The district emerged second in the category of best performing districts in the southern region for rejuvenation/creation of water bodies such as lakes and ponds.
Kochi :
Ernakulam district has received the prestigious National Water Awards 2018 instituted by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation at a function held in New Delhi.
District co-ordinator of Haritha Keralam Mission, Sujith Karun, received the award from Central Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari, on behalf of District Collector Muhammed Y Safirulla.
The district emerged second in the category of best performing districts in the southern region for rejuvenation/creation of water bodies such as lakes and ponds.
National Water awards were launched in the year 2007 to encourage all stakeholders to manage their water resources. The Minister of state for Water Resources Arjun Ram Mehwal and Secretary, Ministry of Water Resource U P Singh were also present on the occasion.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express/ Home> States> Kerala / by Express News Service / February 27th, 2019
K.S. Srinivas, chairman of MPEDA, handing over black tiger shrimp seeds to Hormis Tharakan, former Police Chief of Kerala, in Kochi on Monday.
The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) started supplying high-health black tiger shrimp seeds from its new Multispecies Aquaculture Complex at Vallarpadam on Monday. The inaugural sale of the seeds was done by MPEDA chairman K.S. Srinivas, who handed over a lakh of them to former Kerala Director General of Police Hormis Tharakan, who is also a shrimp farmer.
The MPEDA is a statutory body under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and has developed the seeds with the help of its research wing Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, according to a press release here.
Mr. Srinivas said lessons from the international market had prompted the MPEDA to promote the production of black tiger shrimp in Kerala. He said black tiger was the dominant cultured shrimp in India till a decade ago. In 2009, the country began experiencing non-availability of disease-free seeds of the species, prompting aquaculture farmers to shift focus to exotic vannamei species.
The MPEDA has now decided to encourage and expand the production of black tiger shrimp endemic to South Asia. Production of black tiger could support shrimp exports much more in the long run, said Mr. Srinivas.
Of late, tiger shrimp’s higher price and increasing demand in the international market has led India’s farming community to restart farming of the variety. To meet that, the country needs more disease-free seeds of black tiger.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – February 19th, 2019
A dozen projects competed for the best public health project award in the meet, which was attended by leaders of various local self-governing bodies.
Thiruvananthapuram :
‘Spandanam’, an AYUSH-based public health project implemented by the Kozhikode district panchayat, was presented with the Best AYUSH Health Project award by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday.The project aims at treating autism and growth disabilities in kids.
The second prize was shared by Kattippara grama panchayat in Kozhikode for its ‘Harikiranam’ project for securing the health of tribals and Jyothirgamaya Balya, a project for kids’ health and safety by Nedumangad block panchayat.Also, the cancer awareness project named Vision 2019 by the Harippad block panchayat of Alappuzha district along with Santhwana Souhridham, a project implemented for the wellbeing of the tribal community in Meenangadi grama panchayat in Wayanad district, shared the consolation prizes.
A dozen projects competed for the best public health project award in the meet, which was attended by leaders of various local self-governing bodies.These projects were screened and selected from two zones each consisting of seven districts. Eight projects from Ayurveda and four projects from Homoeopathy were presented in the meet.
Sneha Sparsham, a palliative care project of Thrissur corporation, Navaneetham, a project meant for the school-going kids of Thiruvananthapuram district panchayat, Udayakiranam by the Idukki block panchayat and Snehadhara project were the eight projects that competed in the Ayurveda section.
Punarjani, a project seeking the possibilities of Homoeopathy in ailing cancer patients, women-friendly project Seethalayam by the Kannur district panchayat, Swasthyam project by the Kollam district panchayat were the different projects that competed in the Homeopathy section.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by Express News Service / February 20th, 2019
Team from CATE spots a spider taxonomically related to an Australian species
A new species of spider has been discovered from the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, a major biodiversity hotspot in the State. The new species, Cocalus lacinia, spotted in the Kurichiad forest range of the sanctuary, is taxonomically related to an Australian species, described by arachnologist Fred Wanless in 1981.
A biodiversity investigation team, based at the Centre for Animal Taxonomy and Ecology (CATE), Christ College, Irinjalakuda, spotted the new species.
The head of the 8-mm-long male spider is brownish yellow and there are black lines along the sides of the hairy head region. Its eyebrows and forehead are white. The oval shaped abdomen is yellow and covered with black and white scales. The head of the 13-mm-long female is brownish and hairy. There is a V-shaped black mark on the upper surface of the head and red lines along the sides.
