Latest news with #ChristCollege
The Hindu
18-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Students table green Bills in mock parliament aiming for grassroot-level actions
From setting up climate monitoring hubs to turning water hyacinths stalks into value-added products, students took the floor with purpose at the Panchayat Climate Mock Parliament (PCP) held recently at Christ College, Irinjalakuda, under the joint leadership of the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) and the Bring Back Green Foundation. More than 300 school and college students, acting as youth parliamentarians, introduced a series of bold, actionable proposals rooted in hyperlocal climate data. The standout Bills included a climate monitoring and awareness centre in Muriyad panchayat to support its agrarian economy; a CCTV surveillance network in Irinjalakuda municipality to curb illegal waste dumping; stream and canal rejuvenation projects in Padiyoor and Poomangalam to strengthen flood resilience; and an initiative to manufacture value-added products from water hyacinths and other natural resources, tapping into local biodiversity for economic sustainability. The mock parliament, modelled on real legislative procedures, saw spirited debates between ruling and opposition benches. Student ministers defended their Bills while their peers challenged the feasibility and inclusivity of each, replicating authentic democratic functioning. Student volunteers The proposals were not theoretical. They stemmed from an year-long grassroots survey and campaign in the Irinjalakuda constituency, where student volunteers from Christ College and St. Joseph's College engaged with communities across Muriyad, Padiyoor, Poomangalam, and Irinjalakuda municipality. Their work included climate vulnerability assessments, data collection, and community dialogue , all of which informed the legislative agenda. The initiative was inaugurated by Minister for Higher Education R. Bindu, who praised the programme for transforming classrooms into real-world civic labs. 'The Panchayat Climate Mock Parliament offers a rare opportunity for students to translate knowledge into governance, activism, and climate leadership,' she said. This event marked more than a symbolic exercise. The final reports and Bills were formally submitted to the respective local self-government institutions (LSGIs), paving the way for possible real-world adoption. Youth-led model Spearheaded by KILA and Bring Back Green with the support of the State government and the LSG department, the Panchayat Climate Mock Parliament is a decentralised, youth-led model for participatory climate governance. It bridges the gap between global climate discourse and local action, enabling students to assess vulnerabilities, co-create solutions, and collaborate with elected representatives. Now, buoyed by the success of the Irinjalakuda pilot, the programme aims to expand to more climate-vulnerable places across Kerala, using hazard, vulnerability, and risk (HVR) assessments to guide interventions.
The Hindu
28-06-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Explained: The secret life of antlions
The sun is up, the air is crisp and it is a glorious morning. You are an ant and you have woken up and left your nest and colony behind. As you walk by, enjoying this bright, beautiful day, with dreams clouded on nibbling a sugary treat waiting for you somewhere, you suddenly notice your legs giving away. You slip, arms flailing. You frantically use your tiny arms, as you try to grapple onto something and climb up. But it is too late. You keep slipping down a sandy, steep, slippery slope. The sand collapses and you lose your feet, and more sand falls onto you. It is like an avalanche. Only it is not snow, but heaps of sand. The fall is mighty, the incline doesn't help and before you know it, you have fallen- caught and trapped in the sneaky little pit trap laid out by an antlion. Oops! It's game over for you buddy! Sorry! If you are an outdoorsy person, you would have sometimes noticed tiny, 3-inch wide conical pits on the ground. Seen where the soil is loose, these spiral, conical holes are created by a tiny, oval, and plump brown creature with a flattened head that protrudes forward. If you have been adventurous and went poking about in this pit, you would have seen a 'bug' scrambling in, throwing sand upon itself and trying to dig itself further deep inside the sandy pit. What many of you may not know is that this little creature is just the larval stage of the insect antlion. And once it moves into the adult stage, it will fly away- an insect you may dismiss off as a damselfly. If we got you to read till here, let's dive into the secret, little, documented lives of these antlions. What's an antlion? A type of insect belonging to the family Myrmeleontidae (belonging to the order Neuroptera), the antlion is most familiar to you in its larval stage. That is, the creature that you accidentally find in these pits. 'The pit-making larval stage is only one stage in the antlion's life. This is a highly predatory stage, and one that most people would be familiar with. But not all antlions make these conical pits. Only a few species do. Some of the species will hide themselves behind fallen leaves on the floor to catch the prey. These are ambush predators,' says Dr. Bijoy C, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Christ College, Irinjalakuda. Bijoy and his student Suryanarayanan T.B. figures among the very few scientists in India who research upon antlions. There are four stages in the life of antlions. The first of course is the eggs which are laid on the ground. Once the larva (popularly called as antlion) is born out of this, it takes up residence under the soil pits in the sandy ground. It is here that the highly aggressive predatory behaviour of the antlion is observed. The inverted conical soil pit is crafted by the antlion by throwing off sand, as it moves in a backward motion. And here it lies in wait, for an unsuspecting ant to walk in. There are more than 2,000 species of antlions around the world. India is home to about 124 species (belonging