Light pollution forms 'eco-traps'
By Mark Kinver
Science and environment reporter, BBC News
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7821298.stm
An international team of researchers has found another form of light pollution that could have an adverse effect on wildlife.
The scientists showed that as well as direct light sources, polarised light also triggered potentially dangerous changes in many species' behaviour.
They added that road surfaces and glass buildings were among the main sources of this form of light pollution.
The findings appear in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Co-author Bruce Robertson, an ecologist from Michigan State University, US, said polarised light from structures within the built environment overwhelmed natural cues that controlled animal behaviour.
"Environmental cues, such as the intensity of light, that animals use to make decisions occur at different levels of severity in the natural world," he said.
"When cues become unnaturally intense, animals can respond unnaturally strongly to them."
As a result, the false cues could create an "ecological trap" for species attracted by the light.
Double vision
Dr Robertson said that water was the primary source of horizontal polarised light in the natural world, and that many animals - including birds, insects and reptiles - had highly developed polarisation vision.
This particular form of light played a key role in the animals' lifecycle, such as finding breeding and feeding sites, he added.
A well documented example is the way that baby sea turtles rely on the direction of starlight and moonlight reflected off the water's surface in order to help them find the ocean when they emerged from their nests.
Yet, there are examples of turtles in urbanised areas heading towards the brighter buildings and street lamps.
Dr Robertson said that expanding urban areas meant that there were more structures and surfaces to confuse wildlife.
"Any kind of shiny, black object - oil, solar cells, asphalt - causes problems," he explained. "The closer they are to wetlands, the bigger the problem."
"Light from the sun is vibrating in all possible directions, but after bouncing off smooth flat surfaces, like water, it only vibrates in the horizontal direction; it has become polarised.
"This is why polarised sunglasses make it easier for us to see on a bright day - they remove only the horizontally polarised light that reflects off water and roads," he told BBC News.
Flying light
The team of US and Hungarian researchers said that more than 300 species of insects were known to use polarised light as the primary source for navigation.
"This is used to search for suitable water bodies to act as feeding/breeding habitats," they wrote.
"Because of their strong signature, artificial polarising surfaces - asphalt, gravestones, cars, plastic sheeting and glass windows - are commonly mistaken for bodies of water."
The team added that "polarised light pollution" (PLP) differed from traditional forms of light pollution, called ecological light pollution (ELP) because it occured at any time during the day.
"Because ELP results from the incidence of visible light at times and places where it does not occur naturally, ELP is predominantly a night-time phenomenon.
"In contrast, PLP can occur during both light and dark cycles in terrestrial environments."
The study also suggested that PLP could also disrupt entire food webs if predators followed their prey into the urban "ecological trap", or if a generation of prey species was wiped out without reproducing.
It added that PLP also had an impact on marine life: "When scattered light passed through the transparent body of small aquatic prey animals, its polarisation signature was altered, increasing the visual contrast.
"Plankton feeders are adept at detecting zooplankton in the water column that would otherwise be transparent."
But this hunting technique, it explained, caused problems for the feeders when they encountered marine litter.
"Underwater plastic garbage is another source of PLP, and may prompt aquatic organisms into consuming inappropriate and dangerous items.
"Turtles commonly ingest plastic, particularly transparent plastic bags, which have a polarisation signature similar to that of prey items they commonly target."
Despite the growing human impact on certain communities of animals, the researchers suggested that the worst examples of PLP could be reduced.
They recommended the use of alternative building materials or employing methods to mitigate the problem, such as adding white curtains to dark windows or adding white markings on road surfaces.
Dr Robertson said the team's findings could offer conservationists an alternative way to deal with problematic species, such as insects destroying trees.
"You may be able to create massive polarised light traps to crash bark beetle populations," he suggested.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Tiger Vs Tribe
The forests stand a chance of surviving India's insatiable growth with the Forest Rights Act, says PANKAJ SEKHSARIA
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 3, Dated Jan 24, 2009
http://www.tehelka. com/story_ main41.asp? filename= cr240109tiger_ vs_tribe. asp
IF A list were to be drawn of the most discussed and debated legislations in recent times, The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Rights (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, known popularly as the Forest Rights Act, would surely be amongst the top. The intensity of the discussions and polarised nature of the debates that preceded the enactment of this law and continue even now, after it has been notified, has been noteworthy.