‘United biosphere’
“The nocturnal spider hides in the crevices of teak plants during day, and hunts at night for small insects. This discovery of a new species of spider from India and the presence of its close relative from Australia supports the theory that millions of years ago the biosphere was united and the present continents were formed by splitting a single big continent named Pangea,” says Sudhikumar A.V., Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Christ College, who led the team. Investigations are on with the help of genetic samples from the Australian species and Indian species to get more evidence for the theory of supercontinents. It may give more information on plate tectonics and the evolution of modern spiders, he said.
Sudhin P.P., Nafin K.S., and Sumesh N.V., research scholars of CATE, also took part in the study.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by Mini Muringatheri / Thrissur – February 15th, 2019
Participatory assessment: Scientists, students and nature enthusiasts participated in the survey that covered the Kole land habitats in Thrissur and Malappuram districts on Saturday.
Survey, coinciding with Wetland Day, reveals six alien species
The Kole Fish Count, conducted on February 2 in connection with World Wetland Day across the Kole wetlands of central Kerala, recorded 82 aquatic species. These include 71 fish species (18 species of brackish water fish and 53 species of freshwater fish), five shrimp species, four crab and two mollusc species.
The participatory assessment, in which scientists, students and nature enthusiasts from the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, the Kerala Agricultural University’s College of Forestry and the Kole Birders Collective participated, covered the entire expanse of Kole habitats distributed across Thrissur and Malappuram districts. Among the major Kole regions, Ponnani had a higher diversity than Thrissur.
Maranchery in Ponnani Kole had the highest diversity (45 species) followed by Uppungal (also in Ponnani Kole) and Enamavu (Thrissur Kole) with 34 species each.
With just 18 species, Adat (Thrissur Kole) recorded the lowest diversity.
Some of the most common species encountered during the survey include the orange chromide (known as pallathi in Malayalam), the dwarf pufferfish, Malabar leaf fish, and pearl spot or karimeen.
Future threats
However, the teams also came across six non-native fish species, raising concerns on the sustainability of the fishery and aquaculture practices being followed in the Kole and vicinity.
The presence of six species of non-native fish in the Kole is of significant concern as these have the potential to compete with, and outnumber native species, said Rajeev Raghavan, assistant professor at KUFOS and the South Asia Coordinator of the IUCN’s Freshwater Fish Specialist Group.
“Particularly alarming is the frequent catches of the Amazonian sucker catfish from various parts of the Kole,” he added.
The government needs to take immediate action to prevent illegal fishing practices carried out during the annual harvest of auctioned waterbodies that are part of the Kole wetlands, noted M. K. Sajeevan, Head, Department of Fisheries Resource Management, KUFOS.
In addition to aquatic biodiversity, the teams also collected samples to assess the health of the ecosystem through evaluation of key water quality parameters, results of which will be released soon.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Staff Reporter / Kochi – February 03rd, 2019
(From left) Annandaliella ernakulamensis, which is found only in Thattekkad in Ernakulam; Poecilotheria hanumavilasumica from Chinnar in Kerala; and Poecilotheria rufilata that the survey team recorded from Achenkovil.
Recent floods could have affected survival of rare spiders, claims arachnologist
Kerala is home to around six species of large, hairy spiders called tarantulas. But a four-year Statewide survey by a team from Kuravilangad’s Deva Matha College now shows that Kerala may be home to more than 11 species of these often iridescently-coloured arachnids.
New genus and species
The research project, for which a team led by Sunil K. Jose (assistant professor at Deva Matha College) surveyed several districts including Kasaragod, Kollam and Ernakulam for tarantulas, has identified four genus of the large spiders (Sahydroaraneus, Chilobrachys, Neoheterophrictus and Thrigmopoeus) that have not been recorded in the State before.
Poecilotheria hanumavilasumica from Chinnar in Kerala
For instance, the team recorded Chilobrachys fimbiratus (also called the Indian violet spider, which is endemic to the Western Ghats of Karnataka and Maharashtra) in Kasaragod district.
Similarly, they spotted the Rameshwaram Parachute Spider (Poecilotheria hanumavilasumica) which has so far been recorded only from Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district (found only on the Rameshwaram Island and Mandapam area here) from Chinnar in Kerala. This tarantula has been classified as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. Totally, tarantulas from seven genus have now been recorded in the State.
Poecilotheria rufilata that the team recorded from Achenkovil
The range extensions of the genus and species had been described in the report submitted to theUniversity Grants Commission, which funded the work that focused on studying spiders belonging to the family Theraphosidae, said Dr. Jose. He also presented the results at the recently-concluded international conference of the Asian Society of Arachnology at Bangkok, Thailand.
Kerala floods
While deforestation was one of the threats that the forest-dwelling tarantulas faced along the Western Ghats, the recent floods that Kerala witnessed could have affected the species in those areas too, said Dr. Jose.
“All tarantulas seen in Kerala except those in the genus Poecilotheria [tiger spiders] live in burrows in the ground. These would have become submerged during the floods,” he said.
