Category: Nature / Environment

** Kerala farmer bags India Biodiversity Award 2021

Shaji .N.M., fondly called as ‘Tuber Man’ of Kerala has been awarded the India Biodiversity Award 2021 in the individual category of ‘Conservation of domesticated species’.

Mr. Shaji, who conserves a wide array of around 200 tuber crops including greater yam, lesser yam, elephant foot yam, arrow root, colocasia, sweet potato, cassava and Chinese potato in his farm has received State awards seven times for his efforts. He has also received the Plant Genome Savior Reward 2015, instituted by PPV&FR Authority, New Delhi.

** Journalist Rajkumar Keswani, who warned of Bhopal gas tragedy, dies of post COVID-19 complications

Keswani was associated with prominent outlets like New York Times, NDTV, Dainik Bhaskar, The Illustrated Weekly of India, Sunday, India Today and The Week

Rajkumar Keswani, an acclaimed journalist who had warned about irregularities that led to the Bhopal gas tragedy much before the world’s worst industrial disaster took place in 1984, died of post COVID-19 complications here on Friday, his son Raunaq said.

** Purple sweet potatoes from Odisha trending

The sweet-scented spuds from Sanjog Sahu’s Mati Farms are a summer surprise at chefs’ tables and will soon find a prominent place in restaurant menus

Chindi Varadarajulu, chef and owner of Chennai-based Pumpkin Tales, is delighted with the purple sweet potatoes she has sourced this summer. They have brought back memories of her childhood in Singapore, she says. The potatoes, a deep purple with a sweet fragrance when cooked, are from Mati Farms, a farming enterprise in Odisha — the state leading in sweet potato production across India. “I have been actively looking for them for the past year. They are versatile and lend vibrancy to the simplest recipes,” says Varadarajulu.

** 6 UNESCO heritage sites added in India

Six sites, including the Ganga ghats in Varanasi , temples of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu and the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, have been added to India’s tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites, Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel said on Wednesday.

Mr. Patel said six of the nine sites submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India had been accepted by UNESCO for inclusion in the tentative list, which is a requirement before the final nomination of any site.

** The forgotten Scots of the first Everest expedition of 1921 – one died, the other went mad

A century ago, in May 1921 the first expedition to reconnoitre and to possibly attempt to ascend Mount Everest left Darjeeling in India.

On it was George Mallory who died on the mountain in 1924 and whose name is forever associated with Chomolungma to give the mountain its correct name.

But also on the expedition were two Scotsmen, Alexander Kellas from Aberdeen and Harold Raeburn from Edinburgh – both of whose mountaineering achievements were arguably greater than those of Mallory. Today they have been largely forgotten.

** Two Kaziranga animals in photographers’ global Big 5, rhino not in list

More than 50,000 wildlife lovers across continents voted for their favourite animals to shoot with the camera.

Two of Kaziranga National Park’s ‘Big Five’ animals have made it to the planet’s ‘New Big 5’ for shooting with the camera.

Missing from the global list of “favourite animals to photograph” is the greater one-horned or Indian rhinoceros for which Kaziranga was born in 1905.

** Krithi Karanth becomes first Indian woman to get ‘Wild Innovator Award’

Dr Krithi K Karanth, Chief Conservation Scientist at Bengaluru-based Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS), has been chosen as the first Indian and Asian woman for the 2021 ‘WILD Innovator Award’.

** Herpetologist Deepak Veerappan has a snake named after him

Xylophis deepaki has iridescent scales and is just 20 cm long

In the first four months of 2021, the Western Ghats presented new butterflies, frogs, fruit flies, and even a freshwater crab. Joining the list is a tiny snake of just 20 cm length with iridescent scales – Xylophis deepaki, first stumbled upon in a coconut plantation in Kanyakumari, is now reported to be an endemic species of Tamil Nadu and has been sighted in a few locations in the southern part of the Western Ghats. The species is named in honour of Indian herpetologist Deepak Veerappan for his contribution in erecting a new subfamily Xylophiinae to accommodate wood snakes. The team suggests the common name Deepak’s wood snake.

** IGCAR scientists develop ‘breakthrough’ technology for paint, water and other industries

Scientists at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in Kalpakkam have come out with a ‘breakthrough’ technology which could help the water-based solutions industry in the country to cut down on costs and enhance quality by real time monitoring of electrical conductivity of aqueous solutions in industrial plants and field applications, said Prabhakar Rao, head of the Security, Innovation and Sensor division in IGCAR.

First Time in India. Scientists Discover 2.5 million-year-old Dragonfly Fossil : October 2020

First Dragonfly fossil has been discovered by a team of scientists from West Bengal. The discovery was found in Latehar District, Jharkhand.

The fossil belongs to the late Neogene period which dates between 2.5 million and 5 million years ago.

The dragonfly is about 3 cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5 cm

The research Paper of the findings was published in the October 10th edition in ‘Current Science’ Journal.

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The dragonfly is around 3cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5cm. This is, however, much smaller than the fossils of giant dragonflies, which have been found elsewhere in the world. (Sourced) / pix: hindustimes.com

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West Bengal / Jharkhand / INDIA