The Act allows:
• A family can own up to four hectares of land that is under occupation or cultivation, subject to meeting other relevant criteria
• A greater role and empowerment of Gram Sabha in determining claims, managing forests it has traditionally conserved, checking processes destructive of forestdwellers' habitats, and protecting traditional knowledge
• Greater livelihood security for traditional forestdwellers who have been denied tenure
• Displacement and relocation only by consent
• Right to development facilities with a limit of 1 ha of maximum 75 trees density per project (in case of which, Forest Conservation Act will not apply)
Photo: AK Varun
The Act seeks its legitimacy when the preamble lays out its purpose as 'correcting the historical injustices meted out to forest-dwelling communities' . A wide spectrum of people including tribal rights groups and activists have welcomed the act. Those opposing the act — a significant section of wildlife protection NGOs, forest bureaucracy and prominent voices in the media, have vehemently argued that the Act and its implementation will drive the final nail into the coffin of India's rapidly shrinking forest cover and beleaguered wildlife. It has been pitched as the ultimate 'tiger vs. tribal' clash — where the tiger (and by extension other wildlife too) will certainly lose and the tribal, in whose name this is being done, will only end up a puppet in the hands of powerful and vested interests.
Those who have taken a relatively neutral position on the Act have also expressed their concerns about certain provisions. For example, December 2005 was made the cut-off date for accepting claims to ownership of lands. They have pointed out that there will be challenges in determining genuine rights. One also can't ignore the possibility of forest areas getting fragmented in the name of development activity such as roads, health centres and transmission lines. The larger fear of vested interests misusing the Act too is justified. Yet, it does seem unfair to put all the causes of India's forest destruction in the basket of this newly-enacted legislation, or at the door of the communities that are expected to benefit from it.
India is a country of more than a billion people of which the tribal population accounts for about 10 percent. These and other similar communities have been displaced, often brutally, from their ancestral forests, fields and livelihoods to make way for one big project after another — dams, mines, urban expansion and infrastructure projects. Time and again, when they resisted, they have been physically assaulted and even killed by state forces meant to protect them. Kashipur, Jagatsinghpur and Nandigram are only few instances.In such a huge country, then, with so many points of views and importantly, so many stakes on resources, it seems strange that many conservationists attribute the problems of forests, conservation of wildlife to impoverished and marginalised tribals.
CONSERVATION IN India appears to have a blind spot when it comes to tribal rights. Thousands of hectares of productive lands are being designated as Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Traditional tribal lands, many of which are thickly forested and home to a range of wildlife, are allocated to mining interests and huge dams that drown pristine forests in the biodiversity hotspots of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalayas. Across the landscape, infrastructure projects continue to cut through forested areas. This is little more than an indicative list of the kind of pressures and threats faced by some of India's richest forest areas and the people that live there. The laws, courts, politicians, bureaucrats, the media and the wildlife conservationists are unable to help prevent this onslaught. Tribal communities, our forests and wildlife are at the receiving end today of a development paradigm that is rolling on like a juggernaut, brooking no opposition. The most optimistic will argue that the Forest Rights Act indeed shows us a way.
In any case, field results to the implementation of Act have been a mixed bag. According to a Press Release issued by the Central Government in November 2008, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has released Rs 22.6 crores as a grant to states requiring financial assistance to implement this law. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tripura and Rajasthan had received large numbers of claims and some had even started distributing title deeds. As of September 30, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh distributed 5000, 59548 and 4186 pattas respectively. However, the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman and Diu are yet to even appoint nodal officers, which is a basic requirement for implementation. There have also been unverified reports of deforestation and encroachment from different parts of Gujurat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh due to misuse of the Act.
It is important to bear in mind that the Forest Rights Act does not give just rights and land to the people, it also empowers them to conserve forests and wildlife. In the Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary, local communities from Orissa, empowered and encouraged by rights accorded to them by the Act, seized three truckloads of timber from the residence Forest Range Officer in September 2008. Earlier, villagers said, they had failed to curb timber smuggling as they didn't have any right or say in the management of resources inside the sanctuary. It provides another handle to battle against some of the hugely destructive so called 'development' projects. The Act has already been used (unsuccessfully so far) in attempting to stop mining of bauxite in the thickly forested and sacred Niyamgiri mountains of Dongaria Kond tribe in Orissa. Maybe there will be success in the future; maybe the Act will help the millions of marginalised feel secure and empowered once again; maybe it will give them the confidence to resist and keep alive the possibilities of parallel worlds and cosmologies.
