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Army, Tourism department join hands to train Gulmarg guides

     Gulmarg: In a bid to attract more tourists to the picturesque Gulmarg, the Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation have joined hands and are imparting training to 30 unemployed people in the Kashmir valley to make them professional tourist guide. All the trainees were given certificates after undergoing the rigorous training from professional instructors. According to State Tourism Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir, the course will help in reshaping and fashioning the talent of the youth, to introduce professional ethics in the tourist industry and generate employment opportunity. "We have given training to the people to make them tourist guides. As Gulmarg is a tourist destination the rush of tourist always witnessed. With this we have also aimed at generating employment opportunities among the youth in the valley," said Ghulam Hassan Mir, Tourism Minister. During the training session, trainees learnt to speak different languages along with techniques of luring more and more tourist to Gulmarg. All the trainees were happy with the kind of training imparted to them. "For us tourist is like God as we earn our living with them. We are very happy with this training. We were taught Bengali, Gujarati and many other languages," said Nazir Ahmad, a trained guide. The recruits who finished their course were very happy and hoped to get increase in their wages with this training. "We are very happy with this training as with this we will be able to attract more tourist which in turn will increase our business," said Ishtifaq Shafi, another trained tourist guide. Along with certificates the recruits were given tourist guide uniforms. Army and the tourism department have now decided to conduct training to more such batches in the near future.
-June 26, 2005

Indian banks woo tourists with soft loans (Go to Top)

     New Delhi: It's a first for India. Commercial banks across the country have decided to introduce soft loans to woo domestic tourists in a big way. The loans mainly target family holiday-makers during summers when schools are closed for two months and are available at interest rates ranging from 11 to 12 percent depending on the credentials of the applicants. UN Bhargav, General Manager of Punjab National Bank, claims that this loan offer would help tourists and enhance revenues. "This facility is available for both domestic and international tourism and specially we are encouraging domestic tourism because that is a sort of industry which can generate a good revenue for the country and there is a tendency in our country that when children have holidays, during that period people plan to move out. We have introduced this during this (summer holiday) period only as we know that the children have vacations in the months of May and June," said Bhargav. Bankers say that the new facilities can prove to be a win-win situation for both sides. Manohar Dua, a loan applicant, describes it as a brilliant idea, but laments that the interest rates charged are high. "The rate of interest though give us some pinch, but it is good. I am not parting with my cash and I am paying in the regular small installments for the enjoyments I have made. Otherwise, it was impossible for me to go," Dua said. Banks providing tourism loans claim that the scheme mainly target the middle and upper income groups. Take for instance Indian Bank. The tourism loan scheme offered provides for basic fare plus hotel charges. It has three schemes which are as follows: Scheme A Rs.15000 with an EMI of Rs.699, Scheme B Rs. 18100 with an EMI of Rs.844 and Scheme C Rs. 19500 with an EMI of Rs.909. However, all taxes as applicable and boarding charges other than daily breakfast will have to be paid by the passenger directly and will not form part of the loan. The interest on the clean loan is 11 percent per annum and the loan is repayable in 24 monthly instalments. Employed persons in the Government or reputed organizations whose salary is regularly disbursed are eligible for the loan. It may be ensured that their take home pay after deducting the proposed EMI under this loan is 40 percent.Such loans are also available online. India, Asia's fourth-largest economy, has been trying to push tourism through a high-profile campaign, called "Incredible India", which showcases everything from its beaches and mountains to spiritual and rural destinations. Despite the boom, analysts say India has not been able to tap its full potential because of poor infrastructure and sometimes shabby hotels.
-June 24, 2005

Music stops for Mumbai's dancing queens (Go to Top)

     Mumbai: After nearly an entire night of dancing to cheap Bollywood numbers, and getting strangers to throw money over her, Geeta can barely catch two hours of sleep before her children wake up. As she rallies amidst the din of her early morning chores chiding the children to finish their homework, the exhausted young mother who doubles as a bar dancer to support her family, chokes with tears watching her 12-year-old daughter Vijayalakshmi, who wants to be a doctor, write in English. Sitting on the only bed in her one-room apartment in Mumbai, she is chilled at the prospect of losing work.

     Provincial authorities are closing down Mumbai's dance bars, saying they corrupt young men and breed crime and prostitution in India's financial and entertainment heart but for Geeta and thousands like her it is the beginning of a disaster. Though lucky enough to have a husband, believed to be a ticket to survival in a largely patriarchal India, Geeta will have to pull her children out of school. In many other ways, though, her story is typical enough. She began working when she was 13 or 14 alongside her father in one of Mumbai's textile mills, most of which have gone out of business. A few years later, he died at the age of 42 and Geeta had to fend for her mother, two sisters and two brothers. That's when she started dancing and met Ashok whose family cut him off when they married 12 years ago. "Even when you walk on road you would remove the stones strewn on the streets so that they don't hurt the other passerby. You will surely do that. So when you can do that for a stranger...I have given birth to these children. How can I let them face troubles? Anybody and everybody can eventually close a dance bar but I will do all I can so that my kids have a better life. Maybe in poverty, nothing much...but at least a respectable life so that nobody can point fingers at them about their character. What if I am a bar dancer? I want my children to have a good life," said Geeta, who almost immediately swapped her salwar-kameez for a loose shirt and trouser for a tight, bright-green sari, her work clothes.

