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All Indian Union Territories also have an official animal, see list here

All Indian Union Territories also have an official animal, see list here

Indian Express05-06-2025
The union territories of India are administrative divisions that the central government governs. They are different from the states of India, which have their own governments.
Most are known for their diverse culture, history, and natural beauty. Each UT has an official animal representing its ecological heritage and conservation efforts.
Here's a list of the official animals of India's Union Territories and their significance.
The Dugong, or sea cow, is a gentle marine mammal found in the warm coastal waters of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As a herbivore, it plays a crucial role in maintaining seagrass beds. However, the Dugong is now classified as vulnerable due to habitat destruction and hunting.
The Indian Grey Mongoose is known for its agility and fearlessness, particularly its ability to take on venomous snakes. Found in forests and urban areas alike, this small carnivore symbolizes adaptability and resilience in Chandigarh.
The Asiatic Lion, a subspecies distinct from its African counterpart, is a powerful symbol of strength and pride. Found only in Gujarat's Gir Forest, it represents the region's efforts to conserve its rare wildlife.
The Nilgai, or blue bull, is India's largest antelope commonly seen in the Aravalli forests and outskirts of Delhi. Though often mistaken for cattle, this herbivore is essential to the region's biodiversity.
The Hangul, or Kashmir Stag, is an endangered species found primarily in the Dachigam National Park. Its population is dwindling due to poaching and habitat loss, so conservation efforts are vital for its survival.
Ladakh's rugged terrain is home to the elusive Snow Leopard, a majestic predator adapted to extreme cold. Its presence signifies the region's rich high-altitude biodiversity and ongoing conservation initiatives.
Unlike most UTs with mammals as their official animals, Lakshadweep chose the Butterflyfish, a vibrant reef fish that symbolizes the pristine marine ecosystems of the archipelago.
This small, striped squirrel is commonly seen in urban and forested areas of Puducherry. It is associated with Hindu mythology and serves as an important seed disperser in its habitat.
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Danve alleges rice meant for schoolchildren diverted abroad, seeks criminal action
Danve alleges rice meant for schoolchildren diverted abroad, seeks criminal action

Time of India

time20 minutes ago

  • Time of India

Danve alleges rice meant for schoolchildren diverted abroad, seeks criminal action

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Ambadas Danve, the leader of opposition in the legislative council, launched an attack on state govt on Wednesday, alleging large-scale corruption in the transportation of govt-supplied rice intended for schoolchildren, with a portion of the stock allegedly diverted to African countries. Danve challenged the state to send a responsible representative for an open "discussion on corruption" at a time and place of its choosing. "Let us see if this govt even knows who is diverting rice from the mouths of our children and smuggling it straight to Africa," he said, calling it a "new model of corruption." Danve also sent a letter regarding the issue to civil supplies minister Chhagan Bhujbal. Chhagan Bhujbal, however, said he had not received any letter from Danve on the issue raised. "Had I received a letter I would have immediately responded," Bhujbal said. He added, "I think that the issue that he has raised concerns the child and women development dept. The issue is not connected with my department," said Bhujbal. In his letter, Danve wrote that a registered charitable trust was awarded a transport contract for rice in the Mumbai district despite the transport contract being a commercial activity, while the trust was originally established for social work. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Finland: New Container Houses (Prices May Surprise You) Container House Search Now Undo He claimed the trust's majority shareholder also acted as its sub-contractor for transportation, in violation of rules. Vehicles purchased with the trust's funds were allegedly owned by the same individual, and profits from operations were diverted to his personal account instead of being used for social causes. Danve further alleged that funds received by the trust were transferred into the shareholder's account as an unsecured loan without the charity commissioner's approval. "This shows he has treated the organisation like his personal household," he charged. The leader of opposition also accused the contractor of under-pricing services in Mumbai, raising suspicion over the source of the balance payments. He alleged that rice supplied under the Prime Minister's Nutrition Scheme for school students was being siphoned off to the black market and exported abroad. "I have credible information that a network has been set up to send this rice overseas, especially to African countries," Danve claimed. He added that no social work was carried out under the trust's banner and pointed out that Railways terminated the trust's contracts prematurely in Oct 2023, and the Railways even went ahead and forfeited the trust's deposit. "Such organisations should not be awarded any tenders. How, then, did these people become the beloved beneficiaries of Mahayuti govt?" he asked. Danve demanded a forensic audit of the organisation's accounts and the cancellation of its registration. He also sought criminal action against those found guilty in what he described as a tender scam. Stay updated with the latest local news from your city on Times of India (TOI). Check upcoming bank holidays , public holidays , and current gold rates and silver prices in your area.

