightly. I took a chair and peeped inside it. The chicks were not visible. Our family was visibly upset. The parent sunbirds meanwhile were at the neem tree screaming “tit.. tit.. tit….” The drama went on for several minutes until the hawk flew away. When the mother sunbird returned to the nest we saw the two baby-sunbirds popping out their open beaks. They were alive and unharmed.

“Guys I declare the balcony open once again, we have to keep vigil against the predator hawk,” I declared. My wife announced to the children, “Your father has gone mad.” The children laughed. Shaken, I wasn’t really surprised by the raid on the nest. I had been watching the hawk for the past few days and it actually did cross my mind, “What if it attacks the nest?” I had seen it create a flutter among the peaceful pigeons. The next few days were spent keeping a tab on the hawk. It wasn’t difficult. The moment it came on the neem or jacaranda tree the sunbirds would hover around the large bird as though challenging it, giving out loud warning calls “tit, tit, tit…tit, tit” until the hawk got irritated and flew away. The sun birds also had an ally in the form of a crow who also had a nest to defend in the neem tree. They, the crow and the hawk, would often spar on the branches of the tree until the hawk flew away. Looking out for the hawk became my new preoccupation. And as a precautionary measure, I slung a towel on the clothesline so it acted as a cover for the nest. Honestly, I was never too sure we could defend the fledglings from the preying hawk.   

Two days later I was woken by the alarm calls of the sunbirds in the distant jacaranda tree. When I woke up and got out of bed, I looked out for the hawk. It was there, surrounded by the paren sunbirds that raged ‘…tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet…!’ In the balcony I saw the female sitting motionless on the branch of a little tree on the balcony. Its breast was like a coat of fresh cream colour. But it looked different, I soon realized. ‘It’s the baby bird!’ In the same breath I asked, ‘Where was the boy?’ I looked towards the red jacaranda tree for an answer where the parent sunbirds were creating a racket around the hawk that was perched like a statue. Then I peeped into the nest and saw nothing. I hoped this time too I was wrong in thinking it was stolen. But there was something ominous about the unrelenting chaos in the Jacaranda tree where the sunbirds went,  “….tit, tit, tit….!” When the hawk flew away the parent sunbirds flew after it in hot pursuit. Much later the mother returned to our balcony.

Paying little heed to the female baby, she peeped into her nest. This time there was no magic-box appearance of the hungry, open beak. The mother peeped in several times but the young male was nowhere in sight. Then came the blue father bird. He too peeped into the lifeless nest and came back disappointed. Then both parents hopped around the living baby bird that suddenly whirred its wings and flew into the sky. The parents followed. And I thought I would see no more of the guests in our balcony. But a while later, the mother returned to her nest and called out to the baby boy. So did the father. They kept returning. There was something helpless and painful about their tweets now as if they were calling out to their lost child. On one or two occasions the birds came and sat silently on the clothesline. After that they were gone. “Forever..” I thought. But two days later, early morning the mother came again, inspected her nest hoping to see her stolen son.  The nest, that had until recently symbolized birth and life, dangled lifelessly.     

(The story doesn’t end there though. Next April, just before summer began, the pair returned again to our balcony looking for their old nest. Perhaps they wanted to inhabit it again. But the nest that had been dangling earlier was now lobbed on to the ivy bower. The birds discovered it; but finally chose not to nest it. Instead, they pecked away all the building material that was there in their old nest and used it in their new nest, nearby. “It was surprising, even birds reuse and recycle,” I told myself.)     

http://www.asianage.com/international/soils-blowing-wind-875

Soils: Blowing in the wind

Dec 29, 2015 

As the International Year of Soils (2015) draws to an end it may be pertinent to ask, how clean is our soil. Soil and clean? Sounds like an oxymoron. Perhaps that is why, while we speak of clean water or clean air, there has been very little talk about soil contamination. Like air and water, soil too has a direct bearing on the health of the people as 99 per cent of the food we eat grows on soil. Along with the food, we are also ingesting pollutants from the soil. Yes some of the pesticides and chemicals from the soil have entered our food chain. Before we go into more details, some facts about soil.

