Suffer the Children II

Come Out with Me

There's sun on the river and sun on the hill . . .

You can hear the sea if you stand quite still!

There's eight new puppies at Roundabout Farm-

And I saw an old sailor with only one arm!

But everyone says, "Run along!" (Run along, run along!)

All of them say, "Run along! I'm busy as can be."

Every one says, "Run along, There's a little darling!"

If I'm a little darling, why don't they run with me?

There's wind on the river and wind on the hill . . .

There's a dark dead water-wheel under the mill!

I saw a fly which had just been drowned-

And I know where a rabbit goes into the ground!

But everyone says, "Run along!"(Run along, run along!)

All of them say, "Yes, dear," and never notice me.

Every one says, "Run along,There's a little darling!"

If I'm a little darling, why won't they come and see?

Alan Alexander Milne

Tiger, TIGER!

On an animal survey, four of us (3 volunteers and one tribal guide) were trekking in the Top Slip National Park three years ago. We had started early, around 5.30 a.m., just as dawn was starting to break with a slight greying of the sky. It was still quite dark as we enterred the scrub jungle on the outskirts of the forest proper. As we walked the sun rose and filled the atmosphere with a golden glow. it was a glorious way to begin our hike.

Very early on there were indications that this was to be an exceptional morning. We had hardly started when we almost ran into a solitary, large, sloth bear (Melursus ursinus). He had been digging for juicy roots and the ground was littered with fresh piles of upturned earth.

Around ten, we had covered 5 km of fairly easy walking when the distinctive smell of slightly decaying flesh brought us to a grinding halt. We cast around and finally located a fairly recently killed Sambhar Deer (Cervicus unicolor) hidden under a thorn thicket. Studying the ground, our guide (an excellent tracker) showed us where the deer had been ambushed and pointed out the rear hoofs digging deep into the earth where a tiger had landed on his haunches, where he fell, and how after a brief struggle on the ground he was dragged under the bushes where the tiger completed a meal of the shoulder portions. The deer was a large male and it would have taken a tiger in its prime to bring him down.

Unfortunately we could get no very clear pug marks to help identify which of the 42 bengal tigers known to frequent that forest this one was. There was rising ground some 3 km off and as tigers prefer to go to a vantage point from which to sleep off a meal we thought (without any real hope) that we would give it a try. Soon we were toiling up a dry stream bed and seemingly going straight up. The surrounding scrub was too thick and thorny to break through.

We were in single file with our guide in front. he kept exclaiming at this or that sign, shushing us and commanding that we walk quietly and I was sure that it was the usual hype - "Sir, the tiger definitely passed this way this morning..."

We stopped and bunched up when we came to a series of rocks that would have made a lively waterfall in the rainy season. Broad flat rocks that almost seemed to be a series of made-to-purpose steps. At the top there was one long step and three of us took that step almost simultaneously and FROZE. There, not ten feet from us, was a huge male tiger in repose. He jumped to his feet, tail slightly twitching and stared at us. We were well and truly horrified, I know I was holding my breath. Each of us carried a camera but that was completely forgotten. The tableau held for an instant or two and then - a reddish streak, he went vertical, springing effortlessly up fifteen feet onto a big boulder, another huge leap and he disappeared into the scrub.

After a few still moments, we slowly, very slowly looked around and then, in silent excitement, cautiously came back down to the plain. Only when safely out of the deep scrub did we start jumping up and down in excitement and talked and talked about those fantastic, incredible few moments, and then we talked all the way back to the camp.

I know people that have lived in these jungles for years and never seen a tiger! It was an incredible bit of luck - and a truly blessed few moments!

I was in this same forest recently and traced out our tribal guide to see if he had seen any further signs of our handsome young man (estimated age then around 4 years, about ten feet from toe to tail) and the word was that he had been spotted, even bigger, in a completely different zone of the forest, a couple months earlier.

Well, the Bengal Tiger is highly endangered. The census that year (2003, 3 years back) identified 42 tigers. Now the count is down to 36. The population is not sustaining itself and the major reason is poaching. A tiger skin is reported to fetch upwards of 400,000 Rupees (about 10 years wage) in the local market. Other parts of the tiger are also considered very valuable and if a tiger is 'judiciously disposed of', the total for the poacher will be a million Rupees or more.

So, you will forgive me for not identifying our trekking route or the area of the forest any more clearly than I have. I have also deliberately not named my companions or our guide and they will understand.

