All posts tagged: Western Ghats

Tamil Nadu weather update: Heavy rain likely in 10 districts till June 12

Tamil Nadu weather update: Heavy rain likely in 10 districts till June 12

Published by Webster

Heavy rains are expected in 10 districts from Tuesday due to the southwest monsoon over Tamil Nadu, according to the RMC. Dharmapuri, Salem, Erode, Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Dindigul, Theni, Kanyakumari and western ghats of Tirunelveli districts will receive rains till June 12, the latest bulletin from the Regional Meteorological Centre said. However, due to high maximum temperature, combined with high humidity, it is likely to cause discomfort weather over north interior Tamilnadu districts and coastal areas of the state over the same period. Cuddalore district recorded a maximium temperature of 40.7 degree Celcius on Monday, followed by Chennai, which registered 40.4 degree Celcius. Meanwhile, Oothu region in Tirunelveli district recorded 11 centimeter of rainfall during the last 24 hours and Upasi in Coimbatore district registered nine centimeter rainfall during the same period. For Chennai, the weather office predicted that hot and humid conditions were likely to prevail. However, light and moderate rain with thunderstorm is likely to occur in the evening or night. This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. …

Sharavathi Hydroelectric Project: The cost of energy transition

Sharavathi Hydroelectric Project: The cost of energy transition

Published by Parlour News

A group of environmentalists had moved the Karnataka High Court, challenging the State Wildlife Board’s approval for a pumped storage hydroelectric project in the Sharavathi Lion-Tailed Macaque Wildlife Sanctuary, which is part of the Western Ghats, and a biodiversity hotspot. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu The Karnataka High Court, earlier this month, directed the State government to stop work in the forest area for the Sharavathi Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Project, until further orders. A group of environmentalists had moved the Court, challenging the State Wildlife Board’s approval for the proposed project in the Sharavathi Lion-Tailed Macaque Wildlife Sanctuary which is part of the Western Ghats, and a biodiversity hotspot. The Court’s order boosted the morale of the environmentalists, who have been opposing the project since it was proposed in 2017. The Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) proposed the project in the valley of the Sharavathi river, which flows for about 130 km through the Western Ghats before reaching the Arabian sea. The river is already the State’s primary hydel power source, with four major power stations operating in its valley. The KPCL aims to generate 2,000 MW through …

Madhav Gadgil: The champion of ecology and biodiversity

Madhav Gadgil: The champion of ecology and biodiversity

Published by Parlour News

The messiah of Western Ghats, Madhav Dhananjeya Gadgil, moves on leaving a huge impact on public policy, particularly when it concerns biodiversity hotspots within India. For his unflinching conviction and undeterred belief that the entire Western Ghats needs protection as it is ecologically sensitive, Gadgil was awarded the 2024 Champions of the Earth (Life Time Achievement) award, the highest environmental honour bestowed by the United Nations. Since 2005, UNEP honours individuals and organisations working on innovative and sustainable solutions to address the climate crisis, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste and seeks out champions whose actions and thinking are transformative leading to political change and equality and justice to all. Madhav Gadgil served as a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, for 31 years.(X/@Jairam_Ramesh) Gadgil’s crusade for the protection of the Western Ghats was unwavering despite widespread oppositions to the WGEEP (Western Ghats Ecological Expert Panel) recommendations of 2011. Though his recommendations remain largely unimplemented, they helped substantially to shape India’s environmental discourse. Given Gadgil’s associations and affiliations with international universities …

As ‘last of Karnataka’s armed Naxals’ surrender, fresh acquittal for top leader and wife who laid down arms in 2021 | Bangalore News

As ‘last of Karnataka’s armed Naxals’ surrender, fresh acquittal for top leader and wife who laid down arms in 2021 | Bangalore News

Published by Parlour News

A special court for terrorism cases on Friday acquitted Karnataka Naxal leader B G Krishnamurthy and his wife Prabha Hosagadde in connection with a 2005 case of an attack on a forest check post in Kudremukh National Park near Sringeri in Chikamagalur district. Their acquittals came even as a special court on Thursday remanded six Naxals who surrendered before the Karnataka Chief Minister this week to 14 days’ judicial custody in connection with a case registered last year in Chikamagalur. Among them are four believed to be the last of the armed Naxals in the state. This is the 10th acquittal for Krishnamurthy, 50, following his surrender and arrest before Kerala Police in November 2021 while it is the fourth acquittal for Hosagadde, 30, since she surrendered before the Tamil Nadu Police in December 2021. While Krishnamurthy has over 10 remaining cases in Karnataka, Hosagadde has nearly 16. Krishnamurthy alias Gangadhar alias Che, a lawyer by profession, was the highest-ranking Naxal leader before his surrender. He had surrendered in Kerala’s Wayanad along with Savitri alias …