Soils are not inert. They are dynamic living systems. In fact, nowhere in nature are living species so densely packed as in some soil communities. Many insect species are soil dwellers for at least some stage of their life-cycle. A typical healthy soil is home to several species of vertebrates, earthworms, 20-30 species of mites, 50-100 species of insects, tens of species of nematodes, hundreds of species of fungi, bacteria and other organisms. Soil biota are central to decomposition processes and nutrient cycling. Soil is one of nature’s most complex ecosystems and one of the most diverse habitats on earth. Organisms inhabiting soils form a complex web of ecological activity called the soil food web that makes all life possible.
Take the humble earthworm, for instance. They ensure good, healthy soils, tirelessly digesting leaf litter and other biomass along with soil. In so doing, every 24 hours they produce one and a half times their weight of rich compost, high in all plant nutrients. The earthworm’s night soil has bacterial population that is nearly a hundred times more than in the surrounding soil. While burrowing they till the land, making it porous and easy to breath for the roots. By increasing the soil’s capacity to hold air, moisture and aggregates it helps to resist erosion. Like earthworms, other organisms living in the soil also nourish it. On good soils depends our world’s food security: let us not mindlessly trample upon them.
Ironically, actions we took, or are still taking, to make land more productive in order to meet the food requirements of our growing population have caused immense damage to our soil. The harm caused by excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers has been so extensive that it could pose a real threat to our food security. And by 2050 the earth’s population will bulge to 9.6 billion. Unfortunately, much of this “bulge” will come from India, besides China and neighbouring South Asia. The world will need 60 per cent more food. India, for sure, will need to arrest the bulge and reverse land degradation. A third of India’s land is already degraded, putting a question mark on the sustainability of its food production.
According to (2010) estimates of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, of India’s total area of 328.73 mha, about 120.40 mha is affected by various levels of land degradation. Nearly a quarter of India’s land is affected by desertification. As water and wind erosion is widespread across India, some 5.3 billion tonnes of soil gets eroded every year. Of this, 29 per cent is permanently lost to the sea, 10 per cent is deposited in reservoirs reducing their storage capacity, and the rest 61 per cent gets shifted from one place to another. Desertification or soil erosion, mainly caused by wind and rain, are natural phenomena we can mitigate by providing forest or other vegetation cover.
Where we need to bring about a major change is in the judicious use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Currently, many of the pesticides that India produces and uses extensively have been banned in other parts of the world. For instance, Monocrotophos, banned in the US because it killed birds and a wide variety of non-target insects, is still being used in India without any supervision. Excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides is particularly high in the north-western part of the country and is one of the major reasons for soil degradation. A fallout is that the pollinator population — bees, butterflies, insects and even birds — has dropped drastically, a fact borne out by the Global Pollinator Project that was implemented by FAO, GEF and UNEP in 12 countries including India.
Reviving soils or pollinators will require an ecosystem approach to farming. It’s time we realised that farming is part of the eco-system and that soils have to remain sustainable for future generations, also keeping in view its important role in carbon sequestration. For now, the responsibility for soil health lies somewhere between the MoA, MoRD, and the MoEFCC. Their energies need to be synergised and the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers, responsible for all the pesticides and chemical inputs, needs to be brought into the discourse of soil health. It has to be an integrated approach.
The country’s recently launched Soil Card programme may, to a certain extent, solve the problem, provided it is backed by extension services to farmers. While a wealth of knowledge and research on soils exists in the country these need to be communicated to farmers. Unfortunately, simple measures like using leguminous plants in nitrogen fixing through crop rotation or mixed cropping are not being practised extensively. The results are there for all of us to see. Perhaps it is still not too late to make interventions that prevent or even reverse land degradation. We need to remind ourselves, it takes a thousand years for 1 cm of soil to be formed. Let’s prevent our soils from being blown away in the wind.
Shyam Khadka is the India representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

The untouched forest of Pawalgarh: wildlife in Uttarakhand...in Outlooktraveller

Ashim Choudhury 

Sighting a tiger is something of a ‘luck by chance’ at the new tiger conservation reserve, Pawalgarh in Uttarakhand. But nonetheless, the virgin forest is worth exploring.

Pawalgarh, recently anointed a tiger conservation reserve, is to be found 18 kilometres beyond Ramnagar. Just after you meet the olive green Maruti Gypsy ‘trekkers’ in Ramnagar (who jam the way and pester you with, “Corbett, sir…Corbett?”), ignore them and take a right into a deceptively narrow road. This is actually the highway to Nainital. After about 12 kilometres down this route, which is intermittently interspersed with forests and farms, you come to a village that goes by the name of Bail Parao. We took a left, ducked under a forest check post and entered a teak forest. After driving onward for a little over six kilometres, we were in an open, flat land, painted green with wheat farms and dotted with homes on either side of the still-narrow road. This was beautiful Pawalgarh. We drove along a freshwater stream and finally entered a gate to our right. It was love at first sight with the forest bungalow here, built in 1902—with its colonial architecture, and the khansamas attending to the kitchen, it was like living in the days of the Raj. We even had a lit-up fire in the fireplace!

