LUCKNOW: More areas in Terai region along the UP-Nepal border and central UP were flooded as water level of rivers flowing via Nepal continued to rise on Tuesday.

After three decades of sustained struggle with Forest officials, 340 families of the Tharu tribe of Surma village located in the core tiger habitat area of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve are a happy lot. The state government has asked the Lakhimpur Kheri district administration to convert the village into a revenue one and give Tharus their rightful claims under the Forest Act of 2006.

When it originates from a lake called Fulhaar Jheel near Madho Tanda east of Pilibhit, the Gomti is a stream. Gradually, it starts growing. Around 100 km away from the point of its origin, this stream is joined by tributaries like Sukheta, Choha and Andhra Choha near Mohammadi Kheri, a tehsil of Lakhimpur Kheri. The stream now turns into a river.

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government will shortly enact a law to constitute a special tiger protection force with its office based at Dudhwa National Park in Lakhimpur Kheri district.

The state government admitted in Vidhan Sabha on Monday that ground water in three districts had arsenic which was posing health hazards to the people of that region.

The year 2010 has brought new hope for the Gomti river, the lifeline of Lucknow. The river, which is a major source of drinking water for over 32 lakh people, is polluted the most in its 14-km stretch in the state capital, owing to millions of litres of untreated domestic waste that is released in it daily. In the next few months, things will change for the better.

LUCKNOW: The tiger population at Dudhwa might be poised on the upper side this time. At least 17 tiger cubs, under one year in age, have been spotted in the reserve. "They all must have been born this season and spotted now," said sources.

Vultures might be getting spotted in the wild but their near-stagnant population does not make it look like a real revival.

Lucknow: The decline of vultures has been the fastest among many other species. Their near-extinction in past one decade, ever since 40 vulture deaths were reported from Rajasthan in 1997, has made vulture-conservation a raging national issue.

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday called for formulation of long-term flood prevention and irrigation schemes along the 550-km Indo-Nepal border in the State, emphasising that quick exchange of information about rainfall in the catchment areas of rivers originating in Nepal was imperative.

The forest officials tranquilized and captured the Lakhimpur Kheri maneater on Sunday evening at Maharajnagar village in Kheri.

The three-year-old tiger will be brought to the Lucknow Zoo and is expected to reach here on late Sunday night or Monday morning. The captured tiger was tranquilized by Ajan Mazumdar of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).

Pages