Toxic Spill at China-Owned Zambian Mine 30 Times Worse Than Estimated
Toxic Spill at China-Owned Zambian Mine 30 Times Worse Than Estimated

Mint

time5 hours ago

  • Mint

Toxic Spill at China-Owned Zambian Mine 30 Times Worse Than Estimated

The partial collapse of a waste dam at a Chinese state-owned copper mine in Zambia may have released 30 times more toxic sludge into the environment than previously reported, according to an independent evaluation of the disaster. At least 1.5 million tons of the poisonous substance escaped when a reservoir failed at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Ltd. mine near the northern city of Kitwe, findings from the company hired to assess the environmental damage showed. That would fill more than 400 Olympic-sized pools and rank the incident among the mining industry's worst catastrophes globally. The government and the company have previously said 50,000 tons spilled in the February disaster. Video evidence from social media and field data show this to be 'grossly inaccurate,' Drizit Zambia Ltd. — hired by Sino-Metals to conduct an environmental audit of the accident — said in a June 3 letter seen by Bloomberg and verified by the company. Drizit described the event as a 'large-scale environmental catastrophe' that threatened drinking water, fishing stocks and farmland in the area. Sino-Metals, which has terminated its contract with Drizit, questioned the methodology used by the company to assess the magnitude of the spill. The disaster risks undermining Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema's plan to more than triple copper output to 3 million tons in the coming years. China Nonferrous Mining Corp., SML's parent, in 2023 pledged to invest $1.3 billion to expand output in the southern African nation, the continent's second-biggest producer of the metal. The incident also complicates Lusaka's ties with Beijing, at a time when Hichilema's administration is working to conclude restructuring deals with Chinese lenders for about $5.6 billion of debt. The US Embassy flagged concern about the scale of the disaster last week, when it ordered the immediate withdrawal of its officials from Kitwe and some surrounding areas, citing newly available information that revealed the extent of the contamination. In an Aug. 6 email to staff seen by Bloomberg and verified by the US government, US Ambassador to Zambia Michael Gonzales said the disaster appeared to be the sixth-worst in history, and that toxic substances including arsenic, cyanide, uranium will continue to pose threats to humans and animals until removed. The US Embassy declined to comment. 'Without immediate intervention, the consequences for future generations of Zambians will be severe and long-lasting,' Drizit said in the letter. The company declined to comment beyond verifying the letter, citing legal reasons. Drizit's parent company in South Africa has been in the environmental risk-mitigation industry since 1975. Sino-Metals said it terminated its contract with Drizit because of unspecified contractual breaches, and that Drizit had time to remedy these but failed. 'The dam where the tailings escaped from is still there and the amount of tailings that escaped can be ascertained by the volume of the dam,' a spokesman for the company said. 'However, if Drizit were able to calculate the amount of spillage by using social media footage, that is quite interesting methodology.' Mike Mposha, Zambia's green economy and environment minister, declined to immediately comment. Zambia's government last week played down concerns about the incident, saying there was no cause for panic and that water quality in the affected areas has been restored. Senior officials appeared on state media at the weekend drinking tap water from Kitwe to prove it was safe. No deaths or confirmed cases of heavy metal poisoning have been reported, the government said. The disaster unfolded when a dam wall breached after heavy rains on Feb. 18, releasing a torrent of sulphuric acid-bearing material used to extract copper into the nearby Mwambashi River. Preliminary assessments showed the river measured a pH as low as 1, Collins Nzovu, Zambia's water and sanitation minister, told lawmakers Feb. 21. Fluid with that level of acidity is strong enough to dissolve human bones. Water from the Mwambashi flows into the Kafue River, which passes through one of Africa's biggest national parks. Zambia's capital, Lusaka, relies on the river for much of its water supply. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the government began dumping hundreds of tons of lime into the rivers to neutralize the acid, which had wiped out aquatic life for miles, along with crops growing alongside them. While the acidity may have returned to normal, heavy metals pose a persistent threat, especially to the 800 individuals still living near the fallout zone, Drizit's letter said. The South Africa-based company said its engagements with SML had been difficult. 'From the outset, they have actively sought to disrupt the assessment process and have made attempts to influence the outcomes of our findings,' it said. 'SML has accused us of breaching the contract and has since terminated the agreement just days before its conclusion, seemingly with the intention of preventing our report from reaching the proper authorities.' With assistance from Taonga Mitimingi. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