Subhoranjan Sen

The scenic Corbett Falls

That afternoon we hopped on to a ‘trekker’ to go to the conservation reserve across the road. Soon, we descended onto a sandy route through a thicket of sal, silk-cotton and other trees. In no time, we were upon a vast white expanse of sand and boulders. Dodging the round rocks, we soon crossed a stream…and then another stream. Our guide, Range Officer Kripal Singh Bisht, informed us, “We’re crossing the Dabka River.” It’s barely a stream now, but quite a fierce sight in the rains, when it turns brown in colour.
Would we get lucky enough to see a tiger? That was the thought uppermost on our minds as we were about to enter the Pawalgarh forest. Our ‘close encounter’ with the tiger had begun at Bail Parao. Just before taking the turn for the Pawalgarh Conservation Reserve, we had enquired about lunch at the wayside Annapurna restaurant. We retreated when we learnt that it was vegetarian, but the young owner entreated us to stay back. He would prepare ‘non-veg’ for us as long as we were discreet about it. And believe me, the pepper chicken at the vegetarian restaurant was among the tastiest chicken curries we’ve ever had!
As we ate, the young manager of the outlet, Ganesh Thakur, got talking about tigers. Pointing to a garden umbrella in front of his shop, he said, “There was a tiger standing here at this very spot about a month ago.” I took his tiger-on-the-main-road claim with a pinch of salt. But then I had to believe his story. “It was dark…around 4am in the morning,” he said. “The milk truck had come to deliver milk. When the driver saw the tiger, he called us on the phone, warning us not to get out of the house.” The tiger hung around for over 15 minutes before vanishing into the fields. No, Thakur had not seen the tiger with his own eyes, but he was ready to call the women of the house across the road—they had seen it. “Should I call them?” he asked. I had to stop him physically. Thakur concluded philosophically: “Seeing a tiger is luck by chance.” He recounted how a young couple, tourists who had eaten at his restaurant, spent a full day at Corbett looking for a tiger, in vain. “But they finally saw a seven-foot-long tiger on their way here,” he exclaimed. “It is luck by chance!” That was his credo.
Thakur’s story of sighting a tiger was given credence by two local women a day later, when we were buying groceries at Bail Parao. They had seen a tiger in the sugarcane fields just a little beyond the main road. “We were on our way to the primary school,” they said. And they giggled, tickled by the very thought.
But as we crossed the bumpy river bed that cuts through the Pawalgarh forest, looking out for the striped cat, there was only disappointment in store. Our only source of joy was tiny black fish in a pool of water formed by the sparse river. The water in the river, the forest guards informed us, was not from melting snow but from springs in the mountains.
We were by the edge of the thick forest, on the other side of the river now, when another piece of good news reached us. We were just taking a bend into the forest when Range Officer Bisht ordered the vehicle to stop. Pointing to a path that led in the direction of the river, he said, “This is where we saw a tiger—it walked away majestically and it was so large. We got the scare of our lives!” Bisht said it with a sense of self-importance, as though he were showing us a real tiger. Was it a male or a female? Bisht and his guards were not sure how to distinguish a male from a female tiger. But, yes, the pug marks can be revealing (longish for the female tiger; round and larger in males).

Subhoranjan Sen

A trail through Pawalgarh forest

A few minutes later, we climbed up the forested hill and entered the Hathi Galiyar elephant trail. Elephant herds, we were told, often take the same path, from which they rarely stray when travelling from one ‘elephant corridor’ to another. I was struck by the sheer size of the sal and other trees. Pawalgarh is a virgin forest with very little sign of human incursion.

Subhoranjan Sen

Nilgais at Pawalgarh

The only sign of human activity was at a clearing. Trees had been cut down to make way for grasslands. With winter just ending, the shoots of grass were still not out. But when fully green, they would be grazing grounds for the hundreds of spotted deer in Pawalgarh, and thus hunting grounds for tigers and leopards. Besides the chital, Pawalgarh is home to other antlers like the nilgai, and kakad, a small goat-like deer. There were also hares, wild boarsand langurs. Pawalgarh also has over 350 species of birds. Among the birds found here are the black stork, the Great Slaty Woodpecker, and a variety of hornbills.
It was in the mornings and evenings that birds were most active, even around the forest guesthouse. In the afternoon, we spotted a serpent eagle circling in the sky. But what was most heartwarming was the sight of (now endangered) vultures. Feeding on a carcass by the river bed, they looked like giants of the sky when taking off on their large wings.
In Hathi Galiyar, we saw elephant dung lying around a waterhole built by the forest department. Fresh water is brought through a pipeline connected to a spring some three kilometres away in the nearby forest. There is one more pipeline that feeds another waterhole a few hundred metres away. An elephant’s footprint was still fresh on the edge of the wet ground around the waterhole. Trap cameras were strapped to the branch of a tree, yet we saw neither elephant nor tiger anywhere near the waterhole. The evening light was fast fading. But stories from the forest guards accompanying us came thick and fast. “A few weeks back, the grey tusker came charging at the CCF,” said a guard pointing to the spot from where one walks towards the waterhole. ‘The grey tusker’ was an angry ageing male that was known to be particularly intimidating. “Never run away from an elephant—stand your ground and it will go away,” the guard informed us. “That’s what the CCF sahib did. And the grey tusker quietly turned away.” Stories about the Chief Conservator of Forests, Kumaon Range, Paramjit Singh, are legion. Considered the moving force behind the creation of Pawalgarh CR, Singh also heads the anti-poaching task force.

