Tamil translation of Madhav Gadgil's autobiography A Walk Up the Hill launched
The Tamil translation of eminent ecologist Prof. Madhav Gadgil's autobiography A Walk Up the Hill: Living with Peopleand Nature was launched in Chennai on Thursday.
Published in 2023, the book was written in the form of a memoir that included stories and episodes that Prof. Gadgil encountered during his long years of field surveys in different biodiversity hotspots across India, including the Western Ghats.
Prof. Gadgil, who spoke to the audience through videoconferencing from Pune, recalled his long association with Tamil Nadu that began in 1973 when he started work in the Nilgiris and subsequently in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. He was also tasked with preparing a report on the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve following this. He expressed happiness that the book has been translated in Tamil after being made available in Marathi, Konkani, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Bengali languages. He said this would enable a deeper penetration of his ideas and thoughts among people across these States.
The Tamil translation, brought out by the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation, was done by N. Manoharan, a professor of Tamil who retired from Chittur Government College, Palakkad. V. Arivudai Nambi, independent biodiversity expert, who did the scientific editing of the publication, said the book had several chapters on different topics, in which a large number of his scientific publications were available in open source. The content of the book should be viewed as a starting point for deeper dive into the issues and topics. Giving examples, he said that the book had chapters on sacred groves, forms of nomadism and pastorals, and bamboo management, which the author wrote extensively in the form of scientific papers.
A. Sathish, Associate Professor of Tamil, International Institute of Tamil Studies, who did the language editing for the publication, said that the book dwelt upon the fundamental question of development that included community participation. He said policymaking in conservation should be preceded by pilot studies to check for feasibility before scaling up.
Shankara Saravanan, Joint Director, Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation and R.J. Ranjit Daniels, Founder Trustee, CareEarth Trust also spoke at the occasion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
Monkeys swing into bldgs near SGNP, receive mixed welcome
Mumbai: At first glance, Evershine Millenium Paradise in Kandivli East looks like any other building under renovation. Then you see the monkeys. A female bonnet macaque hides behind a green net with her newborn. The sub-adults soar up the scaffolding. One finds a chink in the building's armour of grills and shutters—an open balcony door. Soon, the troop re-emerge with their treasures: A dragon fruit, a mango, and, clutched in the hands of a young one, a bright orange dupatta. Naresh Gala, a resident, watches their antics indulgently. "Some people get irritated," he says. "But we don't." Monkey encounters seem to be rising in Mumbai's suburbs, especially in the fast-developing areas around the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Kandivli East and Borivali East. The park's rescue team gets calls weekly, and sometimes must catch and relocate a troublesome group. "The first day, people treat them like Hanuman," says Vaibhav Tripathi, a rescue team member. "Second day, also fine. Third day, they call us for help. " While many residents blame reduced food in the park or an increasing monkey population—no recent data is available on either—experts note that increased development near the park has raised the chance of encounters. In southern states, too, researchers are finding fewer groups in the forests and more near temples, tourist sites, and highways—areas where calorie-dense food is easily available. People's contradictory attitudes also play a role, says Vanishree Naik, a wildlife researcher studying Mumbai's macaques. At Kandivli and elsewhere, many feed the monkeys, encouraging more visits. But they also shoo them away. It's like a push-pull relationship, Naik suggests. "The problem is the monkey doesn't understand the push until it's too late." A history of coexistence In India, humans and monkeys have always lived close by, says Sindhu Radhakrishna, a primatologist at the National Institute of Advanced Sciences. She has studied ancient Tamil poetry that depicts monkeys as mischievous, with a penchant for stealing jackfruit. Historically, conflict has been an issue mainly in north India with rhesus macaques. The bonnet macaques of peninsular India are smaller and more docile, though they can get aggressive at tourist sites. In Borivali East, residents say they are destructive. They strip fruit trees and damage flowers, bathe in water tanks, and inadvertently break wires. "Since 2019, the nuisance has increased," says Ashish Mahajan, a longtime resident of Abhinav Nagar. He doesn't mind the occasional leopard in his backyard, but finds monkeys unmanageable. "We sterilise stray dogs, why not monkeys?" he says. Recently, Kerala proposed a birth-control programme for the state's bonnet macaques, due to rising conflict