(Pankaj Sekhsaria is the editor of The Protected Area Update, a wildlife and conservation newsletter from Kalpavriksh)
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 3, Dated Jan 24, 2009
http://www.tehelka. com/story_ main41.asp? filename= cr240109tiger_ vs_tribe. asp
IF A list were to be drawn of the most discussed and debated legislations in recent times, The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Rights (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, known popularly as the Forest Rights Act, would surely be amongst the top. The intensity of the discussions and polarised nature of the debates that preceded the enactment of this law and continue even now, after it has been notified, has been noteworthy.
The Act allows:
• A family can own up to four hectares of land that is under occupation or cultivation, subject to meeting other relevant criteria
• A greater role and empowerment of Gram Sabha in determining claims, managing forests it has traditionally conserved, checking processes destructive of forestdwellers' habitats, and protecting traditional knowledge
• Greater livelihood security for traditional forestdwellers who have been denied tenure
• Displacement and relocation only by consent
• Right to development facilities with a limit of 1 ha of maximum 75 trees density per project (in case of which, Forest Conservation Act will not apply)
Photo: AK Varun
The Act seeks its legitimacy when the preamble lays out its purpose as 'correcting the historical injustices meted out to forest-dwelling communities' . A wide spectrum of people including tribal rights groups and activists have welcomed the act. Those opposing the act — a significant section of wildlife protection NGOs, forest bureaucracy and prominent voices in the media, have vehemently argued that the Act and its implementation will drive the final nail into the coffin of India's rapidly shrinking forest cover and beleaguered wildlife. It has been pitched as the ultimate 'tiger vs. tribal' clash — where the tiger (and by extension other wildlife too) will certainly lose and the tribal, in whose name this is being done, will only end up a puppet in the hands of powerful and vested interests.
Those who have taken a relatively neutral position on the Act have also expressed their concerns about certain provisions. For example, December 2005 was made the cut-off date for accepting claims to ownership of lands. They have pointed out that there will be challenges in determining genuine rights. One also can't ignore the possibility of forest areas getting fragmented in the name of development activity such as roads, health centres and transmission lines. The larger fear of vested interests misusing the Act too is justified. Yet, it does seem unfair to put all the causes of India's forest destruction in the basket of this newly-enacted legislation, or at the door of the communities that are expected to benefit from it.
India is a country of more than a billion people of which the tribal population accounts for about 10 percent. These and other similar communities have been displaced, often brutally, from their ancestral forests, fields and livelihoods to make way for one big project after another — dams, mines, urban expansion and infrastructure projects. Time and again, when they resisted, they have been physically assaulted and even killed by state forces meant to protect them. Kashipur, Jagatsinghpur and Nandigram are only few instances.In such a huge country, then, with so many points of views and importantly, so many stakes on resources, it seems strange that many conservationists attribute the problems of forests, conservation of wildlife to impoverished and marginalised tribals.
CONSERVATION IN India appears to have a blind spot when it comes to tribal rights. Thousands of hectares of productive lands are being designated as Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Traditional tribal lands, many of which are thickly forested and home to a range of wildlife, are allocated to mining interests and huge dams that drown pristine forests in the biodiversity hotspots of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalayas. Across the landscape, infrastructure projects continue to cut through forested areas. This is little more than an indicative list of the kind of pressures and threats faced by some of India's richest forest areas and the people that live there. The laws, courts, politicians, bureaucrats, the media and the wildlife conservationists are unable to help prevent this onslaught. Tribal communities, our forests and wildlife are at the receiving end today of a development paradigm that is rolling on like a juggernaut, brooking no opposition. The most optimistic will argue that the Forest Rights Act indeed shows us a way.
In any case, field results to the implementation of Act have been a mixed bag. According to a Press Release issued by the Central Government in November 2008, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has released Rs 22.6 crores as a grant to states requiring financial assistance to implement this law. The states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tripura and Rajasthan had received large numbers of claims and some had even started distributing title deeds. As of September 30, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh distributed 5000, 59548 and 4186 pattas respectively. However, the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman and Diu are yet to even appoint nodal officers, which is a basic requirement for implementation. There have also been unverified reports of deforestation and encroachment from different parts of Gujurat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh due to misuse of the Act.
It is important to bear in mind that the Forest Rights Act does not give just rights and land to the people, it also empowers them to conserve forests and wildlife. In the Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary, local communities from Orissa, empowered and encouraged by rights accorded to them by the Act, seized three truckloads of timber from the residence Forest Range Officer in September 2008. Earlier, villagers said, they had failed to curb timber smuggling as they didn't have any right or say in the management of resources inside the sanctuary. It provides another handle to battle against some of the hugely destructive so called 'development' projects. The Act has already been used (unsuccessfully so far) in attempting to stop mining of bauxite in the thickly forested and sacred Niyamgiri mountains of Dongaria Kond tribe in Orissa. Maybe there will be success in the future; maybe the Act will help the millions of marginalised feel secure and empowered once again; maybe it will give them the confidence to resist and keep alive the possibilities of parallel worlds and cosmologies.
