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Creature feature: Wildlife rescuers on the one mission they'll never forget

Creature feature: Wildlife rescuers on the one mission they'll never forget

Hindustan Times11-07-2025
By all means, add 200 panda Reels to your Insta Blend. Pet every kitty that lets you. Foster a pup and fall in love. Feed your friend's fish when they're on vacation. Make friends with the neighbour's turtle, even. But don't for a moment believe that showing up for animals is fun or glamorous. Nirit Datta works with street dogs, reptiles and birds. He was once bitten by a cobra while trying to rescue it.
Across cities and villages, regular folks are making it their business to protect species that most Indians want to attack on sight. Some spend a whole day coaxing a snake out of a stairwell, others have convinced panicked villagers to spare the life of a monitor lizard. Young people have rehabbed bats, wrangled baby crocs from poachers, and seen lizard eggs as worth saving. We asked some of them about the rescues they'll never forget.
When a cobra got too closeNirit Datta (@Infant_Wild)
Datta, 28, started early. At 13, he was already rescuing street dogs and snakes in Kolkata. Now, as a wildlife conservationist and environmentalist, he works with everything from civets to birds of prey. The rescue that left a mark happened a decade ago, just after he'd moved to a college in Dehradun. Word spread that a cobra had entered a village 11km from campus. Datta knew he had to save the animal before locals killed it. He got there and managed to trap the reptile into a bag. 'But I got distracted by the crowd and forgot to zip the bag shut,' he recalls. The cobra bit him.
Panic hit. Cobra venom is neurotoxic. Symptoms begin within minutes: Blurred vision, blackened skin, slurred speech, drowsiness, often death. The nearest hospital with antivenom was 30 kilometres away. 'I was sure I'd die. I couldn't even call my parents because they didn't approve of my jungli pursuits.' An hour went by, but there were no symptoms. Turns out it was a dry bite – without venom. But Datta learnt his lesson: Concern for an animal isn't enough. Prep matters too. Even now, when he sometimes handles up to 10 rescues a day, he keeps in mind that there are no rules in the wild.
Aakash Vimal rehabilitates owls and vultures.
The owl who got a second chanceAakash Vimal (@Wildly_Indian_Official)
In the decade that he's been rescuing owls and vultures in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, Vimal has found that humans are a greater threat to animals than the other way around. Humans in small towns are particularly dangerous – they compete with wildlife for space and resources, and they prefer superstition to conservation.
In May this year, Vimal, 30, was called to Seemapuri, in north-east Delhi. A rickshaw driver had just sold someone a barn owl for ₹5,000. It was about to be sacrificed in a black-magic ritual. Vimal got there in time to prevent the killing, but his problems had only just begun. The owl's legs were tied and it had been force-fed alcohol, 'so the bird cannot fight back'. He spent the next few days stabilising the bird with electrolytes and food, before it was well enough to fly.
Surya Keerthi has rescued more than 30,000 reptiles.
The croc of one's dreamsSurya Keerthi (@SuryaKeerthi728)
Some rescues begin even before you wake. One summer morning two years ago, Keerthi, 24, had a strange dream: He was wading through a village lake when a baby crocodile surfaced. As he reached for it, someone hurled a stone into the water. Another giant croc stirred beneath. He woke up unsettled. Two minutes later, his phone rang. A baby croc had been hauled up in a fishnet and dumped at the Mysuru fish market.
Keerthi grew up around reptiles; his father, 'Snake' Shyam, has rescued countless snakes. Keerthi himself has been part of 30,000 rescues. Toolkit in tow, he rescued the 10-inch croc. But where to put the little guy? He built a 2ft x 3ft tank filled with water, mud and later, just rocks. He added a heat lamp for basking and watched the baby constantly. 'I had to teach it to hunt, and to not get too used to humans,' he says.
He looked up what crocs eat in the wild, but local bazaars didn't stock tiny fish – fishing nets aren't woven closely enough to trap them. So, he built a second tank just for prey, releasing only a few into the croc's tank to simulate real hunting conditions. 'If you interfere too much, you change their instincts. I didn't want to change the law of nature.' It worked. Keerthi's croc, when it was finally released into the wild weeks later, knew exactly what to do in its new world. Don't try this at home. Animals belong in the wild.
Sushil Kumar Jain was recently injured while rescuing a wild boar that had barged into a Delhi college.
A boar on campusSushil Kumar Jain (@BailATail)
Just last week, a wild boar barged into a college in Delhi, causing full-blown evening chaos. Students and staff were trapped indoors, terrified to step out. Authorities called Sushil Kumar Jain, 59, founder of the wildlife rescue trust Bail A Tail. He and his team joined wildlife officials and spent 90 minutes safely trapping the panicked animal to release him into the forest.
Boars are fast, unpredictable, and fearless. Even big cats avoid them. Two weeks previously, one had attacked a woman drying clothes outdoors in North Delhi, slamming into her from behind and injuring her leg so badly, she needed 15 stitches. Jain's team worked quickly, using heavy nets to form a three-sided barrier and guide the animal into a cage. Two rescuers were injured in the scuffle. But the boar was safely handed over to the Delhi Forest Department.
Jain has been doing this since 1998, after he and his family moved to Sainik Farms and found that locals tended to kill any reptile on sight, especially snakes. So, he told neighbours to call him instead. That one promise grew into a massive rescue network. He has one strict rule: No photos during rescues. 'This is serious work,' he says. 'Not a spectacle.'
From HT Brunch, July 12, 2025
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As Beijing prepares to build world's biggest hydropower dam, a look at the Yarlung Tsangpo River
As Beijing prepares to build world's biggest hydropower dam, a look at the Yarlung Tsangpo River