Subhoranjan Sen

The quaint forest bungalow at Sitabani

We returned from the first waterhole and clambered on to the trekker. This time round, we took the path further towards Sitabani. Suddenly, the trekker swerved from the path and turned left into the thick forest. We were feeling lost when, winding through the jungle, it finally stopped at a barrier. We were at another forest clearing, at another artificially created grassland with a waterhole. Our sudden arrival in this secluded place apparently scared the grazing chitals. They darted into the air and scampered into the forest on the other side of the grassland. Another herd, caught unawares by our presence, literally flew into the cover of the thick forest. Pawalgarh in many ways is a virgin forest in that the animals, unlike in neighbouring Corbett, flee at the sight of humans. Besides deer, we saw flocks of tiny parrots, flying across the clearing. By the time we got back to our trekker, it was close to nightfall.
At night, the forest takes on an ominous air. We were watching out for that lurking elephant or crouching tiger. With nothing to feed our fear and curiosity, we wanted to go to Sitabani, a few kilometres away. “It’ll not be safe to go to Sita Bani,” Range Officer Bisht told us. Animals, particularly elephant herds, could threaten our safety, he said. I looked at my kids in the back of the trekker, urging me to take the risk. I was in two minds: one asking for adventure, the other for safety. But Bisht, responsible for our safety, had already made up his mind. So we abandoned our plans to go further into the forest.
Instead, we retraced our path through Hathi Galiyar. After the darkness of the thick forest, the opening of the river afforded us some light. As we were crossing the river, my keen eyes caught a black piece of shit on a boulder. “What’s this?” I asked Bisht. I didn’t realise I had spotted the most precious piece of animal poo in my life. He got out of the trekker, took a close look with his torchlight, and announced, “Scat, tiger scat…do you notice the hair?” Yes, the scat has hair as well, because tigers eat their prey along with the fur and skin. By now, I was also out of the trekker to inspect the poo. Never in my life had I cared so much for a piece of poop. But this was no ordinary shit. In animal biology terms, we had hit upon a gold mine. Of the 46 tigers that inhabit Pawalgarh, a figure that the CCF vouches for, all we got to see was scat. Nothing more. I was reminded of Ganesh Thakur, the young restaurateur at Bail Parao. He was right. Seeing a tiger is luck by chance only!

Why save the Bumble Bee...?

The dwindling population of bees has become a global concern as it affects agricultural produce
By ASHIM CHOUDHURY in almora