and crop damage. But bonnet macaques are generally declining (see box). As the larger rhesus expands its range southward, bonnets may even be headed for extinction, says Radhakrishna. In the meantime, "I don't know if we can expect human interaction to go down," she says. "As natural habitats shrink and urban spaces increase, where do monkeys go?" Adapting to urban life Naik's study of macaque groups at Kanheri Caves and Kandivli East offer insights into how they adapt to urban life. At Kanheri, the macaques stay away on Mondays when the park is closed to tourists, and tend to avoid uniformed guards. The 60-member group has three alpha males, Naik says, but it's the inquisitive and energetic juveniles that snatch food from tourists. Some have learnt to unzip bags and unscrew bottle caps. The smaller macaque group at Kandivli, led by a male called Mukhya, rarely snatches food—residents feed them regularly. These monkeys are larger in size than at Kanheri. Though many locals believe they're hungry, macaques only need around 500 calories a day, says Naik, which is "just a few bananas or mangoes". In the forest, they eat a varied diet of plants, flowers, and roots. In the city, some acquire a taste for chips and chakli, which can lead to obesity and even diabetes, Naik says. Garbage exposure also poses a risk of disease. In other countries, people have experimented with monkey-proof dustbins and culling, with mixed success. The long-term solution, experts say, is to refrain from feeding them and to keep the neighbourhood garbage-free. Radhakrishna notes that during the pandemic-related lockdown, when monkeys were deprived of food at roadsides and temples, they retreated into the forest. "They are not going to come to us if there's nothing to attract them. " Meanwhile, some Mumbaikars have learnt tolerance. In Borivali West, Jiban Mukhopadhyay installed window grills after his 13th floor apartment was raided by monkeys—they opened his fridge, gobbled up food, and even defecated in one room. He sees animal encounters as an inevitable part of living next to a forest. Besides, monkeys can be entertaining to watch, he says, adding, "It's fun as long as it's not in your own home. "
Time of India
7 hours ago
- Time of India
A Stitch Across Centuries To Sail Across The Sands Of Time
The Goa-made stitched ship, Kaundinya, inducted by the Navy refutes the colonial claim that Europeans taught the world to sail. The vessel demonstrates how India built seaworthy ships thousands of years ago. A 15-member Navy crew is expected to take the motorless vessel to Muscat, following age-old trading routes In one quiet corner of Goa's Divar island, chisels ring out like ritual gongs. The thick scent of fish oil hangs in the air — acrid and unmistakable — seeping into skin, cloth, and memory. Woodchips carpet the floor, mingling with the discarded strands of coir rope, and somewhere in the din, the low murmur of Malayalam swirls between bursts of drilling and the slap of waves beating against timber. In the middle of it all, Babu Sankaran works quietly. His hands, callused by decades of labour, move out of muscle memory — steady, precise, unhurried. He crouches low, chipping away at a wooden pulley he has carved earlier with his hands. Sankaran wears what looks like the same overalls he had for years — frayed at the edges. Once a deep blue, it is bleached by sweat and sun into something paler. Navy's antique armour On May 21, when the yacht was commissioned and inducted into the Indian Navy, Sankaran stood on the pier to take in the INSV Kaundinya. The 20-metre wooden yacht is stitched together like a suit of wooden armour, lashed with coconut husk rope soaked in fish oil and tree sap called kundroos. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like A stress-relief game that everyone around me is playing Elvenar - Play on Browser Learn More Undo There are no nails. No bolts. Just knowledge passed from father to son, from generation to generation, now mostly forgotten. But now, that legacy will sail from the brink of oblivion to the centre of the international seafaring spotlight. The ship has no modern trappings, no creature comforts, and certainly no engine. After all, this is no ordinary ship. It is the result of a 'completely crazy project' dreamed up by a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Sanjeev Sanyal. He was inspired by the painting of a 5th-century vessel painted onto the ancient rock walls of the Ajanta caves. Shipwrights and artisans use the 'I-X' pattern to stitch the planks together, similar to the cross-stitch technique in embroidery, where the 'I' represents a straight stitch and the 'X' represents a cross stitch India, a Sailing Guru A 15-member Navy crew will command the vessel — not with modern motors but under full cotton sails, aided only by winds and trailing oars, as it was done centuries ago. 'When we really attempt to sail it, we will have to really relearn the art of sailing the square, trailing oar, flexible hull ship, something that no living being knows how to do,' Sanyal said. 'This ship is a unique piece of equipment that we have not sailed before.' Indeed, the tradition defies time. Indian sailors have known for millennia how to read the monsoons and how to shape a hull that could rise with the tide and bend with the waves without breaking. 