    The move by the Government Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, to ban 1,300 bars statewide will throw 75,000 unskilled and otherwise unemployable women like Geeta out of work. The girls -- they are forced out of the business as they cross 30 years of age -- take home 70 percent of the tips and the bar owners 30 percent. A further 75,000 waiters, barmen, cooks and cleaners will lose their jobs if the ban, which was cleared by the cabinet earlier this year and is now awaiting the state governor's assent, goes into effect. But the dancers and their backers say the bars are the only way the women, many of them single mothers, can earn a living. The ban will force thousands into prostitution in the city's slums, where many of their mothers actually started out, they argue. "It was projected as a women's rights issue where women will oppose it but it is not happening here. For women it is a livelihood issue, if they have money, they will be able to negotiate many more things and if they are starving and if they are hungry and if they have to feed their families, they will resort anything, any vulnerable situation, so women's groups will be for their empowerment," Flavia Agnes, a lawyer and activist who is fighting the girl's case in court, said. These bars corrupt the younger generation and threaten the cultural fabric of the state, state's deputy chief minister R.R. Patil had said adding that the ban would be enforced ruthlessly, - statements which sparked furious protests by the girls and their supporters. Patil and other critics say dancers like Geeta should instead earn a "respectable" living in factories or as domestic servants. Harish Sadani, who formed Men Against Violent Abuse (MAVE) to fight the bars a few months ago, adds that the girls simply wanted easy money. "Fifty to sixty percent of these 20,000 girls are such who out of having choices have entered into this because they want easy money and they want exorbitant money," Sadani said. The dance bars themselves are hardly X-rated. The women wear saris, showing no more than their midriffs. The average music video or Bollywood "item number" -- raunchy song and dance routines -- shows more flesh. Customers garland the girls with cash, or throw money -- the favourite way is to hold a wad of notes between thumb and finger and shower them over the dancer. In the up market bars, a rich customer spends thousands of dollars on a favoured dancer in one night, showering 100 or 500- rupee notes (2.30 dollars-11.50 dollars). -June 21, 2005

'Teak Pillai' completes 16 years atop tree house (Go to Top)

      Idamalayar (Kerala): His ardent love for nature has earned him the sobriquet 'Teak Pillai.' Bhaskaran Pillai, a 63-year old ardent nature lover has not only spent 16 years of his life conserving forest, but also has been living atop a tree house as well. Seeing his dedication and love for nature, the regional forest official had asked Pillai to live in the jungle to protect the teak from timber mafia and also a 500-year old teak tree in the Idamalayar forest range. "It's not only the teak tree, I love nature a lot and only because of God's help I am alive here for the past 16 years now. Even nature is helping me to stay here, otherwise who can dare to stay in this dense forest. Even if somebody would have offered me one lakh rupees, I would have never stayed here, it's only because of my affection towards nature that I am here. Teak is our nation's property, I feel that I should protect it", said Pillai. Once in a month Pillai leaves his forest home to buy food for himself from the adjoining village. The timber mafias always eye teak as it fetches a handsome price wood famous for its durability. Apart from the direct impact of loss to the state exchequer, the indirect impact of felling is the constant conflict between the administration and the timber mafia. India has over 75 million hectares or more than 19 percent of its total land area under forest cover. A national forest policy adopted in 1988 seeks to protect the country's forests through afforestation, reforestation and development of wastelands, restriction on grazing and encouraging for wood substitutes. However, illegal felling of trees continues rampantly in many forests across the country.
-June 18, 2005

Kerala installs camera traps to study wildlife in tiger reserve (Go to Top)

     Thekkady (Kerala): Wildlife authorities in Kerala are setting up special cameras equipped with infrared triggers called camera traps to obtain critical data about wildlife in a tiger reserve. The main purpose of camera traps being installed in the Periyar Tiger Reserve is to provide an estimate of tigers in the reserve and also determine whether there is enough prey for the tigers. "Recently we have brought some camera traps for getting the photographs of nocturnal animals, like tiger, leopard, general cats, civet and others. Because the animals we can't see in the day time and through this camera we are taking photographs of tiger, leopards and civet cats," said A.Veeramani, ecologist at the reserve. The camera trap consists of an infrared motion detector, a control circuit and a fixed focus camera. When activated it automatically takes pictures of any moving "hot body" with in its detection range. It can also take pictures at night as the camera has an inbuilt flash. The camera can shoot animals at a distance of up to 15 metres during daytime and up to seven metres during the night.