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IF you are a city dweller, it is likely you haven’t seen a bumble bee in years. And there is not much hope to spot one soon either as their numbers are falling. Even in the countryside, their numbers have dwindled alarmingly. This needs to be taken seriously as they are among the best known wild pollinators. It is through pollination that plants and trees produce crops, vegetables and fruits. Though many crops are pollinated by the wind, a large number depend on bees, butterflies, drones, flies, insects, bats and birds.
Bumble bees help pollinate crops like coffee and large cardamom, among many others. The bumble bee is a metaphor, just like the tiger is a metaphor for saving our wilds and the environment. There are 18,000 wild bee species, besides butterflies, drones, hornets and flies, birds and bats whose free services are being increasingly missed. Apples, oranges, mangoes, apricots, strawberries and many other crops are likely to get affected due to the falling bee population. I was in the hills investigating this story when an onion farm in full bloom shocked me. There was not a single bee or butterfly flitting around. The absence of these little winged visitors on our farms has escaped the notice of even farmers and orchard-growers. In fact, many of them are not even aware of the free pollination services these nectar-raiders on the farm are providing.
What escaped the notice of our farmers—and the media as well—caught the attention of experts across the world. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Global Environment Fund (GEF) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) joined hands for the Global Pollinator Project (GPP), that started in January 2010 and concluded in December 2014. The five-year project, involving seven countries— Brazil, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan and South Africa—set out to “conserve and manage pollinators through an ecosystem approach to farming”. Simply put, it attempted to improve the bee, butterfly and other insect (pollinator) population by reviving their habitat—essentially forests, weeds and untended fields that have tiny wild flowers on which pollinators feed and thrive. Europe already has what is known as the Big Bee Project, to address the bee-colony-collapse syndrome.
RELEVANCE FOR INDIA
Why is the GPP so important for India? Kevin Gallagher, acting representative of the UN’s FAO in India, is concerned over the disappearing pollinator habitat. “Declining pollinator populations are one of the greatest threats to the world’s agricultural economy,” he warns. Falling bee, butterfly and other such populations is a consequence of dwindling biodiversity. Ironically, farming activity itself degrades biodiversity and small ecosystems on which pollinators survive, and in turn, help increase farm produce. Unlike wheat or rice, horticultural crops like fruits and vegetables are more dependent on nature’s pollination services. Pollinators like bees, butterflies, birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world’s crop production and are responsible for increasing the output of 87 leading food crops, including many medicinal plants. With horticulture’s increasing importance in food trade and nutrition, the role of pollinators has become important. “Pollinators are closely linked to food security,” says Gallagher. “There’s an urgent need to raise awareness on this issue.”
A key reason for a steep decline in pollinator population is the indiscriminate use of chemicals and pesticides on our farms. These not only kill intended pests but cause collateral damage to the bee, butterfly and insect population. Dr RS Rawal of the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment & Development (GBPIHE), who was GPP’s Principal Investigator in India, says: “Besides the increasing use of chemicals and pesticides that have led to natural pollinator declines, there are bad farming practices like burning of post-harvest fields… and of forests.” Burning not only kills pollinators but also destroys their homes and breeding grounds, he says. This writer was witness to vast swathes of burnt landscapes in the Konkan, where burning farms after harvest is, like in many other places, a common practice. In summer, raging forest fires are a common sight in the hills of Uttarakhand or Himachal Pradesh; these are often lit by locals. Urbanization has led to a steep decline in the pollinator habitat and population. Most wild bees and drones make their home on the ground or on the branches of shrubs and trees that dot the land. But these untended spaces are fast shrinking. “We need to harness the free services provided by nature. The eco-system has to be rejuvenated,” says Rawal.
GPP’s aim is to restore the health of natural surroundings where bee and insect populations can thrive, particularly in times when there are no “flowering” crops like mustard or pulses. In the absence of flowers (food), pollinator populations dwindle rapidly. This is particularly true during extreme summers or extreme winters when little or no flowers/crops grow. The GPP had four main objectives or STEPs—study, training, evaluation and promotion. In the words of Dr PP Dhyani, Director, GBPIHE, its aim was to “increase knowledge of pollinators among farmers and create an enabling ecosystem around farms for wild pollination and finally, mainstreaming wild pollination services into best farming practices.” Currently, while diminishing returns from excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides is a concern, there appears to be no holistic policy on increasing yields through sustainable practices that the GPP espouses.
BOOST TO AGRICULTURE
“The project has clearly demonstrated that pollinators can help in improving agricultural yields,” Dhyani says. “This calls for aggressive efforts towards pro-pollinator policies and programs, both at the national and state level.” The value of good pollination can be understood better when you see a well-pollinated fruit. An apple or a strawberry that is well-pollinated, for instance, grows much larger and shapelier. Besides higher yield, it also fetches higher prices. The apple growers of Himachal have understood this well. But with natural bees and butterflies virtually missing, they are now hiring “domestic” bee colonies to fill the gap in nature’s pollination services. However, use of chemicals and pesticides continues unabated. It’s only a return to organic farming that can revive the natural pollinator population. Multi and mixed cropping, and interspersing farms with flowering plants and trees provide the way forward. Good pollination depends on a wide range of activities by bees, butterflies and birds. Experts are now turning to nature to fill the gap. The plan is to restore natural pollinator habitats particularly around farms.
Many decades ago Albert Einstein has said: “If bees disappear from the surface of the earth man would have no more than four years to live.” In all probability, he was warning us to protect pollinators and save farming from collapsing. The important question is, are our agricultural scientists and policy makers alive to this issue? Will they save the lost habitat of the humble bumble bee?

The Organ Transplant Man

Ashim Choudhury

Whenever one of those NRI boys from our school, and there are plenty of them in the US, pass by Delhi there is a call from the St Joseph’s ‘batch of ‘75’ to organize a get-together for the ‘Umrikan’. For the desi ‘boys’ from Allahabad, where our school still stands, there is no such preferential treatment. So when there was this invitation to meet up at the CSOI – that subsidized watering hole for the civil service babus – I wasn’t really excited. Moreover, try hard as I might I couldn’t quite place this childhood classmate. Dr Ajai Khanna’s name just did not ring a bell. To be honest it’s a trifle embarrassing to go meet an ageing man, who was once a classmate, and say, ‘But you know, I cannot remember you.’ No one likes being told that.