NOBEL WORLD

The first announced Nobel prize of 2006 was for work in medicine/physiology, recognising work done in the field of genetics. We had thought that we had all the basics down pat as far as genetics is concerned, when along came the lowly petunia to shake us out of our complacency. It turns out that tiny bits of genetic material (small RNA) can silence genes even after the gene has been read-off on its way to being expressed by a cell. Even more surprising was that the same basic 'silencing' mechanism is also active in animal cells.

The implications are enormous. On the one hand there is now potential to externally modify individual gene expression and that will have a lot of bearing on treating some sorts of genetic diseases. On the other hand, individual gene action can now be much more easily studied helping us to make sense out of the massive amount of data that became available when entire genomes have been sequenced.

Moving from tiny fragments of RNA to the universe at large, the next prize to be announced was in physics. The study of 'background' microwave radiation has helped to flesh out the Big Bang theory enabling physicists to better study the very earliest stages of the creation of our universe.

Hotspots of Biodiversity

The recent discovery of a completely new species of bird from the remote Arunachal Pradesh (Himalayan foothills) in India reminds us that where man has not interfered much, the wilderness still can thrive.

Bugun liocichla is colourful. Initially it was mistaken for a Chinese species, the Omei Shan Liocichla, and it was assumed that a different race of that species had survived in a pocket over a 1000 km South of its known range.

Now that would be very unusual. The other possibility, that the species had spread South from the Shan would be even stranger!

With the world warming rapidly we are seeing the opposite! Temperate species are creeping North as the winters become milder while tropical creatures are extending their ranges. The nightmare for medical authorities in temperate countries is that very soon, tropically transmitted diseases, such as Malaria and Dengue will be commonplace in North America and Europe. The reason being that their vector - the mosquito - is already establishing populations much further North than ever before - simply because winter has become so much milder. In fact, the trend is so pronounced that the hottest specialty in medical colleges is now...Tropical Medicine!

Getting back to Bugun, the new species has coexisted with a small tribe of the West Kameng district, quite naturally called the Bugun (or Khova) and hence the new name.

We have a common, noisy and gregarious cousin of this rare "babbler" in my area and we call that "the seven sisters" as they are always found in hyperactive bunches.

My own fascination for birds bloomed very late and I have to thank many people for having introduced me to the "world of birding"not least of whom is the amazing Dr. John R.W. Stott

Suffer the CHILDREN

The BBC reports an estimated 43 million children in the war affected hotspots around the world that are now being denied a chance at education (data from Save the Children).

Horrifying, but not nearly as bad as this statistic: The proportion of women and children among civilians injured or killed in war is approximately 80% (according to Unicef).

In countries like India, where industrialisation is growing apace, the greater danger comes from poverty. Society is becoming more stratified.

The absolute number of kids getting a primary education seemingly increases as a result of the 'growth' of the middle class.
But, the poor are getting poorer - and sending their kids out to work. Staying alive has a higher priority. Privatisation of education only means that the government, which should be helping the poor, quietly turns a blind eye.

Getting back to the question of who really suffers in war, one wonders, do the perpetrators of war ever think through the consequences?

What benefit is there in supposedly engaging one enemy but ending up killing only women and kids?

Is this a new sort of tactic ?



- stop fighting me...

or I will decimate your women and children?


Remember: Modern warfare kills 10 TIMES more civilians than combatants!

Raining and Pouring

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Will we never learn? In the dry season and during periods of drought, many parts of India resemble a desert. But if it should rain, behold we have floods. The photos compare the Mahanadi estuary just one month apart. About 2 million people were displaced over that one month along the course of just this one river - 2,000,000!

Climate change has been rapid in India what with the massive elimination of forests over the last century. The land's ability to ameliorate the extremes has disappeard. The water table has dropped precipitously making it unlikely that the forests will ever come back even if we do try to allow aforestation. We replant with monocultures promoting bioinversity, we pollute. Is there anything left for us to make worse?

the people suffer

The government builds mega dams and the flooding worsens. The likelihood of catastrophic earthquakes increases - Latur, Bhuj and Kashmir all in the space of 10 years are not enough of a warning.

the people suffer

Loving Community

For a short while, we had shifted to a new home that had been lying vacant for quite some time. It was full of interesting creatures like geckos, roaches, 6 species of ants, at least 10 different types of spiders and two communities of paper wasps. The wasp nests were nestled into the air vents in the house's two bathrooms. As they were well out of easy reach, we decided to wait on "dealing with" the wasps and got on with clearing out most of the other house guests. The nearby vacant land had a few trees with a resident family of purple rumped sunbirds and even a rarely seen green agama lizard sporting an impressively long, brown-tipped tail.