(Pankaj Sekhsaria is the editor of The Protected Area Update, a wildlife and conservation newsletter from Kalpavriksh)
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Thailand Urged to Stop Pushing Refugees Out to Sea
Thailand Urged to Stop Pushing Refugees Out to Sea
By LAWI WENG
Thursday, January 15, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14933
A refugee rights organization has called on the Thai government to stop stranding Rohingya boat people from western Burma’s Arakan State at sea after apprehending them for illegally entering Thailand.
In a press release issued on Monday, Washington, DC-based Refugees International said the Thai government “should instruct its Army to desist from its new and troubling policy of pushing refugees and migrants intercepted on boats back out to sea.”
According to the group, press reports indicated that there were at least four confirmed deaths and as many as 300 people missing after a boat that had been towed out to sea by the Thai authorities capsized.
One report said that on December 18, the Thai Navy set 412 people adrift on a single boat in international waters north of the island of Koh Surin, off the coast of Thailand.
After 13 days at sea, the Indian Coast Guard rescued 107 survivors of the ordeal near the Andaman Islands.
Thai officials disputed the claim. “Thai immigration office will never send illegal immigrants back to their countries by putting them back in the boat then let them go,” said Police Lieutenant General Chatchawal Suksomjit, commander of the Thailand Immigration Office.
Chris Lewa, an expert on Rohingya issues who interviewed some of the survivors, said that they told her they were forced to get onto the boat at gunpoint and were given just four bags of rice and two tanks of water.
“It’s an outrageous situation. Thailand must stop putting them back in the middle of the sea,” she added.
One survivor from Buthidaung Township, Arakan State, told Lewa that he had left his village with eight people. “Four of my friends are now dead. Our dream was to go to Malaysia,” he said.
A rising tide of Rohingya refugees has been fleeing Burma towards countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Their numbers usually increase after November, when the seas are at their calmest. Last week, more than a hundred people who travelled by boat were arrested by Indonesian authorities in Aceh.
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who face harsh treatment by the Burmese authorities. They are prohibited from travelling outside Arakan State and are further marginalized by other discriminatory regime laws.
Last September, more than 100 Rohingyas were given six-month prison sentences after they were arrested while traveling to Rangoon in search of work.
Many seek to escape the economic hardship of their restricted lives and turn to brokers to help them find work outside Arakan State. Hundreds put to sea in leaky vessels and head for Malaysia, but many end up on Thailand beaches or drown in the stormy waters of the Andaman Sea.
According to official Thai figures, the number of Rohingyas arrested for illegally entering Thailand has increased steadily in recent years, from 1,225 in 2005-6 to 4,886 in 2007-8. There were 659 Rohingyas seized in eight separate incidents from November 26 to December 25 last year.
By LAWI WENG
Thursday, January 15, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14933
A refugee rights organization has called on the Thai government to stop stranding Rohingya boat people from western Burma’s Arakan State at sea after apprehending them for illegally entering Thailand.
In a press release issued on Monday, Washington, DC-based Refugees International said the Thai government “should instruct its Army to desist from its new and troubling policy of pushing refugees and migrants intercepted on boats back out to sea.”
According to the group, press reports indicated that there were at least four confirmed deaths and as many as 300 people missing after a boat that had been towed out to sea by the Thai authorities capsized.
One report said that on December 18, the Thai Navy set 412 people adrift on a single boat in international waters north of the island of Koh Surin, off the coast of Thailand.
After 13 days at sea, the Indian Coast Guard rescued 107 survivors of the ordeal near the Andaman Islands.
Thai officials disputed the claim. “Thai immigration office will never send illegal immigrants back to their countries by putting them back in the boat then let them go,” said Police Lieutenant General Chatchawal Suksomjit, commander of the Thailand Immigration Office.
Chris Lewa, an expert on Rohingya issues who interviewed some of the survivors, said that they told her they were forced to get onto the boat at gunpoint and were given just four bags of rice and two tanks of water.
“It’s an outrageous situation. Thailand must stop putting them back in the middle of the sea,” she added.
One survivor from Buthidaung Township, Arakan State, told Lewa that he had left his village with eight people. “Four of my friends are now dead. Our dream was to go to Malaysia,” he said.