Indian Express

time3 hours ago

  • Indian Express

As Beijing prepares to build world's biggest hydropower dam, a look at the Yarlung Tsangpo River

Calling it the 'project of the century,' Beijing has announced the construction of the world's biggest hydropower dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibetan territory. The project was introduced in 2020 as part of China's 14th Five-Year Plan. According to reports, it is to consist of five cascade hydropower stations, producing an estimated 300 million megawatt hours of electricity annually at a cost of approximately 1.2 trillion yuan (US$ 167 billion). The dam has drawn criticism from the lower riparian states of India and Bangladesh as well as Tibetan groups and environmentalists. Let's take a look at the river, its hydropower potential, and its future amid climate change. The Yarlung Tsangpo is the largest river on the Tibetan plateau, originating from a glacier near Mount Kailash. 'Tsangpo' means river in Tibetan. According to academic Costanza Rampini in the Political Economy of Hydropower in Southwest China and Beyond (2021), the basin spreads over more than 500,000 sq km of land in China, India, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, 'though 80% of it lies in China and India.' It runs 2,057 km in Tibet before flowing into India. One fascinating feature of the river is the sharp 'U' turn that it takes, known as the Great Bend, at the proximity of Mount Namcha Barwa near the Indian border. In India, the Yarlung Tsangpo enters Arunachal Pradesh as Siang. The Siang then gathers more streams and flows down towards Assam where it is joined by the Lohit and Dibang rivers. Further downstream, it is known as the Brahmaputra, which in turn flows through Assam before entering Bangladesh. 'Upon entering that country it undergoes one more change in nomenclature, this time accompanied by a sex change – the 'male' Brahmaputra, for some reason, becomes the 'female' Jamuna,' remarks author Samrat Choudhury in The Braided River: A Journey Along The Brahmaputra (2021). The Brahmaputra, as Jamuna, makes its way towards an eventual confluence with the Ganga, known in Bangladesh as Padma. 'This great river of many great rivers finally flows into the Bay of Bengal, after undergoing yet another change of name as the Meghna,' notes Choudhury. 'Like the Nile in Egypt,' says Tibetologist Claude Arpi in Water: Culture, Politics and Management (2009), 'the Yarlung Tsangpo has fed the Tibetan civilisation that flourished along its valleys, particularly in Central Tibet.' Approximately 130 million people live within the Yarlung Tsangpo river basin, many of whom are the rural poor. Rampini adds, 'Indeed, in North-east India, the YTB [Yarlung-Tsangpo-Brahmaputra] is often referred to as the 'lifeline' of the region.' As the YTB descends from the Himalayan mountains to the plains of Assam, it crosses steep slopes and gathers strong energy, which gets scattered in the form of intense summer floods, especially in India and Bangladesh. 'The energy that the YTB gains throughout its course also puts the river at the centre of China's and India's recent renewable energy development strategies,' says Rampini. For long, both countries have been mobilising their engineering capacities to dam their respective stretches of the river and harness optimal hydropower. China has constructed several dams along tributaries of the Yarlung Tsangpo, such as the Pangduo and Zhikong dams on the Lhasa River. In 2014, it completed the Zangmu Dam along the main stem of the Yarlung Tsangpo. The Indian government, too, has expedited the clearance of big dams along the YTB and its tributaries. Although Beijing has assured India that dams along the Chinese stretch of YTB would have no downstream transboundary impacts, India remains vigilant and anxious. 'Perhaps even more concerning to Indian officials than Chinese dams along the YTB,' argues Rampini, 'is China's controversial multi-billion-USD plan to divert water from its southern regions to its more arid regions, a project known as the South-North Water Transfer.' According to Rampini, the case is further complicated by the fact that the river crosses one of the disputed boundaries between India and China — the McMahon Line, which separates the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet. The McMahon Line was negotiated in 1914 by representatives of the new Republic of China, the Tibetan government, and the British government. India and the international community continue to recognise it as the legal border between North-east India and the current-day Tibet Autonomous Region of China. However, since gaining control over Tibet in the mid-20th century, China has contested the border, arguing that Tibet was not an independent state at the time of the treaty, making it invalid. This has led both China and India to establish a permanent military presence on their respective sides of the contested line and, in 1962, the border became the site of the last India-China war. 'The Brahmaputra, or Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, is counted among the world's ten major rivers,' asserts Arpi. Rampini adds that there is also no major international water treaty governing the YTB. Bangladesh, as the lowest riparian country in the basin, feels the most threatened, experts say. Scholars argue that cooperation over the management of the Yarlung Tsangpo, or Brahmaputra, is vital now, given the impact of climate change. 'The flows of the YTB and the ferocity of its floods are highly dependent on the melting of Himalayan snow and ice,' says Rampini. As human activities drive up surface temperatures, the Himalayas could experience between 15% and 78% glacier mass losses by 2100. Rampini explains, 'As glaciers retreat, glacier-fed rivers such as the YTB will first experience an increase in runoff, as more glacial melt swells their flows.' While this may cause monsoon floods now, the long-term repercussions are worrisome. 'In the long term, as glaciers continue to shrink, the YTB could experience a near 20% decrease in mean upstream water supply between 2046 and 2065, threatening the livelihoods of communities that rely on the YTB flows,' writes Rampini. Additionally, lesser river water will weaken the Chinese and Indian dam-building efforts along the YTB, since hydroelectricity generation depends on river flow. The YTB river system ties together the fates of China, India, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. Scholars warn that unchecked dam-building efforts along the Yarlung Tsangpo and the current mega project may eventually lead to a possible 'water war' between the two nations.