I wanted to ignore this mini class re-union. But then when the invitation is from a school buddy who also happens to be an IAS you can hardly afford to say, ‘No.’ So politely, I sent an email querying, ‘Is Dr. Khanna a classmate?’ The babu from the election commission obviously felt slighted and did not condescend to answer. When he finally called up to confirm if I was coming he said, “You don’t know Ajai Khanna?” I was silent. “He was the poorer Khanna from our class, the one who lived in Chowk (Allahabad).” I remembered the snobbery of the guys who lived in Civil Lines. But there was another Khanna in our class as well! I was jogging my memory when Sudhir broke in, “He’s a top notch doctor in the US, famous for multi organ transplants.”

That clinched the deal. “I’m coming,” I said, “You never know, tomorrow I might need an organ transplant.” Though said in jest, at 57, with all the smoking and drinking, the need for replacing an old organ is not something to snigger at. So on that cold Sunday morning I headed for the Civil Services Officer’s Institute. The imposing CSOI building can rival the best clubs in Lutyen’s Delhi. Parking at the basement I was hoping to catch one of our old friends at the foyer. There was no sign of anyone. When I finally called, Sudhir said, “We are in the bar.” That’s how I found Lutyen’s Bar; but not my friends. Another call and he said, “I’m in the PSOI bar.” That’s when I discovered the babus had another bar in the neighbourhood, adjacent to Nehru Park.

I was just entering PSOI when a car blocked my way. It was one of our classmates. “This is the place,” I told him hopping into his car. Rana was all excited, “You don’t know him? Yaar, he’s world famous…Multi-organ transplant karta hai.” Perhaps, he too needed some organ replacement, I thought. Quickly parking, Rana displayed the excitement of a schoolboy who was just about meet Bill Clinton. He was nearly running into the club, leaving me far behind, panting. By the time I caught up, we were in the dimly lit confines of the bar. It took while to adjust to the darkness.

Sudhir stood up among a clutch of old friends. There was one I did not recognize. With him I shook hands asking hesitantly, “Ajay?” The balding man said, “I’m Sharad Bajpai!” That’s when Sudhir responded to the quizzical look on my face with a sheepish grin, “Ajai did not come. There was no message from him either.” A cuss word escaped me and I said, “F*** this is not done!” I was disappointed also because my future planning for having an organ or two replaced was not happening yet. Sensing the gloom the waiter butted in cheekily, “Kya laoon saab!” What did he have? “Whiskey mein Red Label, Black Label, Bulu label…” I was clearly bowled over. Gone were the days of ACP, RC and bagpiper in babudom! It was black label that finally lifted my fallen spirits. That afternoon we also agreed that from now on all those Umrikan schoolmates visiting India would not get any preferential treatment. Instead, in keeping with the changing times, they would have to throw us a ‘ghar vapsi’ party!   

The Media is Crawling.....!

Modi’s “cheerleaders”

The Fourth Estate has changed beyond recognition and its role as a watchdog has been severely compromised under the present prime minister
 