A little research on our wasps revealed that these were members of the family Vespidae, subfamily Polistinae and probably of the Polistes genus (though no entomologist am I).

The adults feed on nectar while the young are given a diet of other insects' larvae making the wasps very important both as pollinators and as pest controllers.

After a week we realised that the wasps were not causing any problems - no one had been buzzed and though the bathrooms were in use, the wasps seemed to be minding their own business. As days went bye, we spent more time just watching them work. Superbly organised, there was daily progress on nest construction and we started to notice the young ones emerging and merging with the family community. there was even a powerful but gentle discipline maintained by the senior wasps. Juniors who did not get on with their work could be seen sitting just outside the nest area facing away from the nest for a few hours at a time till one of the older ones would come and nudge them gently back into the mainstream.

My son (about 13) had always been terrified of anything that carried a sting. Even he came round to taking bath without an upward glance! Soon he became the resident expert in capturing and releasing the few wasps that got confused at night by the tubelights and ended up in the living room or in one of the bedrooms.

When we shifted out after about 4 months of peaceful cohabitation, we (carefully) covered the vents up from the inside to try to protect the nests from whoever came in after us. The attempt was unsuccessful. When I returned to pick up the last few odds and ends after about a week, I found the netting removed, no wasp nests, and evidence of fire on the walls round the air vents.

Aligning with TERROR

"To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." from JFK's inaugural address!

That America no longer exists...

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia...we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." (Paul Wolfowitz, then under-secretary of defense, way back in 1992)

In the context of the future of our world, alignment with perpetrators of war will result in terror. Just yesterday India's Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh , issued a warning that India was going to be targeted by terrorists. He went on to say that he had reliable information that our nation was riddled with secret terrorist cells that are just waiting for a chance to create mayhem. I have no doubts as to the origin of that"intelligence" and even less doubt that it will soon be backed up by some attempt to drive us in fear to the neocon doorstep!

Here then is the NEOCONONIAL vision for Asia

Common sense should tell us that those who find it easy to kick their 50-year-old most favored ally + bosom buddy (Pak) out overnight are not fit to be considered as potential friends.
I like Manmohan Singh and he has been a good Prime Minister - so far. But, the day that our government decides to align with the creators of 'the war on terror' is the day that we destroy India's security. There will be no peace of mind, there will be no peace. We will henceforth become paranoid for that is the price of being allied to:

A country that is willing to do anything in order to hegemonise the world's oil supply...

• A country that 'renders' human beings to torture.
• A country that raises taxes for the poor while lowering taxes for the rich.
• A country that promotes racial profiling.
• A country that maintains prisons outside its own jurisdiction deliberately to avoid due process.
• A country that believes it can preemptively strike anytime, anywhere.
• A country that denies its own citizens of the freedoms guaranteed by its constitution.
• A country that spies on everything including what its own people do.
• A country that hires mercenaries to do its dirty work.
• A country that provides its ally with cluster bombs to murder civilians.
• A country that is committed first to its corporations and considers its citizens as the fodder of big business.
• A country that allows thousands to die in a hurricane because they are poor.
• A country that lied to create a war.
  
• A country that encourages global warming.
  
• A country that systematically coerces other nations to either support it or shut up.
• An administration that repudiates the Geneva Convention and is desperately trying to legalise torture
  

I and all those that love our nation - and our world - would not want to have anything to do with such as these.

Whatever inducements the U.S. has used, whatever be the cost of refusing their allures, please say NO!

We have always been non-aligned, let's stay that way.

"We in this country, in this generation, are -- by destiny rather than choice -- the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore that we may be worthy of our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time the ancient vision of 'peace on earth, good will toward men.' That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain"

Let's pray that the most powerful country on today's earth does come back to its roots and regains its sense of equilibrium!

NeoCononialism

The tables have been turned. For those, like myself, who are citizens of nations that survived our colonisation by GREAT Britain, it's ironic to see the ridiculous and comical turnaround that has occurred over the last 5 years.

Can't really blame Tony. He had inherited a castrated nation and desperately needed to be leashed to the neocon HE-men of America in order to distract his people from their own desperate straits.

Margaret Thatcher was the much loved and therefore much reelected Prime Minister who knocked the final few nails into the coffin of British world hegemony. She has never recovered and now has to kow-tow quite shamelessly to the likes of GWB.

A globalised economy, the almighty dollar, a resurgent Euro (ever wondered where the vaunted Sterling is hiding?) and the loss of Hongkong (not to mention the Falklands war) had left Britain tottering.

