Category: Birds, wildlife, natural-history
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Healthy forests and healthy people – A problem of First among equals
Aphu was a young man in his twenties when he passed away. In the hinterland of India’s largest tiger reserve, few people keep track of their age, for nobody here registers them for social welfare, nor do they have a doctor who asks them their age to fill up a column on a case sheet.…
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Bird flu – Birds edition
It’s an interesting puzzle, this bird flu. On one side, while birdwatchers are all disturbed about even the suggestion of wild bird culling as a control measure to prevent spread of bird flu by migratory birds, on the other hand, for the public health professionals, it is just among various available ‘vector-control’ measure…..kinda like control…
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BR Hills – My home away from home….
My friend Sunil, once remarked that nostalgia is a sign of old age, and if that is what I am suffering from, may it be so……As I sit in my ill-lit room in Antwerp, eating microwave heated, yesterday cooked, lemon rice, I think about those wonderful days in the hills…..and my heard dances with BR…
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Diclofenac and Vulture deaths – From naivity to reality
Diclofenac is one of the most commonly used Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude, I take the human example. Although, I really dont know to what extend ‘human diclo cycle’ touches birds, as an example, it would be good. There are about 1600 odd government health centres in Karnataka –…
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The artist clarifies!
In the winter of 2004, from my abode in BR Hills, where I was dwelling then, I had all the time in the world to philosophize! I was writing about the artist-scientist ‘polarities’ and one of my senior colleagues in BR Hills, responded to my turmoil by throwing some light. Stephen Jay Gould is a…