Recently, I visited the Sariska wildlife sanctuary. Being a nature enthusiast, I was thrilled by the thought of going there and getting a piece of nature. Just at a distance of 170 kms from Delhi, it was supposed to be a nice bet. The route was good and roads (for a change) were fun to drive. The Aravalis played a great part in adding on to the beauty of the route.
However, the time I reached Sariska my enthusiasm started fading away. While the emphasis here is not on the Sariska Palace Hotel, where we stayed, which was anyways ill managed…. The disappointment was more to do with the maintenance of the Sariska sanctuary and the way the things were handled by the so called management of the sanctuary.
Once famous for its tigers and enriched fauna & flora, we soon came to know that the place has no more native tigers and the whole area has got only 3 tigers which have recently been shifted from a nearby sanctuary (Ranthambhor). There is a great rush among the people to see the tigers, even though it’s hard to locate just 3 of them in an area spread across hundreds of square kilometers. And, why not a rush… after all, these tigers are going to extinct soon, so why not get a glimpse of them now and click some pictures. In few years, they will be a thing of the past like mammoths, dinosaurs and many others. The efforts will be then made to recreate them from their preserved DNAs. Ironical?
Sariska faced a famine few years ago, but nothing much has been done to take care of the animals. There are just 3 shrinking water bodies which are artificially filled to make sure that the animals atleast get some water to drink. At any point of time on an ordinary day, the sanctuary has atleast 400 – 500 fuel guzzling jeeps run by local people who earn their living by selling hopes to show Tigers. Did anyone notice the amount of pollution the jeeps must be causing? And I am sure that the animals there don’t know anything about the pollution masks yet. Apart from that, a lot of passenger buses are allowed to cross the sanctuary during the day. Pity !!!
Many of these issues have made this place completely unsuitable for habitation. The sanctuary has become a sad state of affairs and one tends to feel too bad for the fauna out there. I am not sure till how long this ecosystem will survive. You never know, in some time one of the builders may offer some residential colony to the animals for a luxurious life.
And I also can’t hope that the government will do something soon on this, because we know how it works. The authorities will wait for everything to vanish when another PM will get up and pose questions and by then, it will be too late !!
For all those people who read my first article on Efforts on Global Warming…Need to reach the grass root level, this is an extension. While I pointed out in the article that we need to do a lot of things at the grass root level and how IPCC, NGOs and various governments could help drive the initiative; I will now go into more detail and help all of us understand some of the grass root level issues.
Following picture will highlight one of the issues……
This is one of the most common sights on Indian roads and colonies every morning, where 1000s of government assigned workers and cleaners clean the surroundings, and then happily set the garbage thus collected on fire. I am sure they will not have the slightest of the clue that by this action, they not only contribute a sizeable chunk of gases and heat to the environment (hence contributing to global warming); they also end up burning some non-biodegradable matter like plastics and others, which many a times release toxic gases hazardous to the surroundings.
All this garbage should have been collected by the waste management cell of the government, where the recyclable, non- recyclable and the hazardous waste should have been segregated through source segregation, and assigned to proper locations for further treatment.
Coming back to global warming issue, all the governments are aiming to have clean energy; India has just now signed a pact for nuclear energy to curb the use of coal as a source of power production, but I hope in the efforts to gain clean fuel, we don’t overlook these basic issues. I will again reiterate my point; THINK at the grass root level.
• Isn’t this issue worth noticing? • Isn’t the government supposed to ensure that the garbage is not burnt on the streets so that it is not a partner in crime? YES, adding to green house gases is definitely a crime which could eventually lead to the extinction of mankind. • Has anyone thought about it as yet, or it’s just the public opinion which is floating till now?
Come on people, wake up. Do not let this happen. Let’s have an effective management of garbage. When we talk of the glaciers in Himalayas melting, and chances of flooding in Indian rivers, did we ever think that burning the garbage every morning could have been one of the causes?
Each and every resident of every locality can help overcoming this issue.