'We must challenge the narrative that Europeans taught the world to sail and travel,' said naval historian Commodore Srikant Kesnur (retd). 'This endeavour could be seen as the revival of cultural memories of India's maritime past. When the crew of this ship sails to various ports and nations, it will arouse curiosity and interest in the name of the ship, the unique form of the ship, and its link with civilisations of the past. ' Ancient ingenuity unsinkable 'This project is a resurrection of the past, a past that for the last 1,000 years was forgotten. It lived etched on coins, on paintings in caves… that ends now. We have India's own stitched ship,' said Prathmesh Dandekar, the managing director at Hodi Innovations, a shipyard at Divar. The Indian Navy and the Union ministry of culture jumped on board and roped in Hodi Innovations to turn the dream into a floating, ocean-going objective: retrace the maritime legacy of ancient Indian seafarers. 'If you see today, we don't have any written information about these kinds of boats. And unfortunately, we have not found any shipwrecks,' Dandekar said. 'So, the whole idea for us is to sail this ship on those ancient trade routes to showcase that back in the day, India could build seaworthy ships and was a big maritime power.' This vessel is expected to sail from Mandvi in Gujarat to Muscat in Oman, following the age-old trading routes that once ferried spices, ivory, cotton, and ideas across the Arabian Sea. Babu Sankaran, master craftsman of stitched ships, has been working on wooden ships for 45 years Rich travel history The art of stitching, with a rope and hands, kept the hull flexible — able to absorb the ocean's fury without splintering. In the ancient days, it allowed Indian ships to reach Arabia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. That knowledge now rests in a handful of men like Sankaran — 61 years old, invisible in a crowd, his eyes trained to squint against the sun. 'At the age of 16, I went to Oman to work. I've been working on wooden ships for the past 45 years,' Sankaran said. 'There are others in my hometown of Vadakara in Calicut, but we are the last of this generation. This could well be the last ship I have stitched.' He runs his hand along the INSV Kaundinya as it lies moored at the Karwar naval base. Every knot is an act of remembrance of ancient techniques. Every pull of the coir rope is a tug — not just towards the ocean, but towards the past. Sankaran will soon fly to Abu Dhabi to work on another wooden dhow. 'They don't want a stitched ship. They will use nails,' he said. The INSV Kaundinya's voyage may be months away. But the journey has begun to reclaim old knowledge and to again value labour done by hand. The skill, once orally passed from father to son along the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, is now documented for posterity.
Indian Express
16 hours ago
- Indian Express
Vidarbha's ‘Zudpi' scrub lands are ‘forest' lands: how SC ruling has struck a balance between development and environment concerns
After several decades of litigation over about 86,000 hectares of Zudpi jungle (shrub forest) lands peculiar to Maharashtra's eastern Vidarbha region, the Supreme Court last month ruled that such lands should be considered as 'forest' lands. On May 22, the top court provided clarity on the usage of Zudpi lands, saying they cannot be converted without prior approval from the central government, and only after complying with the conditions laid down by the court. An official report referred to by the court says Zudpi is a Marathi word that literally translates to bushes or shrubs, and Zudpi land means an inferior type of unoccupied land with bushy growth. The term was used for all wastelands that were not occupied by individual farmers for cultivation and other purposes. According to the report, Zudpi jungle lands are peculiar to six districts of eastern Vidarbha (Nagpur division) – Nagpur, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Bhandara, Wardha, and Gondia – and have been used for non-forest purposes for the past several decades. These lands, traditionally used for grazing, were classified as Gairan under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966. For decades, legal status uncertain Vidarbha's Zudpi lands remained in a legal limbo for decades due to administrative lapses, inconsistent government actions, and contrasting interpretations of India's forest laws. Initially vested with the Revenue Department, these lands were used for development, public amenities like schools, health centres, water pipelines, burial grounds, and for allotment to landless farmers. They were also used for infrastructure projects, including railways, defence, and irrigation. After the reorganisation of states in 1960, similar lands elsewhere in Maharashtra were recorded as Gairan or Gurcharan. However, in Vidarbha, they continued to be classified as 'Zudpi Jungle' due to bureaucratic inaction. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 (FCA) prohibited diversion of forest land without the Centre's approval. However, in November 1987, the Maharashtra government issued an order declaring Zudpi lands as 'scrub forests' that would not attract the provisions of FCA, and handed them to the Revenue Department for afforestation and grazing purposes. This 1987 Government Order was challenged by the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) before the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. While this plea was pending, the Centre in February 1992 changed and relaxed its earlier position. It clarified that Zudpi Jungle would continue to be treated as 'forest lands' under the FCA; however, for the part of Zudpi lands that were used for non-forest purposes, the state government shall make a proposal to the Centre seeking its approval under the FCA. Taking a cue from the Centre's decision, the Maharashtra government in 1994 withdrew its 1987 order. With these changing positions, ambiguity prevailed until the Supreme Court's December 12, 1996 judgment in the 'TN Godavarman Thirumulpad' case, which stated that Zudpi lands would also be treated as 'forest lands' under the FCA. In 1998, a High-Powered Committee appointed by the state government recommended that 92,115 hectares should be declared protected forests and 86,409 hectares that were unfit for forest use should be de-notified. Eight years ago, the state government again pushed to denotify Zudpi jungle lands. In 2019, the Maharashtra government, through the Divisional Commissioner, Nagpur, filed an interim application and sought the SC's approval to exclude the latter category of land from the purview of FCA. The SC formed a Central Empowered Committee (CEC), which filed its first report after site visits. Since some issues were yet to be resolved, the SC last year sought another report from the CEC. This report formed the basis of the SC's May 22, 2025 verdict. GOVERNMENT: The Maharashtra government argued that Zudpi lands were never forest lands, and due to the reorganisation of states and the inaction of certain officials, the revenue records were never corrected. As such, these lands continued to be erroneously described as Zudpi lands in revenue records. The state argued that denying it relief would lead to 'grave and irreparable damage' to lakhs of citizens, and would stall several projects. INTERVENER: Environmentalist Prasad Khale, intervener in the case, however, argued that de-notifying these lands would degrade healthy forests and disrupt wildlife corridors. He submitted that the 2025 CEC report had ignored ecological concerns, including those of wildlife corridors and the protection of scrub forests, which should not be used for non-forest activities. SC directives strike a balance The Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R Gavai and Justice Augustine Masih said that it could arrive at a solution to 'balance the rights of the citizens at large on one hand and the interest of the environment on the other hand' due to the efforts made by the CEC. The SC recognised that a large number of Zudpi lands in Nagpur city alone had public utilities such as the High Court building, defence buildings, state secretariat, graveyards, etc. It said citizens residing on these lands for years, or farmers could not be deprived of their residence or livelihood. Therefore, the Supreme Court held that Zudpi jungle lands would be treated as forests, but made exceptions for lands allotted for non-forest use before December 12, 1996. For such lands, where classification (purpose) hadn't changed, the state would be required to obtain the Centre's approval under Section 2 of the FCA for their deletion from the list of forest areas. The court said the Centre shall consider proposals without imposing compensatory afforestation conditions, and should not seek deposition of Net Present Value (NPV) levies. The court directed the Centre and the state to consult and finalise a proposal format within three months with prior approval of the CEC. For post-December 12, 1996 allotments of Zudpi lands, the Centre shall process proposals only after ascertaining reasons and ensuring action against the officers who took allotment decisions in violation of the SC's directions. Special Task Forces in each district will remove encroachments made after October 25, 1980, within two years. All commercial allotments post-October 25, 1989, are to be treated as encroachments. The court clarified no land may be diverted to non-government entities after scrutiny. The Revenue Department must transfer remaining Zudpi lands to the Forest Department within a year, which are to be used for compensatory afforestation. Other Zudpi lands will not be allowed for compensatory afforestation unless certified by the Chief Secretary. Benefitting the state's development plans The verdict has in some ways paved the way for infrastructure and other development works that the state government plans to undertake on certain tracts of lands, after obtaining approval from the central government. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis welcomed the ruling, calling it a boost to Vidarbha's stalled development. The CEC will monitor the transfer of forest land, as directed by the SC. States and Union Territories have been directed to reclaim possession of such lands from occupiers and hand them over to the Forest Department. The SC had said that if reclaiming possession is not in the public interest, the state/UTs shall recover land costs from occupiers and use them to develop forests.