     The whole unit is housed in a splash proof enclosure, designed to be fixed on a tree using a holding belt, and secured with a chain and lock. Trapping images has proved a more reliable method to estimate the number of wild animals in comparison with the traditional track mark count used in India. By examining how frequently an animal is recaptured, it's possible to use well-established population models to estimate the total population sizes. This method along with providing knowledge about the unknown nocturnal animals would also help in checking poaching in the forest reserve. "This method is also being used for the forest protection because if any thief or somebody passes in front of this camera, you can take picture of this human being also. So that we can easily identify the person who has come for illegal purpose to the forest," Veeramani said. Traditional counting methods include the track mark counting method used extensively in country, as well as radio-collar tracking methods. The former method requires wildlife workers to find, compare and count tiger paw prints. However, a recent study from some of the world's top tiger workers argues that this method has produced inaccurate and unreliable data and led to bad conservation practices. Both methods are unsuitable for rainforests where vegetation smothers radio signals, and tracks are difficult to locate or disappear rapidly. Periyar is one of the most exciting biosphere reserves in the country with a large variety of flora and fauna. Periyar's 62 species of mammals includes the majestic tiger, more than 36 in number, and about 43 species of reptiles.
-June 12, 2005

Chilli bombs to rein in Assam's rogue elephants (Go to Top)

     Guwahati: Rogue elephants often tend to cause havoc in the rural parts of India's northeastern states, and to combat this pachyderm onslaught which has claimed 600 lives in the past 15 years, wildlife experts are now using tripwires and "red chilli bombs" to keep them at bay. The battery-operated devices with warning bells are being fixed a few hundred metres from houses to warn people and prevent wild elephant herds from destroying crops and attacking the villagers. According to Nandita Hazarika, a coordinator of the Assam Haathi (Elephant) Project, India's northeastern states have the world's largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants with Assam alone accounting for over 5,000 of them. She believes that growing human encroachment on forests and a sharp reduction in elephant habitats are to be blamed for the breaking through of existing barriers. Hazarika claimed that tripwires and chilli bomb trials were being carried out in five villages that have affected the worst by the marauding elephants. Hazarika said elephants can't stand some pungent chilli varieties available in Assam, so chilli smoke bombs and ropes smeared with chillies might keep them away. The project is a collaborative programme of Ecosystems-India, an Assam state-based conservation group, and the Chester Zoo in Britain, reports the BBC. Satellite imagery by India's National Remote Sensing Agency shows that nearly 300,000 hectares or 741,000 acres of thick forests in Assam have been encroached by villagers during the period 1996- 2000. Over 60 wild elephants have been killed by angry villagers during this period.
-June, 2005

Unified bamboo flowering, an ill omen for Mizoram (Go to Top)

     Aizawl: Once every 48 years, throughout the misty forests of the state, wild bamboo flowers in unison. It is traditionally said that when it does, famine follows. In this hilly outpost in 1959, bamboo flowered and rats feasted on small green bamboo fruits and bred in their millions. When the fruit was exhausted, they swept paddy fields like a plague, leading to widespread food shortages. Next time, i.e., in 2007, the government hopes to be better prepared. James Lalsiamliana, the plant protection officer, directorate of agriculture, has been spending many tireless months canvassing people from village to village, educating them about rats, rodents and poison. "We are conducting awareness campaigns for the farmers and for the field workers. Since 2001, up till now we have conducted in 53 villages this awareness campaign for the farmers. We give them a training in rodent biology, how to use poison, how to make traps like that we have been conducting it and then besides we also produce this rodenticide and we distribute it free of cost to the villages, where we suspect this population is building up," Lalsiamliana said here. In 1959, It had been forewarned that there would be starvation, but none paid heed terming it a tribal superstition. The last bamboo flowering gave birth to the Mizo National Famine Front, an organisation set up to meet food shortages, which ended up fighting the Centre for independence.

     This time round, the leaders are dreaming not just of fighting famine but building a new prosperity for Mizoram out of bamboo. Bamboo after it flowers will die and unless harvested soon, a good amount of money would be wasted. Officials are already making roads into the jungles and have bought two machines from Taiwan to process the bamboo into sheets. "The government now has taken very great care and we feel that the disaster can be transformed into an opportunity," H.V Lalrenga, the state's chief secretary, said. Almost like bamboo salesman, state officials, are busy advertising its vast usage. From bamboo chippings for paper mills, bamboo charcoal for fuel to bamboo "vinegar" to nourish the soil, Lalrenga says the list is endless and so is the global demand. Fresh plantations of more economically profitable bamboo strains can be sown on the plentiful land of state's hills. If things go right, in a decade bamboo-rich Mizoram could become country's richest state -- but only if private investors follow his lead. "We are encouraging private industries and prospective entrepreneurs to make bamboo industry and they will make various items like toothpicks, gift items and various other items of bamboo. They will make it and they will sell it in the state, northeastern states and other states in the country. So bamboo we are going to use it and it will be an alternative way of employment and money earning for the local people," he said. It is too early to say if these ambitious plans will ever bear fruit and even officials admit admit it will only be possible to harvest five percent of the bamboo before it flowers. Already, across the state, the small wheat-like flowers and green fruits -- each a little bigger than a golf ball -- have started appearing on bamboo plants. But officials said vastly improved roads and state food aid will also prevent a repeat of the 19th century famines caused by mass flowering of bamboo forests. The state government is also encouraging farmers to switch from paddy into cash crops like turmeric and ginger.
-May 16, 2005