‘Secrets of Wild India', a three-part series highlighting the diversity of Indian wildlife, recently won the ‘Best Television Series' award at the International Wildlife Film Festival held at Montana in the U.S.A.

The series had to compete with films from across the globe at the prestigious festival. ‘Secrets of Wild India' was commissioned by National Geographic and is currently being shown in India.

SHILLONG: Endorsing the State government official team’s clean chit to four giant cement factories operating in Jaintia Hills district, Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Bindo Lanong attributed unscientific coal mining as a major cause of pollution of streams and rivers in Khleihriat sub division.

It is an irrefutable fact that unscientific “rat hole’ mining has contaminated the water sources and bodies within the periphery of the rich coal deposited sites of Khliehriat sub division. Adding more woes was the scientific declaration that waste from cement plants was the cause of death of aquatic lives in Lukha river.

A committee appointed by the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) to study the case visited the site and said the dam would harm the grassland ecosystem, and the Bengal bustard and wild water buffaloe — both highly endangered species — that live in it, as well as fragmenting the habitat of the Gangetic dolphin downstream, and submerging a nearby conservation area of medicinal plants.

However, the State government officials insist that neither the grasslands nor conservation area would be submerged, adding that there are no reports of sighting the Gangetic dolphin near the proposed dam site.

Ahmedabad: The pastoralist communities of Banni, through their respective gram panchayats, have opposed the move of the state forest department to ban pastoral rights of the community staying in the areas.

At least 15 of the 19 gram panchayats have passed a resolution against the state government and have sent the same to the senior officials in the state government.

AJMER: The forest department has on its hands the task of finding the number of remaining Great Indian Bustard (GIB), the state bird, to chalk out a conservation plan for them.

Concern over decline of Rajasthan's State bird population

The critically-endangered grassland species, the Great Indian Bustard, will be counted in the desert terrain of Rajasthan in the second week of February. Rajasthan, specially its desert region, accounts for maximum population of the bird which is globally threatened and listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).