From all the former colonies around the world we watch with somewhat mixed emotions as the new handler slaps his dog into complete, obsequious, submission. A former colony has in turn colonised (or is it neocononised) the once proud owners of an empire on which "the sun never set".

The Magna Carta (of 1215) says "No Freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful Judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right."

But in today's England, the neocononial tsunami that began with the secret "renderings" has washed away all traces of justice and liberty.

Those who came seeking asylum from the terror at their backs are falsely accused and imprisoned as suspected "terrorists". When finally acquitted by the highest courts are nonetheless being forcibly deported to the control of Secret Police in countries that are known for their torturous and murderous treatment of dissidents.


And the tragicomedy continues to play out...

INDI PENDANT

HAPPY 59

!!! INDIA !!!

Biodiversity and taxonomy

Life in all its variety has always fascinated humans. Language and naming go hand in hand. And that's really all there is to taxonomy: the laws of classifying names. There are numerous schemes for classifying the names of living creatures none of which should deter us from our tendency to name the creatures of this world!

The job is far from over for new species are being named daily especially amongst the numerous "lower" forms of life. Recently, a scientist concluded that we know (have named) only 10% of the bacteria. Another recent little tidbit was that we "know" only about 12,000 species of ant but it is supposed that twice this number of species may actually exist!

Taxonomy has become unpopular as a subject of study in recent years. Subjects like cell biology, biochemistry and immunology are where careers in science are to be made. The trend away from taxonomy has been around for over 30 years, many grad students in those days ended up without jobs after spending years of doing intense study on taxonomy.

Sad but true. But, I believe that taxonomy will someday see a revival for it is tied to such a basic human instinct. If we knew why we are so fascinated with names we may understand our selves a lot better. Science started from taxonomy and someday we will rediscover the joy and importance of what makes a species what it is, and the importance of maintaining that identity.

Today's assault comes partly from biotechnology; take a gene from this genome and stick into that one and lets see if we can't 'improve' this form of life, or at least make it more useful - in my opinion very short sighted, and highly dangerous! So, let's get back to respecting life and respecting ourselves a bit.

License To Kill - But Why?

Bloodshed is bad but it's even worse when it is purportedly done for religion and race.The war against the Lebanese is obviously both racial and religious. Lebanon has nothing like a real army. The Hezbollah 'villain' is a shia religious organisation made up of haters of Israel but they happen to be Lebanese and live, vote, and even hold a minority of parliamentary seats in Lebanon. The "Party of God" came into being for self defense sometime after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Hamas, on the other hand is a suni religious organisation. It is claimed that Hamas learned how to use suicide bombers from Hezbollah. The Israelis are of course simultaneously continuing their incursions into Palestine (though this is far less reported on than the war in Lebanon).

The world and the media have been surprised by the Israeli inability to quickly destroy Hezbollah. The continuing horrors of civilians being massacred in Lebanon has supposedly put both Blair and Bush in a bit of a tight spot. But, I have my doubts on that reading of the situation. It almost seems that they want such horrors to occur that the world will heave a sigh of relief and not worry too much about the fine print of the resulting ceasefire!

For, it seems that a tacit goal of the present campaign is to win for Israel a neutral zone covering large parts of Palestine and Lebanon. That is to say that Israel wants complete control over swathes of these two countries. The current negotiation really involves who will provide security in these "buffer areas" of Lebanon/Palestine. And that's why I think the 'security council resolution' (itself not even really demanding a ceasefire) never made it out of the security council.

Public outcry from around the world has had no effect on those in a position to stop this war. The stakes are perhaps too high. In any case neither Bush nor Blair are going to be around for very much longer as heads of state. So, they have nothing to lose. The real question is, what do they have to gain?


I see two strong contenders. 1. A diversion from the horrible quagmire that they have been wallowing in in Iraq. 2. An opportunity to get Iran involved in the imbroglio - the first salvo on that front was the lopsided attempt to shut down Iran's nuclear activities. Now, the 'war on terror' gets to carry the baton.

In the meantime Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese pay the ultimate price.

There was never a hope of 'success' in Iraq for it was always a no-win situation. A strong, democratically elected government there would have to have been shiite and therefore trouble (from a neocon perspective). Under the eye of the world, the chances of setting up another puppet government in Iraq is slender. Don't forget that both the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein were puppets set up, trained and funded by U.K.-U.S. as a bulwark against the Soviet Union during the cold war. the main possibility of doing the puppet act and getting away with it only arises if an Iraqi civil war takes place...hmmm

I also wonder to what extent 'filthy lucre' (or "mammon" as the bible also calls it) is involved, for with the predictable rise in oil prices, whether or not the long term goals are achieved, in the short run Bush and his coterie will make a killing

The Perpetrators have nothing to lose; the horrors of war? That's all just a bit of necessary, and therefore unavoidable, collateral damage.