to 35 genera) of antlions. Conical pits For antlions to make these pits, some conditions need to be satisfied, such as the presence of loose soil. It needn't necessarily be sand, but the soil cannot be tight and hard. Alternately, these pits cannot be made in regions that get too much sunshine or rain. As such the pits are created in regions that get plenty of shade and are positioned away from the possible onslaught of rain. They are some two inches deep and around three inches wide. So how does the antlion make this pit? The larva will move backwards, scooping up the soil, flicking and throwing it across, as it digs further and further, creating a spiral and a circular groove. It moves from the circumference to the centre, eventually making a round, conical pit. Once the pit is created, it will then settle itself underneath with widely opened jaws, buried in the sand, as it waits for its prey to tumble down. 'The larva produces an enzyme which digests the body parts and it will then suck the fluid out of its victim. There are reported instances of the antlion feeding on cockroaches and beetles. Once it feeds on its prey, it will then throw the pieces of the carcass outside,' says Bijoy. Metamorphosis to the adult stage 'During its larval stage, the antlion's main focus is on feeding,' says Bijoy. 'The larval stage is the longest in terms of duration. In the next stage, it pupates. It will make a cocoon, which stays buried inside the soil. In this globular pupation stage, the cocoon is made with the silk it spins and fine soil particles. It will stay here for a few days, which may go up to a period of 40 days. Then it will grow wings and fly out, searching for a potential mate,' says Bijoy. The adults are sometimes called antlion lacewings. 'The adult resembles the damselflies. So people often confuse the adults for damselflies or dragon flies. But if you look closely, you can see that they are different. Their wings are very fragile, translucent and net-like. They have very prominent clavate antennae and their posture is also different. Once the larva becomes an adult, there are little references of any foraging. There are some references on the adults feeding on pollen, but it is still disputed. The key focus in the adult stage is procreation. The adults are nocturnal,' he adds. An understudied species Antlion species are so understudied that sometimes they have to be redescribed. In a recent study by Bijoy and Suryanarayanan, a taxonomic revision and re-examination of 21 species in Myrmeleon recorded from India was done. And their results show that only five valid species of Myrmeleon reside in India. The most common antlion species in India is Myrmeleon tenuipennis. 'The lives of antlions are perhaps the most understudied. Even in India, we have very few researchers studying about antlions. One of the pioneers was Dr. S.K. Gosh. We are yet to know more about these species. Only more research can throw light into this,' says Bijoy.
Irish Times
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Paul Clements on Forrest Reid, a 20th century author who is coming back into vogue
Forrest Reid's name may not be widely known to readers today but in his time he was a culturally important author of 17 novels, two autobiographies, essays, literary criticism and translation work. Born in Belfast 150 years ago, on June 24th, 1875, Reid was the youngest of 12 children – six of whom survived – and came from a middle-class Protestant family. His father was the manager of a felt works, later becoming involved in a failed shipping venture. On his mother's side he could claim descent from Catherine Parr – the last of the six wives of Henry VIII – and a source of pride to the young boy. Reid was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (known as 'Inst') founded in 1810. However, he was unable to continue with his education owing to his family's difficult financial circumstances, and in the early 1890s became apprenticed to the tea trade but found the work boring. His father died when he was young, and following the death of his mother in 1901, he inherited a small legacy which enabled him to enter Christ's College Cambridge graduating with a degree in medieval and modern languages. The Kingdom of Twilight, Reid's first novel came out in 1904, while his coming-of-age novel Following Darkness – known under the literary genre Bildungsroman – was published eight years later in 1912. A leitmotif in his writing is childhood and the loss of innocence. READ MORE Reid developed lifelong friendships with illustrious figures in the literary world, and by extension the Bloomsbury Group, made up of artists, writers and intellectuals who it is said ''ived in squares and loved in triangles.' He became a close friend of the poet and novelist Walter de la Mare, writing a critical study of him. In 1912, E. M. Forster, whom he met at Cambridge and whose novels include The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, and A Passage to India, wrote to Reid praising his third novel, The Bracknels, stating, 'the book has moved me a good deal'. For 35 years the two corresponded through several hundred letters and cards showing mutual affection in discussing literature and culture, as well as political crises such as the debate over the Third Home Rule Bill (1912-14). Letters from the American-British author Henry James offered Reid writing tips along with suggested book recommendations. But their friendship turned hostile after Reid dedicated to him his homoerotic novella The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys. In a review of a biography of Reid published in 1980, the novelist V. S. Pritchett, noted that James 'was embarrassed and angered by the platonic eroticism of the book and broke off the relationship in a panic.' Aside from his novels, Reid published translations in the form of Poems from the Greek Anthology (1943) while his analysis of the work of W. B. Yeats (1915) is regarded as one of the best critical studies of the poet. A founder member of the Irish Academy of Letters, Reid was made honorary Doctor of Literature by Queen's University Belfast in 1933. For