Inside The Mine That Fuels Tech World, Funds Congo's rebels
Inside The Mine That Fuels Tech World, Funds Congo's rebels

NDTV

time5 hours ago

  • NDTV

Inside The Mine That Fuels Tech World, Funds Congo's rebels

Rubaya: Under the watchful eye of M23 rebels in the hills around the Congolese town of Rubaya, a line of men in rubber boots ferry sacks full of crushed rocks up winding paths cut into the slopes. The labourers are hauling coltan ore, a mineral that powers the modern world. The ore will be loaded onto motorbikes and eventually shipped thousands of kilometres away to Asia. There it's processed into tantalum, a heat-resistant metal that fetches more than $300 a kilogram and is in high demand by makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas turbines. Rubaya produces around 15% of the world's coltan, all dug manually by impoverished locals who earn a few dollars per day. Control of this mine is the biggest prize in a long-running conflict in this central African nation. The area was seized in April 2024 by M23, a rebel group the United Nations says has plundered Rubaya's riches to help fund its insurgency, backed by the government of neighbouring Rwanda. The heavily armed rebels, whose stated aim is to overthrow the government in Kinshasa and ensure the safety of the Congolese Tutsi minority, captured even more mineral-rich territory in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this year. The region and its mineral wealth are in the spotlight as M23 and the DRC have pledged to sign a peace deal at a ceremony in Qatar's capital, Doha, this month. The United States is mediating parallel talks between Congo and Rwanda, dangling potentially billions of dollars in investment if hostilities cease. The United States Treasury on Tuesday sanctioned other alleged participants in minerals smuggling in Congo, including PARECO-FF, a pro-government Congolese militia that the US said controlled the Rubaya mining site from 2022 to early 2024, before M23's takeover. PARECO-FF could not be reached for comment. Asked at a press briefing why Washington was targeting PARECO-FF rather than M23, a senior US government official noted that M23 has been under US sanctions since 2013 for fueling conflict in the region. "The Treasury Department will not hesitate to take action against groups that deny the United States and our allies access to the critical minerals vital for our national defence," John K. Hurley, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a separate statement. Jason Stearns, a former UN investigator in Congo, said the fact that M23 was not targeted by the new mining-related sanctions was surprising, adding the move might be aimed at keeping the Doha talks on track. M23's advance poses the most serious threat to the Kinshasa government in at least two decades of conflict rooted in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which saw around 1 million of Rwanda's Tutsi ethnic group killed by Hutu militias. Rwanda's government has long denied that it traffics in coltan looted from its neighbour or that it backs M23. But Rwanda's ruling party, mainly headed by Tutsis, shares the same concerns as the Tutsi-dominated M23 insurgents over the purported threat posed by rival Hutu groups operating in eastern Congo. A July 3 UN report, reviewed by Reuters, says that as of April, Rwanda had placed at least 1,000 to 1,500 troops in Congo's rebel-controlled areas. M23 now controls two key Congolese cities - Goma and Bukavu - on the border with Rwanda. UN investigators say that it is through these cities that Congolese minerals are illegally trucked to Rwanda, often at night, where the ore is mixed with Rwandan coltan production in a bid to disguise its provenance before export. M23 and the Rwandan and Congolese governments did not respond to requests for comment. Congolese officials have repeatedly accused Rwanda of fomenting the conflict to plunder Congo's mineral wealth. According to a December UN report, the scale of the trade reached new heights after the capture of Rubaya by M23. The rebels went on to establish a parallel administration controlling mining activities, trade, transport and the taxation of the minerals produced there, the UN reported. Reuters reporters visited Rubaya in March this year and were told by M23 officials that the rebels had imposed a