Ailment Reported For The First Time In State, Claims Life Of 50-Year-Old

The health department is fighting the first outbreak of Lyme disease in the state in human settlements inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. The disease has claimed the life of a 50-yearold woman while four others have been affected so far. All the affected belong to Nambiarkunnu at Chettiyalathur in Noolpuzha panchayat. The disease was confirmed in blood tests conducted at the Manipal Centre for Virus Research this week.

Secretaries of all grama panchayats have been directed to tighten vigil against illegal sand-mining practices and enforce provisions of the laws related to protection of rivers and mining of river sand.

The directive comes in response to complaints from the Chaliyar Agitation Committee that sand-miners often resorted to practices harmful to river, its fish, and other organisms. P.K.M. Chekku, secretary of the committee, had complained to the District Collector that river sand was being extracted from 30 to 40 ft deep into the river bed.

Labourers From NE Could Be Carriers Of Leishmaniasis

Thiruvananthapuram: After a study on domestic migrant labourers revealed that a growing number among them might be carriers of HIV virus, a new fear has emerged that they could be also carriers of Leishmaniasis, also known as Black Fever or Kala Azar, a fever spread by sand fly bite. With the health department confirming that two cases of Leishmaniasis have been identified in the state and both patients have succumbed to the disease, it is suspected that Leishmaniasis, a kind of fever widely reported in northeastern states, has reached Kerala shores through migrant labourers.

Even amid the hue and cry of environmentalists over the shrinking wetlands, an effort initiated by the Revenue Department to prepare a revised data bank of the actual area of wetlands in the district has reached nowhere.

Though the updated list was expected to be completed by the end of 2012 in the district, many of the villages failed to furnish the latest records other than just forwarding the old records containing smooth figures.

As part of a project to tackle man-animal conflict in the North Wayanad forest division, villages bordering the forests in the Thirunelly grama panchayat limits have been ringed with a 34-km solar fence to stave off raids by wild animals. The Kerala Forest Development Corporation has installed the fence for the Forest and Wildlife Department. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has financed the work.

Minister for Forests K.B. Ganesh Kumar inaugurated the first phase of the project at Kattikulam, near Mananthavady, on Tuesday.

Thrissur: A panel constituted to work on demarcating ecologically-sensitive zones around national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the state on Monday visited the Silent Valley National Park in Palakkad and held deliberations with the public.

The panel members, comprising MLAs T N Prathapan, N Shamsudeen and state wildlife board officials, decided to recommend to the Union ministry of environment and forests to declare the entire 148-sq km buffer zone around the park as an ecologically-sensitive zone.

In a bid to arrest the rapid depletion of mangroves, the state forest department has mooted a proposal to acquire mangroves in private land along the Kerala coast, perhaps for the first time in the

Volunteers of the Theeram Nature Conservation Society, engaged in protecting the endangered Olive Ridley turtles reaching the nesting site on the Kolavipalam-Kotta beach in Kozhikode district for y

The plan of the district administration to de-silt Canoly canal and the Kallayi river as part of a beautification drive is likely to have an adverse impact on large acres of wetland in and around Kottuli, according to a latest study conducted by a researcher from the Department of Architecture, National Institute of Technology-Calicut.

Kottuli wetland is one of the largest eco- patches within the city limits identified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests under National Wetland Conservation Programme.

Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash on Sunday said that a renewed representation demanding a compensation worth Rs 150 crore for the victims of monsoon disasters would be submitted to the Central Government.

He was addressing reporters at the Government Guest House, Ernakulam, after conducting talks with the Central committee that came to evaluate the loss in the state owing to the monsoon.