many decades his books disappeared from the literary canon, but this century has seen a renaissance of interest in his writing with at least 10 of his novels reissued in fresh editions since 2007. Several of his novels have been republished in the Faber Finds series which has also reprinted Sean O'Casey's Autobiographies. In Reid's autobiography, Apostate (1926), which he described as his 'chronicle of a prolonged personal adventure', he evokes locations around Belfast in the early 1880s. He recalls the subdued notes of a band playing in Ormeau Park, the sensory experience of a hot summer's day on the banks of the River Lagan, and a walk with his nurse through the Palm House Conservatory in Botanic Gardens which he called 'a tropical landscape'; all of this fed into his memories, expressing the dream visions of his rhythmic prose. A second autobiography, Private Road, was published in 1940 with an account of his Cambridge years, and of his meetings with the author, poet, and critic AE, the pseudonym of Geroge Russell. In that book he also scorned Henry James's 'strange moral timidity' in rejecting his earlier dedication. Reid penned essays on other writers including the playwright and novelist Seamus O'Kelly. Although he never attained huge commercial success, his work was well received. Irish authors, such as John McGahern, recognised the quality of his writing, admiring the way his prose captured specific scenes in his book Brian Westby (1934). In 1944 Reid's novel, Young Tom, was awarded the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best work of fiction in that year. Three years later, on January 4th, 1947, he died of peritonitis at Warrenpoint in Co Down. Today a plaque marks his last Belfast home while his memory survives in his old school where a Forrest Reid Memorial Prize for Creative Writing is awarded each year.
Time of India
02-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Two new millipede species discovered in Western Ghats regions of Maharashtra and Kerala
Pune: Two new species of millipedes have been added to India's arthropod diversity after their discovery in Western Ghats regions, namely Karad in Maharashtra and in Kerala. The discovery of the two species — named Polydrepanum xiphosum and Polydrepanum spinatum — by a team of Indian scientists was published in the New Zealand-based journal Zootaxa on May 24 this year. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The development takes the count of India's millipede species to 270, over 70% of which are endemic. Both newly found species belong to the genus Polydrepanum in the Paradoxosomatidae family. Now, the genus includes six recognised and extant species — all exclusive to the Western Ghats, which is a biodiversity hotspot. This discovery highlights the importance of conserving microhabitats within the Western Ghats, which is crucial for sustaining unique and ecologically significant species, said researchers. The study stated: "The findings highlight the region's status as a global biodiversity hotspot and the importance of its often-overlooked soil-dwelling invertebrates." Research team member Dr Aparna Sureshchandra Kalawate from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Pune, told TOI, "This discovery took almost five months of rigorous work, from field collection activity in Karad and parts of Kerala to comparing them with existing taxonomic records. It became evident they didn't match any known species. We believe there may be many more such species awaiting discovery in the Ghats. " Besides Kalawate, the team comprised Dr Sudhikumar Ambalaparambil, head of the zoology department at Christ College, Irinjalakuda (Kerala), and research scholars Muhsina Musthafa (Christ College) and Pooja Misal (Shivaji University, Kolhapur). The team is currently collecting more samples and furthering their study to find different species in the Western Ghats. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Elaborating on the importance of the tiny creatures they are studying, Kalawate shared, "Millipedes, though small and often unseen, play a crucial role in the ecosystem. As decomposers, they feed on decaying plant matter and enhance soil quality by stimulating microbial activity and releasing essential nutrients like nitrogen into the soil." Millipedes are vital components of the food chain for other invertebrates as well, said the researcher, adding, "Despite their importance, millipedes are under threat due to increasing soil pollution, land-use changes, concrete encroachment, and the overuse of fertilisers and industrial waste." The research team shared, "Millipedes are the largest macro arthropods and also known as 'indicators of environmental alteration or conditions'. They have an important role in the ecosystem, especially in the food chain, as a 'decomposer'. Although only 10% of total decomposition of plant litter within an ecosystem takes place through millipedes, their feeding enhances microbial activities, resulting in the breakdown of litter up to 90%. " Millipedes are typically found in moist environments, such as beneath decaying leaves, in the soil, and in damp areas. The scientists emphasised the need to conserve moist microhabitats in the Western Ghats — leaf litter, decaying logs, and forest soil — that are essential for the survival of these non-venomous, harmless invertebrates.
The Hindu
01-06-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Thavanish Club extends support to students
The Thavanish Club, the social arm of Christ College, recently extended a helping hand to students in Athirappilly through its 'Thanal: A Shade of Hope' programme. This initiative aims to uplift lives through acts of compassion by providing essential back-to-school supplies. A programme held at the Athirappilly Community Hall on Sunday as part of the initiative saw the distribution of school bags, books, and umbrellas to students in Athirappilly, ensuring they are well-equipped for the upcoming academic year. The event was inaugurated by Rev. Fr. Dr. Jolly Andrews CMI, Principal of Christ College. K. K. Rijesh, president of Athirappilly grama panchayat, presided over.
