With a view to ensure accountability of forest guards in patrolling tiger reserves and to enhance transparency in their functioning, the Government has launched a unique software monitoring system. Called M-STrIPES, it will be implemented in six tiger reserves to begin with within two months.

Ranchi: The forests of Jharkhand are on fire.

Abetted by the relentless summer heat, more than 800 hectares of forest has been reduced to ashes since March in the state where the total forest cover at present stands at 23,605sq km.

BHUBANESWAR: Stage is set for the tiger census to kick off in Orissa.

Beginning May 8, the Wildlife Wing will start the first phase of enumeration and hope that the last census outcomes were an aberration, if nothing else.

NAGPUR: Four new-born tiger cubs have been spotted at the Tadoba Andheri Tiger Reserve (TATR), located 150 km from here, bringing cheer to wildlife conservationists.

"The four cubs were sighted at the Kolsa range of TATR recently," SP Thakre, chief conservator and field director of the tiger reserve located in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, told PTI.

Pisi Zauing

Concerned over 14 big cats dying in the last three months, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has decided to convene a three-day meeting of wildlife officials of tiger-range states to review protection strategy in national parks.

Union minister for environment Jairam Ramesh said most of the tiger reserves in the country are in a bad shape and are going Panna and Sariska reserves way, which have no tigers left.

Cutting a sorry figure of tiger conservation in the country, Union Minister for Environment and Forest (MoEF) Jairam Ramesh on Friday stated that as many as 18 tiger reserves in the country were prone to Panna or Sariska like situation, if the big cats were not protected in a proper way.

Even after Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath complained to the Prime Minister over the progress of highways being stalled by the Environment Ministry, Jairam Ramesh seems in no mood to relent.