SAVE SCAVENGERS TO SAVE MAN KIND

This year on the day of ‘Pitra Visarjan’ (farewell to souls) when the crows, dogs and other animals are fed to please the heaven bound ancestors, an acute shortage of these animals and birds was felt in Allahabad and Varanasi. If they are not available for feast, how can they perform their duty as scavengers. In the absence of scavengers like vultures, crows, dogs, bacteria, fungi and microbes, the world will be covered with dead animals, plants, garbage and filth. Scavengers recycle the garbage and change its form.

India is perhaps the only country where people knew the value of animal scavengers. Fish is considered auspicious, Varah is one of the incarnations, tortoise is worshipped, crow is remembered as ‘Kakbhushundi’, Sampati the vulture is admired for fighting Ravana (destroyer of nature) and for attempting to save Sita (daughter of earth), trees that consume carbondioxide are likened to Shiva who consumed poison to save the biosphere. We forget all this while using deadly insecticides, pesticides, fertilizers in the agricultural fields and poisonous drugs to animal bodies. Scientists believe that in less than 20 years about 90 percent population of vultures has disappeared from India because of poisonous drugs like ‘diclofenac’ in the carrions they eat. We can well imagine the fate of those who eat meat of animals injected with similar drugs.

It is not the drugs alone that killed all vultures. I enquired a few villagers about the places where vultures used to spend nights. The most favored habitat is a peepal tree. But the trees are disappearing and so are the vultures. The population of the other birds as well as the aquatic life is also in danger.

Fish in the river Gomti are dying en mass. Water cannot be purified without fish and tortoise. Earthworms convert garbage into manure, purify soil and are a friend of farmers. But, these too are uncomfortable in the soil saturated with insecticides, pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

Dead animals are peeled of in the open in countryside by contractors for skin and they leave the flesh to rot there. In the absence of vultures, the crows and dogs have to dispose off carrions but their capacity is limited. In the hill areas like Chilchakkar of Nainital, the vulture and kite population is still visible. It is desirable to save the genes of these endangered bird species in the gene-banks and also to establish hatcheries possibly in the hill areas so as to save Homo sapiens--

CLOSING SCHOOLS IS NO SOLUTION

Every year during winter season there is cold wave and the governments fulfill their duty by closing down schools as if this will save the kids from cold. The poor children of villages go to their homes where thatch houses are worse than the solid walls of schools, where they go out in the fields ill clothed without realizing the frost bite and many fall sick. Governments close down schools because it does not cost anything to them but it takes away a few teaching days out of 180 days contemplated for academic calendar.

It is not the poor children of villages that are sent home but also of public schools where children are well clothed and schools can afford hot air blowers and heaters. These schools are closed to demonstrate government authority. Closing of schools will not equip children to fight cold. There are better ways to fight cold but these will cost money.

Neelesh, Vishal, Shilpa, Yamini and their friends have demonstrated that a 1000 sweaters could better equip the children to fight cold. The government if desires can provide sweaters to all the poor students free of cost through village Pradhans. They can also provide firewood in the school;s, regular power supply to schools and can change school timings to avoid the worst hours of cold. After all, if cold was so monstrous, the schools of America, Canada, Europe and the other cold places would be closed for all time to come as they have cold all year round. In North India, the cold is an annual feature and the governments can declare long winter vacations and short summer vacation. But in case, the youth of India can face neither cold not heat, it is pointless to talk about competing with the tough citizens of the other countries.

I hope a clear policy would be formulated to fight cold rather than ad hoc arrangements and escape routes of closing schools and so on.

PRICES THEY CAN CONTROL

You have seen over a period of a few months that the prices of onion were rising sky high. Then one fine morning they crash to less than half and are rising again with the same speed. It is not happening without an effort and if the Government desires, they can bring down prices in no time. But they declare in the News Papers and other media channels that the pulses would be imported, sugar will be brought from Pakistan and the production of such and such thing would fall short of the target and so on. These are clear hints to the traders for hoarding the commodities. They will tell you that efforts are being made to bring down prices but in the same breath they would say they have no magic stick to reduce the prices. They pretend that the god of rains controls economy, hoarders manage the commodities, Sugar lobby and cotton lobby decides the prices and the government ? Does it have any role for itself? Yes, they do as traders of votes and champions of scandles. They deliberately allow the prices to rise through mechanisms they have mastered in 60 years.