(check out the interview with Seymour Hersh (click on the title) that came out 2 days after I posted this blog)

On Winged Feet

Every night, before hitting the sack, we have the unique pleasure of standing near a Jamaican Cherry tree and watching the fruit bats up close. Fantastic aerial acrobats they wheel and swoop on the abundant sweet fruit that that one small tree provides.

These are of the genus Cynopterus and belong to the family pteropodidae (in Greek literally "winged feet"). We have two species that feed here, the Lesser Short Nosed (C. brachyotis) and the Short Nosed (C. sphinx).

  

Fruit bats include the giants known commonly as flying foxes and they are all endangered. Much misunderstood, they have been branded as farmers' enemies and in India are even classified as vermin - which means that they can be hunted and killed at will. So, all the fruit bats are endangered, not only due to habitat loss but also because of hunting!

In actual fact, orchard owners have nothing to fear from these shy, exquisitely beautiful creatures. When they feed on fruit it is always the overripe fruit that they eat. In fact, without the activity of the fruit bats, pollination and seed dispersal would both be terribly compromised, leading to further loss of forest trees and fruit trees.

By simply planting a few select trees, like the Jamaican Cherry (Muntingia calabura L.).
farmers could encourage the fruit bats and have even fewer problems with fruit damage. Arguably, the droppings of fruit bats are very mineral rich and will serve to fetilize the soil in the orchards, reducing costs and increasing yields for the farmers.


Muntingia itself adds value to any farm as it is a multi-use species producing edible fruit, useful fibre and attractively grained wood besides being fast growing. The tree does well in poor soils - could it be precisely because it is visited by myriads of fruit bats every night?


Please don't encourage the destruction of these beautiful and useful creatures:

AND whenever you do plant a tree, try to keep the no-longer-ubiquitous fruit bat in mind...

For a nice library of pics that shows the diversity and beauty of pteropods check out U Mich's Animal Diversity Website at

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/
accounts/pictures/Pteropodidae.html

The flying series is thanks to Kampang http://www.flickr.com/photos/lonesomecrow/

FREEDOM of SPEECH

Living in India I am shocked at how little the West believes in/understands the simple concept of "freedom of speech".

To take just one recent example, an essayist named Ward Churchill has just been told to quit his teaching post at a university in the U.S. because he published an article on the 9-11 attack on the WTC - saying something to the effect that "America should have been expecting an attack like this to happen given their horrendous activities across the world for the last several decades."

He went even further while trying to place the actions of the 9-11 attackers in the context of language used by Americans during the 1991 Gulf War.

Left leaning - Yes.

Controversial - Yes.

But does that mean that a person should be blacklisted and hounded out of a teaching job, not allowed to participate in public speaking and called a terrorist? Of course, calling someone a terrorist in the West now is the equivalent of saying that this person does not have and does not deserve any human rights; certainly not the right to free speech!.

A sorry few voices have been raised in protest. One is "The Sounds of Bigots"
By RICHARD OXMAN and can be read at http://www.counterpunch.org. And one awaits the details on the "plagiarism" charge that has been bandied about regarding the essayist.

On the whole, my impression is that free speech in America is tolerated if it is fascist in nature (e.g. Coulter) but free speech takes on a different definition for proponents of civil liberties and justice.


How Utterly Sad

Religious Disinterest

As a youth I used to think that everyone was interested in religion. I mean this very generally - all around my friends, classmates, acquaintances had to be involved in some religious activity at least once a week.
Hindu's would do pooja,
Muslims would pray facing Mecca, and visit the mosque,
Christians would go to church
and in the villages,
people would consult the spiritist/healer/soothsayer.



It took a while for me to realise that these activities had little (if anything) to do with how people behaved towards one another.

It took very much longer for me to admit to myself that how i practiced "religion" did not help me to become a 'better sort of person'.

In fact my denial of this fact continued for a number of years.



I had to come back to India, where our billion people and mountainous problems of daily life finally brought home to me the fact that what I had thought to be true religion was in fact nothing but.

My friend's father helped to crystalise this truth for me very simply when one day he casually remarked that "the great religions are supposed to be pointing us towards God. But all they do is to grab a hold of us and point us towards religion".


If my religion can't make me a more loving person then it is pointless. Perhaps the fault lies not with religion but with my failure to become a more loving person regardless...