tax on mineral traders of 15% on the value of coltan they purchase from the informal miners who work the area. M23 was taking in $800,000 monthly from levies collected from coltan mining in eastern Congo, according to the December U.N. report. MUD AND MOTORBIKES Simply reaching Rubaya's sprawling, beehive-like maze of pits is a major undertaking. Reuters journalists who visited the mining sites in March had to abandon their four-wheel-drive Land Cruisers after the vehicles became stuck on the muddy road from Goma. They walked 5 kilometres (3 miles) to reach the town and then hopped on the back of motorcycles with rebel officials to reach the pits. Activity in Rubaya begins before dawn, when thousands of miners descend on the pits cut into the rolling hills of Congo's North Kivu province, where many toil in 12-hour shifts. The tunnels can be as deep as 15 meters (49 feet) underground. Once fragments of ore are dislodged, porters carry sacks of the rubble to the surface, where labourers have dug shallow basins that are filled with water. There, other workers, including women and children, wash the ore and separate it from sand and other debris before laying it in the sun to dry. The journalists were supervised by unarmed M23 personnel throughout their visit to the mining area. A reporter saw a rebel official jotting down in a notebook how many sacks each porter - covered in a fine white dust - carted to each collection point. Once the ore is dry, it is stacked on the backs of motorbikes that carry it to one of several depots in the nearby town of Rubaya, where it is sold to traders. With a M23 chaperone listening, Pascal Mugisha Nsabimana, a 32-year-old miner, told Reuters that working under rebel occupation was preferable to toiling under the supervision of Congo's military and its allies, who fled when M23 moved in on the area last year. Previously, "there was too much harassment, there were many different taxes, and often we, the diggers, were not paid. And even if we got something, it was poorly paid," the miner said. He added that his current day rate had at least tripled to 15,000 Congolese francs ($5.15) with M23 in charge. In the early months following M23's takeover of Rubaya in April 2024, smugglers used motorcycles to sneak the ore into Rwanda via backroads to avoid scrutiny by Congolese forces remaining along the border, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the situation, including current and former smugglers, miners and local businessmen. The journey could take an entire day, according to two ex-smugglers who transported coltan this way until last year. They said they loaded their bikes each trip with three 50-kilogram bags and were paid about $34 for delivering it to coltan traders. But alterations implemented by M23 have proven a game changer in terms of efficiency, nine of those people said. Motorcycles are no longer the primary means of transport and are used only to ferry the coltan from the mine to the town of Rubaya. From there, the ore is loaded into four-wheel drive SUVs, pickups and other vehicles capable of hauling anywhere from two tons to 20 tons each, according to the people and the July UN report. The system is faster, too. Since M23 drove Congolese troops from Goma and took control of that border city, coltan trucks can now pass freely through it on paved roads into Rwanda, slashing transport times, the people said. UN experts and human rights activists have long warned that profits from illegal mining are funding conflict. They say the trade has brought little wealth to local people and that child labour is common. Reuters witnessed at least a dozen children working at the Rubaya mine: Young boys entered the shafts to haul out ore and carry it to the basins where girls worked alongside adults washing and drying the coltan. Gregory Mthembu-Salter, a former UN expert on Congo who now does consulting on conflict minerals, said broad efforts by the mining industry, U.N. agencies and non-government organisations that began around 2010 to clean up the region's supply chain and prevent human rights abuses have largely failed. "Here we are, 15 years later, (and) the same thing is happening," said Mthembu-Salter, director of Phuzumoya Consulting. US INVESTORS EYE RUBAYA'S RICHES Some US entrepreneurs have also set their sights on Rubaya's coltan treasure