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India Today
19-06-2025
- General
- India Today
How a new campaign hopes to get illicit delicacy frog legs off Goa's restaurant menus
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 23, 2025)In 2020, Goa's Republic Day tableau on Rajpath had a giant green frog strumming a guitar. Back home, though, they often land on a plate. 'Jumping Chicken', they call it, for the benefit of meat lovers indulging in it on the sly. Up the chain from restaurants that serve it are poachers who track frogs when they surface during the rains, their breeding season. The most hunted species are the Indian Bullfrog and the Jerdon's Bullfrog. Both have fleshy hindlegs, the part that's curried or the frogs themselves eat is quite crucial. Adults and tadpoles feed on mosquito eggs and larvae, exerting a natural control on vector-borne diseases. Besides, they devour a whole variety of insects deemed farm pests, ensuring lower crop losses. Thus, frog poaching impinges on the ecology, public health, agriculture and food security. It also violates the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Frogs are protected species—hunting them can lead you to getting fried in jail for three is now trying to get frog meat off restaurant menus. In May, state forests minister Vishwajit Rane launched a 'Save the Frog' campaign, aiming to protect their monsoon habitats. 'The hunters track down the Bullfrog at night by its croak, using torch light to stun them,' says a forest official. While it's an age-old practice in many parts of Goa, the rising commercial demand for frog meat has started seriously skewing the Frogs, a barometer of ecological health in zones along the Western Ghats, also face threats from urbanisation, deforestation and linear projects like highways. Activist Clinton Vaz says awareness is getting the 'jumping chicken' off menus, but that's only a to India Today MagazineTrending Reel
India Today
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
How ‘Black, White & Gray' raises the crime saga bar
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated May 26, 2025)An intelligent filmmaker knows that all stories have been told already, and a fresh story means fresh storytelling. Case in point: the new Sony LIV Hindi series Black, White & Gray—Love Kills. Written, directed and edited by Pushkar Sunil Mahabal, the Rashomon-like six-episode series is part true crime mockumentary, part chase thriller, and full metafiction. What could have been a straightforward crime story is explored as a fake documentary looking into the aftermath of the crime, juxtaposed with its dramatic re-enactment. This style coaxes us to question the ethics of the true crime genre, and the intersections of caste, class and gender across which crimes A politician's daughter and the son of the politician's driver sneak out one night to have sex in a hotel. Later, CCTV footage suggests that the man has killed the woman and escaped with her body. The police allege that the man goes on to murder a cop and two others in his killing spree. The man has been absconding for two series is framed as a project by a western filmmaker visiting India. His mockumentary features interviews with friends and relatives of the victims, while the dramatic re-enactment shows what could have gone down between the man, the woman, and the three other victims. The filmmaker reveals his trump card at the end of episode one: he has tracked down and interviewed the of the most innovative Indian series in a long time, Black, White & Gray... is true gonzo filmmaking. At a time of despair in the Mumbai film industry over its products' staleness and commercial failures, Mahabal proves that imagination is all it to India Today MagazineTrending Reel