A rising tide of Rohingya refugees has been fleeing Burma towards countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Their numbers usually increase after November, when the seas are at their calmest. Last week, more than a hundred people who travelled by boat were arrested by Indonesian authorities in Aceh.
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who face harsh treatment by the Burmese authorities. They are prohibited from travelling outside Arakan State and are further marginalized by other discriminatory regime laws.
Last September, more than 100 Rohingyas were given six-month prison sentences after they were arrested while traveling to Rangoon in search of work.
Many seek to escape the economic hardship of their restricted lives and turn to brokers to help them find work outside Arakan State. Hundreds put to sea in leaky vessels and head for Malaysia, but many end up on Thailand beaches or drown in the stormy waters of the Andaman Sea.
According to official Thai figures, the number of Rohingyas arrested for illegally entering Thailand has increased steadily in recent years, from 1,225 in 2005-6 to 4,886 in 2007-8. There were 659 Rohingyas seized in eight separate incidents from November 26 to December 25 last year.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Another 150 Bangladeshis rescued from Nicobar Islands
THE DAILY TELEGRAMS, January 11, 2009
20 in distress reported by sighted Tilangchang isles
ANC launches search & rescue operation
Port Blair, Jan 10
The Andaman and Nicobar Command launched a Search and Rescue mission in response to a message received from the Harbour Master about some persons who were sighted on Tilanchang Island apparently in distress. The message received by the Joint Operations Center (JOC) at the Headquarters Andaman & Nicobar Command said that a merchant fishing vessel MFV Periyavar had reported sighting approximately 20 persons on the Tilangchang Island in the Great Nicobar. The persons were seen waving hands, making fire and smoke signals for help.
The Andaman and Nicobar Command responded with alacrity. Besides alerting the Coast Guard for immediate action, a MI-8 helicopter from the Carnic Air Force station was immediately launched at 0915 hrs to scout the area and assess the situation. The helicopter reported sighting of about 50 survivors towards the South-Western part of the Tilangchang Island.
In the meantime, a request for assistance in search and rescue was also received from SHO Nancowrie. Accordingly, a team of 12 Naval Sailors led by one Officer from the Naval Base at Kardip accompanied a team of local police by seven police personnel and SHO Nancowrie proceeded to Tilangchang by a speedboat. The team reached the island by 1730 hrs. The team had proceeded ashore when reports last came in. Simultaneously, a Coast Guard Ship, CGS Akkadevi, which was operating around Little Andaman, has also been directed to move towards Tilangchang Island.
The Joint Operations Centre at the Andaman and Nicobar Command is monitoring all developments round the clock and no effort will be spared by the Command towards the operation, an ANC release says.
THE DAILY TELEGRAMS, January 12, 2009
http://164.100.148.5/telegram/toppage.aspx
150 rescued in ANC search & rescue operation
Port Blair, Jan 11
The Search and Rescue operation launched by Andaman and Nicobar Command yesterday off Tilangchang Island has resulted in rescue of 150 persons stranded on the island. The team of 12 Naval Sailors led by one Officer from the Naval Base at Kardip accompanied a team of seven local police personnel and SHO Nancowrie to Tilangchang by a speedboat and reached there by 1730 hrs yesterday. The team then proceeded ashore and rescued 25 persons during the night itself. On questioning, it was revealed that these persons were of Bangladesh nationality and that they were part of a group of a total of 150 persons stranded on Tilangchang. The rescue team utilized their Gemini boat and two fishing boats in the vicinity to rescue all 150 persons.
Preliminary questioning of the survivors has revealed that a total of 580 people from Bangladesh had tried to illegally migrate to Thailand but had been allegedly apprehended by the Thailand security forces. They were then divided into batches and set adrift in five boats without engines. The 150 people rescued on Tilangchang were in one such boat which had capsized, leaving them stranded on the island for the last four days.
The rescued persons were administered First Aid at the Community Health Centre at Kamorta and were also provided food by the police. One person suffering from snake-bite was also given requisite treatment, and his condition is reported to be stable.
All the rescued persons were shifted onboard Coast Guard Ship Akkadevi for onward deportment to Port Blair. Five police personnel have also embarked the ship as escorts. CGS Akkadevi left harbour by 1700 hrs this evening and is expected to arrive at Port Blair by the evening of 12 Jan. On arrival, the survivors will be handed over to the police and local administration for further investigations. The Joint Operations Centre at the Andaman and Nicobar Command is monitoring the progress of the operations, an ANC release received here tonight says.