Yet another threat that tarantulas face is collection for the illegal pet trade across the world. Kerala’s colourful tarantulas belonging to the genus Poecilotheria and Haploclastus were collected illegally and were available for sale on the internet for as high as $275, he added.
Tarantulas are a group of large, hairy spiders that can live up to 10 to 20 years.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities / by Staff Reporter / Kochi – December 04th, 2018
The Global Ayurveda Summit will be inaugurated by Industries Minister E.P. Jayaran here on Thursday.
The major attraction of the two-day meet will be Ayurstart – the first Ayurveda startup competition to attract young minds to come up with out-of-the-box ideas in the Ayurveda sector.
Addressing an interactive session Wednesday ahead of the summit, Sangeeta Saxena, Director of Commerce, urged Kerala to take Ayurveda to the next level.
The summit will be held at Hotel Le Meridien in the city.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – November 22nd, 2018
Environmentalist T P Padmanabhan (Photo | Samakalika Malayalam)
T P Padmanabhan, environmentalist and director of Payyannur-based Society for Environmental Education in Kerala (SEEK), an organisation spearheading environment protection campaigns and agitations, has won this year’s Social Service Award of Samakalika Malayalam Vaarika, a sister publication of The New Indian Express.
The award carries a plaque, citation and a purse of Rs 1 lakh. This year’s winner was selected by a jury comprising environmentalist M K Prasad, writer N Sasidharan and literary critic G Madhusudanan.
Samakalika Malayalam Vaarika had instituted the award in 2013 to honour persons who dedicate their lives to social service. Sixty-eight-year-old Padmanabhan has been working relentlessly for environment protection for the past several decades. He became the director of SEEK from 1987 and also the editor of the organisation’s mouth piece ‘Soochi Mukhi’.
He was the key person who led various agitations in Kerala seeking protection of the environment which included the famous Silent Valley movement that set the stage for environmental activism in the state.
The previous winners of the award are V P Suhara, social worker from Kozhikode: Raziya Banu, a social worker from Palakkad; V C Raju of Murikkasseri, Idukki; Krishnan Pallam of Pattambi, who runs the destitute home ‘Abhayam’; and Sajini Mathews, who founded Snehabhavan at Muttam, Melukavu.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Kerala / by Express News Service / November 09th, 2018
Discovery of Liparis tschangii published in Indian Forester
Liparis tschangii, a plant that belongs to the Orchidaceae family, has been discovered in the Ponkuzhi forests in Wayanad district, a major biodiversity hotspot on the Nilgiri biosphere reserve.
The tuberous species was discovered by a team of researchers led by V. Balakrishnan, former Director of Community Agrobiodiversity Centre of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) at Puthoorvayal here during an expedition recently. The discovery has been published in the recent edition of the science journal Indian Forester.
Liparis tschangii is mainly found in China and Vietnam, but this was the first time that the distributional record of the plant was reported from India, Dr. Balakrishnan told The Hindu.
“The leaves of the plant resemble the structure of the human heart and have white rhizome and green flower bunches,” Salim Pichan, botanist, MSSRF, and a member of the team said.
Very rare
“The plant is very rare in this locality and may need conservationpriority,” Mr. Pichan added.
Jose Mathew, assistant professor, Department of Botany, S D College, Alappuzha; P. Dhanesh Kumar, former Divisional Forest Officer, South Wayanad forest division; Jayesh P. Joseph and M. Jithin, scientists of MSSRF, are the other members of the team.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by E.M. Manoj / Kalpeta – October 26th, 2018
Tourists trekking to the Edakkal cave though the secondary pathway on Saturday.
The entry of tourists to the Edakkal caves on the Ambukuthi hills, known for the neolithic-age petroglyphs (rock engravings) on the walls of the cave, was resumed on Saturday after an interval of 23 days.
The caves, a major tourism destination in the district, were closed to tourists on August 23 after a huge stone collapsed in the first cave and a crack was formed near the old ticket counter of the first cave after heavy rain.
The entry to the first cave was banned but tourists could now reach the second cave through the secondary pathway constructed for the purpose, Archaeology and Archives Minister Kadannappally Ramachandran said. The entry was restricted to 1,930 tourists a day and only a group of 30 people at a time would be allowed to enter the cave, the Minister added.
The first cave would be opened to tourists only after a study by a team of experts, consisting of scientists of the National Centre for Earth Science Studies and experts of the Archaeology Department. The team for the purpose would be constituted soon and they would study the situation of the caves, the Minister said.
As many as 250 visitors, including 10 children, visited the cave on Saturday, District Tourism Promotion Council sources said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by Staff Reporter / Kalpeta – September 15th, 2018