BY ASHIM CHOUDHURY

I USED to be a Modi fan till the other day. I was among those who felt that the secular “national media”—read English-speaking—was hounding him rather uncharitably over the Gujarat riots. So when the Modi wave was building up in the early summer of 2014, I wondered: “Will they let him survive?” After nine months, I realize my fears were unfounded. The moral high-ground-holding “secular” media has suddenly vansihed. I have scoured the newspapers for their venom and found none. Where have the Modi-haters retreated? Some have had a change of heart after the new dispensation took over from the mild sardar. Some have reinvented themselves, saying they now see a new Modi – Mark-II. Prominent among these is the self-confessed “Congress stooge”, Vinod Mehta.
SURPRISING CALM
To be fair, there has been no major reason for the media to be on a collision course with the BJP government. Outwardly, the media is functioning as unobtrusively as before. In fact, when Prakash Javadekar took over as the I&B minister, he made a statement; he said that the new government did not feel the need for such a ministry. Hidden in this was a subtle message: “We expect the media to regulate itself.”
If you have a trained eye, you will notice the change. The media is no longer cocky, and very little dirt is dug up on the government of the day. The government and the media appear to be at peace with each other. This is disturbing, because the media, by its very nature, is an adversary to the government. It’s a watchdog.
Rajdeep Sardesai recently said that it’s the job of the media to ask hard questions, not to sing paeans. The media heaping praises on the government is as dangerous as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, HL Dattu, saying: “Modi is a good man.” Being a neutral upholder of the judiciary, his statement was a breach of protocol. But did the media go to town with that story? There were just a few superficial stories here; nothing in-depth. That’s what is worrying. The media instead of pillorying the government, appears to be protective.
The unceremonious sacking of two of the country’s seniormost bureaucrats—foreign secretary Sujatha Singh and home secretary Anil Goswami—should have provided enough fodder for the media to react.
So what has really changed? “Nothing,” says Binoo John, a senior journalist with irreverence in his DNA. “Modi has been a dictator even in Gujarat, that’s his style,” he says, adding that all governments try to manage the media and meet with different levels of success. “The BJP uses a carrot and stick strategy,” he observes. Another left-leaning “Modi-baiter”, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, is more circumspect. “A large section of the media is acting like Modi’s cheerleaders,” he says. Recalling Advani’s famous words after the Emergency, he says: “They have not even been asked to bend, and they are crawling.” But not taking questions from the media is not unique to Modi. He says: “Even Sonia Gandhi did not like being asked tough questions.”
Is the press being manipulated under the new dispensation? Guha Thakurta says: “Yes it is, in a subtle manner.” But he says that the kind of arm-twisting that happened during the Emergency cannot happen now as the media has changed beyond recognition. It’s much bigger now and more diversified. The state no longer enjoys the kind of control it did in the 70s and 80s when there was no social media.
CORPORATE BOSSES
With large sections of the media owned by big businesses, like the “friendly” Ambanis, there is a threat of the media being compromised. Well-known economist and political commentator Mohan Guruswamy does not mince words. “Apart from professional integrity, there are issues implicit in ownership. Take Rajendra Darda (under a cloud due to the Coalgate scam) of Lokmat, for instance. What will his paper report on the coal scam?” he asks. News X was controlled by the influential Niira Radia at one time, before the 2G spectrum scam came out in the open. Matang Sinh, facing charges over the Sharada chit fund case, owns a TV channel in Assam. Tamil Nadu supremos, J Jayalalitha and M Karunanidhi, control most of the electronic and vernacular print media in their state.
Threats to editors are mostly veiled and rarely come out into the public domain, unlike the case of Shirin Dalvi, who had to go into hiding despite apologizing for her “crime” of having used a Charlie Hebdo cartoon on the cover of her Urdu magazine. Governments often cut off revenue supplies that come from its ads. Tehelka is a stark example of how it is slowly being strangulated, with its revenue streams choked. Tehelka has come to a stage where it often cannot pay its staff or contributors. Pradyot Lal, one its editors, says: “Anti-establishment journalism is forever stressed and squeezed. The present dispensation is a hydra-headed phenomenon presided over by a megalomaniac. You cannot expect any real freedom.”
Closing the money tap is just one aspect. But the PM has put the screws on the flow of news as well. Earlier, media persons depended on various news sources and leaks. All they had to do was sniff around and do some talking. But after Modi’s gag order, no one is talking. Neither the ministers, nor the bureaucrats, and not even the moles. Even stalwarts like the articulate and erudite Advani has shut up. The last time he spoke on a national issue was when he said that he found nothing offensive in the film PK. That must have required some courage. And to imagine Advani was once an iron man.
Modi has changed the way the media interacts with the government. He doesn’t even have a media advisor. The man who spoke so much before becoming prime minister and even mimicked “Maun” Mohan for his quiet rectitude, has suddenly fallen silent himself. Apart from the lone interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria—so much for apna desh—he has not given a single interview or held a press conference, betraying a deep disdain for the media. His “Mann ki baat” and other addresses to the nation are monologues that go against the grain of democratic dialogue. The media, to borrow someone’s expression, should be imbued with an abiding and healthy cynicism. I’m reminded of a recent headline: “Teesta Setalvad being framed….But where’s the outrage?”
Yes, where’s the media’s self-righteous outrage?

Why the BJP blew it up in Delhi...

Blame it on Obama!

February 20, 2015

Arrogance often has a fall. And how! The drubbing received by the BJP in the Delhi polls shows that it can ignore the common man only at its own peril