Gowda’s death blow to Maoist movt: Experts | Latest News India

Gowda’s death blow to Maoist movt: Experts | Latest News India

Published by Parlour News

The death of the key Maoist leader, Vikram Gowda, in an encounter with Karnataka police on November 18 has delivered a severe blow to the remnants of the Maoist movement in the state. Gowda, considered one of the last prominent leaders operating in Karnataka, was at the forefront of efforts to re-establish the Maoist base in the region. His death, coupled with intensified police operations, signals what many see as the beginning of the end for Maoist movement in Karnataka. Udupi: Security personnel during a combing operation in Kabbinale forest area, in Udupi district, Karnataka. Vikram Gowda, a Naxalite, was shot dead by Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) during the operation, official sources said on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)(PTI) Once a significant presence in Karnataka’s Western Ghats, the Maoist movement has seen its influence wane in the recent years. By 2018, the number of active Maoists in the state dropped to just 19, with many fleeing to Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Currently, police believe the group operating in Karnataka has been reduced to fewer than 10 members. The …

The Wayanad blunders – India Today

Published by Webster

Imagine all the rain Delhi gets in a year, packed into just 48 hours, and bucketed down over a small stretch of sloping mountain soil that’s already soaked to the brim by torrential Kerala monsoons. When the earth under their feet finally gave way, in the dead of night, two Wayanad villages slipped into oblivion. Mundakkai, and two miles downriver, Chooralmala met this last nightmare of their lives—a horrific cascade of mud, water and death—on July 30. At least 230 people were confirmed dead by July 31 night, but with nearly 200 still missing, that body count looked likely to swell. The worst part is, it was a tragedy foretold. Landslides are a near-endemic phenomenon on the eastern flank of Kerala, where it rises up to the mighty Western Ghats: the state records the highest number in the country, and accounted for 2,239 of the 3,782 landslides between 2015 and 2022, according to the ministry of earth sciences. You can blame it all on nature—if you include human nature, that is. Source link

ISIS module case: Accused recced Western Ghats, planned to unleash terror in and around Pune, says NIA | Pune News

Published by Parlour News

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed a supplementary chargesheet, naming four more accused in the Pune ISIS module case relating to seizure of arms, explosives, chemicals and ISIS related literature. With this, the total number of accused chargesheeted in the case has gone to 11. The NIA has said that the accused had recced the areas of Western Ghats for potential hideouts and planned to unleash terror in and around Pune. The Pune ISIS module case — also referred to by NIA as Pune ISIS Arms and Explosives Seizure Case — goes back to July last year when a patrolling team from Pune City Police had nabbed three suspects on the suspicion of vehicle theft. A probe revealed that two of them — Mohammed Yusuf Khan and Mohammed Yunus Mohammed Yakub Saki, both from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh — were on the most wanted list of the NIA explosives recovery case from Rajasthan from 2022 with links to ISIS. The third suspect, Mohammed Shahnawaz Alam alias Shafi of Jharkhand, had escaped from Pune …

Wayanad requires long-term restoration, not trigger happy responses | Latest News India

Published by Parlour News

To be sure, Wayanad is not the only place in the country where reports of skirmishes — and in some tragic instances, deaths — between humans and animals are reported. Chandrapur, in Maharashtra, is a conflict zone between humans and tigers; in the Indo-Gangetic plains, farmers complain the most about nilgai; in urban and semi-urban parts of the National Capital Region and Haryana, such as Gurugram, leopards have terrified residents. But in hilly Wayanad, the conflict has been waged for nearly a decade now. A day before Gandhi visited Wayanad, the place saw a dawn-to-dusk demonstration where members of the Congress, the state’s ruling Communist Party of India (M) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) joined residents of the district to seek protection for the predominantly agrarian residents from wild animals. Massive crop raids and large-scale destruction are common, but on February 16, a guide was trampled to death — and the state’s predominant political parties descended upon the district in protest. VP Paul, an eco-tourism guide of Kerala’s forest department at Kuruva Island, an …