as President Donald Trump seeks to broker a peace deal to end the conflict and promote development of the region's mineral wealth. In Congo, those riches include huge reserves of cobalt, gold, copper, lithium and diamonds in addition to coltan. The country's formal mining sector at present is dominated by Chinese companies. Texas hedge fund manager Gentry Beach, who is chairman of investment firm America First Global and helped raise funds for Trump's election campaign in 2016, was part of a consortium looking to negotiate rights to the Rubaya mine, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The Financial Times earlier reported the Gentry's interest in Congo's coltan. The source told Reuters that Beach's group had proposed to the Congolese government to take a majority stake in the mine, with Kinshasa retaining a 30% interest. Beach confirmed his interest in the project to Reuters but declined to provide additional details. Some US lawmakers are pushing back. In an Aug. 8 letter to Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, more than 50 Democratic congress members criticised what they said was the administration's lack of transparency in its negotiations with the DRC. They also raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest in a Trump ally angling for rights to develop the Rubaya mine. White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in an Aug. 5 emailed statement that the agreement between Congo and Rwanda arranged by Trump has the potential to lead to lasting peace and stability in the region. The president's vision is a "win-win outcome where all parties benefit-economically and politically-through cooperation and shared prosperity," the statement said. She did not respond to a follow-up query about the letter from congressional Democrats. The US State Department did not comment. On Aug. 1, the State Department said in a statement that it was committed to supporting efforts being made by Rwanda and Congo to advance security and economic cooperation. Heads of state would soon be invited to Washington for a summit, according to the statement, which did not elaborate. The US-backed accord does not include M23. The rebel group is part of a separate, parallel mediation led by Qatar that seeks to end hostilities. The success of those talks in Doha is key to any lasting peace - and in making Rubaya safe for investment and development by Western mining interests. Some diplomats and analysts are dubious about the prospects for a speedy resolution. Congo and M23 rebels pledged in Doha to reach a peace deal by August 18. But progress has been jeopardised by the killing of at least 319 civilians in eastern Congo last month, according to the UN, which says the attacks were carried out by M23. Reuters could not independently confirm those killings. M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa told the news agency last month that it would investigate, but he said reports of atrocities could be a "smear campaign" against the insurgent group. Meanwhile, the US-brokered deal calls for Rwandan troops to pull out of Congo. But Rwandan President Paul Kagame said last month he was not sure the agreement would hold. Kagame said Congo first must live up to its promises to subdue the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an eastern Congo-based ethnic Hutu militia linked to the Rwandan genocide, which Kigali sees as an existential threat. Josaphat Musamba, a Congolese researcher and Ph.D student at Ghent University in Belgium, said suppressing the militia would be a tall order for the DRC's military, which is no longer present in large swathes of M23-controlled territory. "It's difficult to neutralise the FDLR as long as M23 are there and the Congolese army has not redeployed," Musamba said. He described both peace initiatives as "piecemeal" efforts that aren't dealing with "the reality on the ground." Another formidable undertaking would be transforming Rubaya's current crude system of coltan extraction into a modern operation, said a senior diplomat who is closely following events. "No one talks about the feasibility of giving out these mining concessions and running these concessions, especially since the whole mine is artisanal mining," done almost entirely by hand, the diplomat said.

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