OUR CORRESPONDENT
Darjeeling, Jan. 28: The directorate of cinchona and medicinal plantation has decided to diversify into products like orange and rubber. The move is expected to make cinchona plantation, the largest public sector unit in the hills, profitable.

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, Jan. 8: The District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), Darjeeling, in response to certain queries under the provisions of the Right to Information Act has provided what could only be described as

The Darjeeling district administration has asked the departments to expedite development work in the tribal dominated areas of the Siliguri subdivision.

The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has launched a nation-wide conservation breeding of 63 critically endangered species.

Such a programme had been mooted in 1992, but it did not take off for various reasons.

KOLKATA: The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau is likely to refer to Interpol the case of Czech entomologist Emil Kucera illegally fleeing India, jumping bail granted by a Darjeeling court.

Mr. Kucera, who was awarded three-year imprisonment for smuggling out rare insects from the Singalila National Park in June, fled to the Czech Republic last week.

Kartyk Venkatraman

The arrest and conviction of Czech entomologists Dr Petr Svacha and Emil Kucera for collecting insect specimens without prior Government authorisation from the Darjeeling forest area has virtually pitted the scientific community in India against the lawmakers. Ever since 2002, when the stringent Biological Diversity Act, 2002, was enacted, scientists have been railing against its provisions which, they claim, are stymying research while aiming at conservation.

Czech scientist let off with fine - Associate sentenced to 3 years

Kucera, Kmonicek and Svacha outside the chief judicial magistrate

Morcha supporters sign on a map outlining the territory they want to be considered as Gorkhaland near Darjeeling More in Siliguri on Tuesday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo
Darjeeling, Aug. 19: The forest department has agreed to conduct a field inspection next week for the transfer of land to the NHPC for the construction of an alternative route along the Teesta- Takdha road.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which has stopped work at the sites of the two hydel projects for the past two days, however, said it would carry on with its protest till the inspection took place on August 25.

two Czech nationals, arrested on June 23 for allegedly collecting insects without proper permission from the Singalila National Park in Darjeeling, moved bail petitions for a second time in a Darjeeling court on July 21. But the appeal could not be heard due to lawyers