--
http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com
Dictionary in Great Andamanese
JNU don compiles dictionary in Great Andamanese
Parul Sharma
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/12/stories/2009011253620400.htm
Parul Sharma
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/12/stories/2009011253620400.htm
Linguist Anvita Abbi has been working with the community for the past eight years
NEW DELHI: In an attempt to restore the endangered Great Andamanese language, a researcher at Jawaharlal Nehru University has compiled a trilingual dictionary of about 4,000 words in that language, with translations in English and Hindi.
Linguist Anvita Abbi, who is the chairperson of the Centre for Linguistics at JNU, has been working with the Great Andamanese community for the past eight years.
The dictionary has phonetic representation of words and is replete with real pictures taken by Prof. Abbi herself. The dictionary will have a Hindi version and an English version as well. The author will zero in on the prospective publishers in the next couple of months.
“Great Andamanese is one of the four tribes living in the Andaman Islands. There are only 53 people in that community and only eight persons, the older ones, can speak the Great Andamanese language. It is a moribund language, as children do not converse in it,” said the JNU professor.
The dictionary has also documented different variations of the same word as used by different speakers. It also serves as an “ecological storehouse” comprising a large number of birds, trees, fish and other sea creatures.
Since the Great Andamanese has never had a script, Prof. Abbi also gave them the Devnagari scrip to use it as a medium to write the words of that language.
“Most tribal languages are only spoken and remain unwritten. No one has ever bothered to give them a script. I chose Devnagari because it is a scientific script. Also, the children go to schools in Port Blair and study Hindi. Therefore, they are familiar with this script,” she added.
The trilingual dictionary that has been compiled over three years is a part of a documentation project called “Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese”. The project is being funded by the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London under the “Endangered Language Documentation Programme”.
“We used a lot of modern technology tools to develop a highly interactive dictionary. First, we ourselves got trained in how to make a dictionary. It will also be put on the Internet by the University of London. The online dictionary will also have the recording of a native speaker to pronounce the words and sentences in the language,” said Prof. Abbi.
Most linguists, she feels, shy away from researching on the languages spoken by the tribes on the Andaman Islands.
“Living with the community and managing things on your own is not easy. The bureaucracy in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is also a discouraging factor for linguists to work on the languages.” This past year, Prof. Abbi also came out with a book of letters in the Great Andamanese language.
“That was my tribute to the community, especially the children. I did it out of love for them,” she concluded.
Also see
http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/2007/05/vanishing-voices-of-great-andamanese.html
http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/2008/02/great-andamanese-in-port-blair.html
http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/2007/08/punishment-for-culprit-in-nu-case.html
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Weaving a success story
Weaving a success story
D.V.L. Padma Priya
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/12/stories/2009011251040200.htm
New skills: Youths from Kolluru village in Adilabad district attending a design workshop.
D.V.L. Padma Priya
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/12/stories/2009011251040200.htm
Eight youths from the weaver community, employed in odd jobs, find a viable vocation after training in weaving and dyeing
New skills: Youths from Kolluru village in Adilabad district attending a design workshop.
HYDERABAD: It was a skill that literally ran in their blood. But it was an opportunity that was missing for a good 20 years. For these eight rural youth from Kolluru village in Adilabad District, weaving might not have been a natural livelihood choice, but it surely paved a way out of their poverty.
For D. Bhaskar, A. Suresh, D. Damodar, D. Mahesh, D. Chandrashekar, D. Sampath. V. Nagesh and R. Srinivas, the wheel of fortune turned in their favour when they were identified by Dastkar Andhra (DA), a city-based NGO. Aged between 20 and 24, the eight hailing from the weaver community were living in abject poverty. Many had dropped out of school and had been employed in odd jobs.
MotivationTheir condition was brought to the notice of DA in 2006 when an older group of weavers in nearby Chennur informed them. A year’s training in weaving and dyeing, and the youth were all set to weave their own fortunes. “They were quick in grasping what was taught,” says V. Dharmender, in-charge, DA Production & Design, DA. Apart from appointing a master weaver to train them, DA also paid them a monthly stipend of Rs.1,000. “What motivated us to take up weaving was the fact that we didn’t have to work under anybody,” says D. Chandrasekhar.
Even after graduation, D. Sampath, a former teacher at a government school, finds weaving a sustainable livelihood optionHere to participate in a DA design workshop, they swear by their new found profession. Now named ‘Individual Weavers Co-operative Society’ as a group, they now earn anything between Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 9,000 individually per month.