Spectator by Seema Goswami: Take these baby steps
Spectator by Seema Goswami: Take these baby steps

Hindustan Times

time3 hours ago

  • Hindustan Times

Spectator by Seema Goswami: Take these baby steps

I have always been a fan of Jamie Oliver's, having enjoyed his many TV cooking shows. I became even more of a devotee when Oliver dedicated himself to improving school dinners in the UK. But it was his recent initiative, 10 Cooking Skills for Life, rolled out for schoolkids to help them learn how to cook, that set me thinking: How could we best introduce our kids to the joys of Indian cooking? It must be done in a way that doesn't scare them off the process. Yet, it needs to be challenging enough so that they learn the requisite skills to put an Indian meal together. The easiest recipes to teach your kids are scrambled eggs and masala omelette. (ADOBE STOCK) So, how do we reconcile these two objectives, while keeping things fun and wholesome in the kitchen? Well, here are just some tips I thought of in case you have children around the ages of 10-12, whom you would like to introduce to the art of cooking their own cuisine. · The easiest route to learning how to cook for a child is through the humble egg; and the easiest recipe to master is the akuri, the spiced scrambled eggs that make an appearance at most Indian breakfasts. Just chop up garlic, onions, tomatoes and green chillis, sauté them quickly, then add the whisked eggs with your choice of spices like cumin and coriander, and you are good to go. Once your child has mastered this art, you can move on to the other Indian breakfast staple: The masala omelette. · All parents struggle to get their children to eat their vegetables, so cooking with them may present a challenge. But not if you start with something every kid loves: The potato. Teach them how to peel and cut the potato into thin strips to make aloo bhaja; to boil potatoes and sauté with masalas to make a tasty aloo dum; or mash it up with onions, chillies, spices and a dash of mustard oil to make a chokha. Once they have mastered these arts, you can incorporate other vegetables into their recipes: Maybe add some aubergine to the bhaja; slip in some peas or even a few florets of gobhi into the aloo dum. Kids love potatoes. Show them how to make aloo bhaja or a tasty aloo dum. · If you're starting with the basics of Indian cooking, then you can't really ignore the yellow dal. Thankfully, making this is not difficult and long-winded. All you need is a pressure cooker to boil the dal and some ingredients for the tarka. This can be as simple or as complicated as you wish. You can go the whole onion-garlic-tomatoes route or you could just teach your child to heat some ghee, toss some jeera or mustard seeds in, add a dash of red chilli for colour. Splash over your dal and enjoy. · While making a chicken curry or even mutton kebabs may be beyond your child's burgeoning skill set, there are simpler ways to incorporate fish and meat in your meal. Fish may be messy to handle, but prawns are easy to peel and stir fry with your masala of choice. A finely chopped keema is easy to put together with some beans for texture. And once you've taught them how to boil rice, they are ready to feed themselves for the rest of their lives. Bon Appetit, everyone! From HT Brunch, July 26, 2025 Follow us on

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