By Ashim Choudhury

It was Obama who did the BJP in! Okay, that was a jumla (a figure of speech meaning it was a joke). Had the US president not come, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not have changed his clothes five times a day. He would not have worn the pin-striped suit with his name written all over. That suit became his undoing. It got talked about ad nauseam for all the wrong reasons. He was mocked on social media for his das-lakh-ka-suit. Many thought it ill-fitted the prime minister of a country, where hundreds die each winter for lack of protective clothing, to wear a suit that cost so much. And the poor, mockingly voted him out. “But this was a small state election, not Modi’s test,” BJP men lamely say. But, of course, it was Modi’s test! From the word go, they put Modi’s face to the campaign. It was brand Modi on sale. It was a bad idea to start with, and against the BJP’s stated policy. Remember how they riled at the Congress for not having a “PM face” to their campaign?
The people of Delhi were left wondering if the PM would also double up as the chief minister. There were murmurs saying whoever became CM was irrelevant, the remote, anyway, would be with the PM. It was only towards the end, when the BJP belatedly realized that there was no buzz around the PM, that they quickly imported “Crane Bedi”. People soon found out she was a “faking crane”, and BJP’s trump card turned into a joker. On Facebook, people were having a laughing fest. Some of that middle-class laughter trickled down to the streets. Bedi’s utterances didn’t help much. The BJP’s rank-and-file in Delhi was sniggering at her. They felt betrayed, humiliated and demotivated. And she behaved like she was already CM. Soon, there was a gag order on Bedi. Putting a finger on your lips, particularly during election time, is not a bright idea.
COSTLY SILENCE
Modi’s own silence on a string of sensitive issues, whether it was love jihad or ghar wapasi or four children for Hindu mothers, was deafening. Suddenly, in a city like Delhi, churches were burning or being vandalized. When pressed, cronies like Arun Jaitley said the prime minister of the country did not need to comment on every minor issue. True, the events were minor, but the issue was larger. And, that message was brought home by, guess who? Obama! After all that backslapping and bonhomie—the namak haram, as a FB post endearingly put it, gave Modi a parting jab in the rib. “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith…,” he said at a town hall meeting in Delhi, with polls just a few days away. After his return, the White House issued a clarification that the remark was being misconstrued. That consolation was soon snatched away when Obama reiterated at a solemn National Prayer meeting that had Gandhi been alive, he would have been “shocked”. The real shocker was the Delhi poll results. A FB comment by a Muslim girl summed up the minority mood. She wrote: “Ghutan kuch kam si mehsoos hui aaj subah humein (I felt a bit less stifled this morning).”
By the time it was time to vote in Delhi, Modi’s image had taken a severe beating. He came to be seen as a charlatan, high on promises and slow on delivery. The Swachh Bharat campaign he launched on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday was a masterstroke that had won over even the cynics. But that goodwill was frittered away. The streets and by-lanes of Delhi (like in the rest of the country), where ordinary people lived, saw little improvement. All he needed to do was to pull up the municipal officers and workers. After all, Delhi has a huge army of workers, mostly absent, on its payrolls. So where was the action on Swachh Bharat? It became a farce. BJP netas were jostling, clicking pictures of themselves with the broom. A great opportunity was lost.
The poll promise of bringing back black money met the same fate. It was one of their main political planks. Months later, Amit Shah, the “tainted” BJP chief, who many saw as the party’s winning mascot, said sheepishly that putting Rs 15 lakh into every account was just a jumla. The jhadu (broom), the poll symbol of the AAP, too became a jumla in the hands of the people, sweeping away the BJP’s rising fortunes. It’s unthinkable that just nine months ago, Modi’s BJP, riding the crest of an ant-corruption wave, had won all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi. What is it that so alienated the people? Arrogance.
COMPLETE IMAGE TURNAROUND
At that election, with his grand oratory, Modi assiduously crafted his image as a humble tea-seller capturing the hearts of ordinary Indians. But in the nine months, despite improving the economic outlook, or India’s image as a great investment destination, Modi consistently gave the perception that he was corporate India’s man up there, not the humble chaiwala. They saw him mollycoddling the Adanis and the Ambanis. They were there at the high table, during his grand swearing-in, during the banquet with Obama. Not inviting Kejriwal, a former chief minister, to the Republic day parade not only showed him as mean, it also betrayed his aversion for the aam aadmi. The rest, as they say, is history.
The analogy of the rabbit-tortoise race is not out of place either. Smug in the victory of the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP was happily napping when the AAP had already oiled its poll machinery, geared up by its young spirited volunteers. Moreover people wanted an alternative to the usual set of politicians who they see as rogues. AAP, with its young idealistic workers, and the Anna movement behind them, was an alternative at hand. That Kejriwal had abdicated a year back did not help. There was a ring of sincerity to his unconditional apology in meeting after meeting. It worked. People forgave him. But the BJP, in panic by now, began its one-point agenda of mudslinging. Bhagoda, bandar, baazaru, manhoos, were some of the words they used to describe him. The final straw was when half of Modi’s cabinet, led by the vitriolic Seetharaman attacked AAP for its Rs 2-crore “hawala” money, when day-after-day they were running front-page ad campaigns that cost a bomb. That one boomeranged.
Two days before people actually went to the polling booths, a smug Arun Jaitley said: “People have two choices before them, development and anarchy.” Clearly, they voted for anarchy. And now they want the anarchy of the policeman and other extortionists on the streets to end.
Kejriwal has a tough job ahead. He has to fulfill his promise of free water and cheap electricity, at least to the poor. And the BJP will do well to cooperate with the AAP instead of trying to scuttle him. Already, people are saying that BJP-ruled Haryana will not give water, as promised. Such disruptive and vengeful politics will only erode the credibility of the BJP with the poor. Let’s not forget, a majority of Indians are poor. The vote is the only weapon of mass destruction they carry, as Delhi has just shown. Another lesson, the sensex is not the best indicator to gauge the mood of the people.