• Let’s tell the people who clean the roads, not to burn the garbage and let the waste management cell pick up the stuff. • Let’s have waste management pits at nearby locations, so that we can have an effective waste disposal system. • Try and educate them, what they are contributing to.
Let’s join hands and drive this forward. We all will have to do it together. I will come up with some more Grass Root level issues in my next article.
Help reducing global warming. I need your support to do this…
Piracy is inevitable and we have been listening a lot about the ongoing Piracy of almost everything weather it is a movie, software, game or any other thing. The efforts to stop piracy are getting stronger, and so as the ways to break the code and copy anything possible on the earth. So much so, it is joked around that the Pirated CD of a movie is available, even before shooting of the movie is complete. Funny!!... Not really.
The other day I heard an actor requesting on a radio channel to stop piracy of the movies as it results in a lot of revenue loss. Yes, he was right and so are a lot of other people who are suffering from it. But then I started thinking, what could be the root cause of Piracy; why every effort towards this is going futile. Here are some of the major issues due which Piracy is so well engrossed in our lives.
Pricey Tickets
It’s the multiplex culture; the tickets are available at no less than 120 to 150 rupees per person. All the cinema halls which earlier used to offer tickets worth 10 to 50 rupees are being transformed into multiplexes. Can we not judge that to a population like India where we still have 25% people under poverty line and another 55% of lower middle class, the idea of pricey tickets is not that great?
Multiplexes are still a luxury for a lot of people. For an ordinary family earning 6000 – 8000 rupees, spending Rs.500 to watch a movie is still unaffordable.
This is one of the root causes of Piracy. The common man is more than happy to spend 30 rupees and rent out a DVD for a new movie rather than going to a cinema. Who has to bother about the revenue losses then? With the recession hitting hard, the matters are going to worsen.
Secondly, the DVDs of the movies come to the market after 3 months. It’s a long time for any movie to survive from piracy
The possible Solution
1. The most obvious solution to this problem could be reduction in prices of the tickets. It’s for the film makers, distributors and the multiplexes to decide what could be an ideal price of the tickets, so that they have maximum people coming to the cinema halls.
2. The life of any movie is very short these days. These days, a movie survives till the time the next big movie releases, so it is more appropriate to release the DVDs within a month or so of the release of the movie.
Having watched this phenomenon very closely, the efforts have to be made both ways, i.e. to request people to stop piracy and also to reduce the ever increasing prices of tickets.
I am sure, if we take appropriate measures towards this, we could kill this piracy once and forever.
We are still facing a big challenge to reach the masses for the efforts being made towards reducing global warming.
Being an ordinary man coming from India, I wish to see the efforts and some rapid measures being taken at a grass root level to encourage more and more people to adopt a lifestyle which is energy efficient.
I am sure IPCC can consult various governments to spread a mass awareness campaign to educate people on global warming. Even if an ordinary man is not bothered about thinning of the ice sheet in Greenland 1000s of miles away, he needs to be told that these extra ordinary rains, unpredictable monsoons and floods are a result of that.
I, being on net and regularly reading, am aware of the hazards of the global warming, may also take some steps towards that, but who will tell millions of people who are just bothered to earn their livelihood, discuss politics, go back home and sleep.
We have seen our parents glued to news channels day in and day out, but how many news channels actually devote even 1% of the airtime to these issues. Not all the people watch Discovery or NatGeo.
I want my government (State and Center both) to take enough measures to reach people. Our government decided to have a war against Polio several years ago and today we are on the verge of eradicating it. The question is “Is government equally serious about this issue as well”?
I am not sure if we even have a budget allocated towards this issue. I know of some NGOs taking steps but have never heard of the government taking any steps. Not sure how the governments all over the world are handling this issue?
The need is to have campaigns running across cities, towns and villages. We need to have different media playing an equally important role, whether it is print, TV, radio or outdoor media. We need to reach everywhere.
Given a choice and direction, I would like to be a part of any such campaign which will run across my region.
Everyone knows that the time is running. The big question is “Shall we wait for the D day to come or start taking measures now?”.
The choice is ours.