“They are very confident now and have even paid back their bank loans,” says Ravinder of DA. He said they were identifying similar youngsters from backward regions of Andhra Pradesh. “As long as they are interested in learning weaving, DA is ready to assist them,” he says.”
----
Also see
http://daaram.blogspot.com/
http://www.dastkarandhra.org/
http://pankaj-atcrossroads.blogspot.com/2008/10/plight-of-indias-unskilled-weavers.html
Saturday, January 10, 2009
India's top science institute must now tackle social needs
India's top science institute must now tackle social needs
T.V. Padma
23 December 2008 | EN
http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/india-s-top-science-institute-must-now-tackle-soci.html
The Indian Institute of Science is a shining example of how a developing country can do basic science, but it needs to link its research more to social needs.
Universities in the developing world are sometimes urged to focus on research that is directly relevant to the problems facing their countries, leaving basic research to richer nations in the North. But that approach ignores the fact that basic science provides the bedrock of knowledge needed for developing practical solutions to such problems.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), based in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) and now celebrating its centenary year, demonstrates the value of committing to basic research.
Yet its report card is mixed on helping to solve development challenges. A balance needs to be struck between these two imperatives.
Applied beginnings
IISc’s history spans the period leading from British rule in the late nineteenth century through political independence to India’s emergence as a potential global economic power. Along the way, IISc spawned or helped nurture some of independent India’s fledgling new science institutes and departments, as well producing many eminent scientists and influential policymakers.
The idea of creating the IISc came when a prominent Indian industrialist, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, decided to donate a part of his fortune to setting up a high-quality postgraduate science research and teaching institute. Initially, the British viceroy, George Nathaniel Curzon, opposed the idea, arguing that it was too ambitious given the limited university education available in India at that time.
Tata died in 1904 with his dream unrealised. But Curzon subsequently relented and authorised the setting up of the institute in 1908. In what was probably the country’s first public-private partnership, the institute was built with Tata’s funds on 400 acres of land donated by the then king of Mysore.
The institute opened in 1911 with two departments, (chemistry and electrical engineering) and 24 students. The institute was initially application-oriented, investigating avenues such as the generation of electrical energy from water and the extraction of oil from sandalwood.
When India became independent in 1947, IISc-trained scientists were crucial to the country’s nascent aeronautics, metallurgy and electronics programmes. For example, some made up the first faculty members of the new Indian Institute of Technology in Khargapur, while others headed India’s space and atomic energy programmes, as well the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Basic capacity
But as the number of departments increased, IISc gradually broadened its focus to include basic science. In the process, it became home to two of India’s greatest scientists: its only Nobel Laureate, Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman (discoverer of the physics of scattering light known as the Raman Effect and G. N. Ramachandran, who deduced the triple helix structure of collagen.
Developing countries need a critical mass of scientists in various disciplines, first to understand the fundamentals of science, and then to apply scientific results to local problems. This means that solving practical problems can't be done without adequate investment in the underlying science.
The challenge is to frame a basic research agenda that considers the eventual need to produce 'useful' knowledge, and doesn't become socially irrelevant by focusing excessively on pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
IISc has served India well in terms of contributing a critical mass of scientists. But during a four-day conference held in Bengaluru earlier this month, as part of centenary celebrations, a strong theme emerged: that IISc should now consider reorienting some of its expertise to help solve India’s pressing development problems.
In recent years, IISc’s collaboration with foreign companies and the private sector has tended to overshadow some of its efforts in applying science directly to social needs. For example, in 1974 the institute started a centre for rural technology, later expanded and renamed Centre for Sustainable Technologies.
Yet IISc could do more to link its basic research with applications, rather than let the two evolve as separate islands.
Excellence and relevance
Specific suggestions at the Bengaluru conference ranged from working on drinking water and sanitation, infectious diseases and vaccines, to crop productivity, solving the city’s traffic chaos, and tackling rising pollution and global warming.
Certainly IISc has a core competence in disciplines, ranging from computer sciences, nanotechnology, biotechnology and biology, ecology to environment and earth sciences, that could be harnessed more directly to practical applications.
For example, IISc's physicists have produced internationally recognised results in nanoscience. One research team is already working on practical engineering problems, such as how to coat plates with nanomaterials for purifying industrial waste waters and removing fluoride and arsenic from ground water.
The prospect of collaboration with global companies, and the prestige of publications and patents, can make it difficult for developing country institutes to focus on less glamorous projects that directly improve the lives of the poor. That’s particularly true when science citations continue to be the yardstick of scientific achievement.
But excellence in basic sciences needs to go hand in hand with relevance to social needs. In 1927 Mahatma Gandhi visited IISc and remarked: "Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really no better than Satan's workshops." His message should not be forgotten.
T V Padma
South Asia Regional Co-ordinator, SciDev.Net
T.V. Padma
23 December 2008 | EN
http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/india-s-top-science-institute-must-now-tackle-soci.html
The Indian Institute of Science is a shining example of how a developing country can do basic science, but it needs to link its research more to social needs.
Universities in the developing world are sometimes urged to focus on research that is directly relevant to the problems facing their countries, leaving basic research to richer nations in the North. But that approach ignores the fact that basic science provides the bedrock of knowledge needed for developing practical solutions to such problems.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), based in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) and now celebrating its centenary year, demonstrates the value of committing to basic research.
Yet its report card is mixed on helping to solve development challenges. A balance needs to be struck between these two imperatives.
Applied beginnings
IISc’s history spans the period leading from British rule in the late nineteenth century through political independence to India’s emergence as a potential global economic power. Along the way, IISc spawned or helped nurture some of independent India’s fledgling new science institutes and departments, as well producing many eminent scientists and influential policymakers.
The idea of creating the IISc came when a prominent Indian industrialist, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata, decided to donate a part of his fortune to setting up a high-quality postgraduate science research and teaching institute. Initially, the British viceroy, George Nathaniel Curzon, opposed the idea, arguing that it was too ambitious given the limited university education available in India at that time.
Tata died in 1904 with his dream unrealised. But Curzon subsequently relented and authorised the setting up of the institute in 1908. In what was probably the country’s first public-private partnership, the institute was built with Tata’s funds on 400 acres of land donated by the then king of Mysore.
The institute opened in 1911 with two departments, (chemistry and electrical engineering) and 24 students. The institute was initially application-oriented, investigating avenues such as the generation of electrical energy from water and the extraction of oil from sandalwood.
When India became independent in 1947, IISc-trained scientists were crucial to the country’s nascent aeronautics, metallurgy and electronics programmes. For example, some made up the first faculty members of the new Indian Institute of Technology in Khargapur, while others headed India’s space and atomic energy programmes, as well the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Basic capacity
But as the number of departments increased, IISc gradually broadened its focus to include basic science. In the process, it became home to two of India’s greatest scientists: its only Nobel Laureate, Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman (discoverer of the physics of scattering light known as the Raman Effect and G. N. Ramachandran, who deduced the triple helix structure of collagen.
Developing countries need a critical mass of scientists in various disciplines, first to understand the fundamentals of science, and then to apply scientific results to local problems. This means that solving practical problems can't be done without adequate investment in the underlying science.
The challenge is to frame a basic research agenda that considers the eventual need to produce 'useful' knowledge, and doesn't become socially irrelevant by focusing excessively on pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
IISc has served India well in terms of contributing a critical mass of scientists. But during a four-day conference held in Bengaluru earlier this month, as part of centenary celebrations, a strong theme emerged: that IISc should now consider reorienting some of its expertise to help solve India’s pressing development problems.
In recent years, IISc’s collaboration with foreign companies and the private sector has tended to overshadow some of its efforts in applying science directly to social needs. For example, in 1974 the institute started a centre for rural technology, later expanded and renamed Centre for Sustainable Technologies.
Yet IISc could do more to link its basic research with applications, rather than let the two evolve as separate islands.
Excellence and relevance
Specific suggestions at the Bengaluru conference ranged from working on drinking water and sanitation, infectious diseases and vaccines, to crop productivity, solving the city’s traffic chaos, and tackling rising pollution and global warming.
Certainly IISc has a core competence in disciplines, ranging from computer sciences, nanotechnology, biotechnology and biology, ecology to environment and earth sciences, that could be harnessed more directly to practical applications.
For example, IISc's physicists have produced internationally recognised results in nanoscience. One research team is already working on practical engineering problems, such as how to coat plates with nanomaterials for purifying industrial waste waters and removing fluoride and arsenic from ground water.
The prospect of collaboration with global companies, and the prestige of publications and patents, can make it difficult for developing country institutes to focus on less glamorous projects that directly improve the lives of the poor. That’s particularly true when science citations continue to be the yardstick of scientific achievement.
But excellence in basic sciences needs to go hand in hand with relevance to social needs. In 1927 Mahatma Gandhi visited IISc and remarked: "Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really no better than Satan's workshops." His message should not be forgotten.
T V Padma
South Asia Regional Co-ordinator, SciDev.Net
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