Thomas Vijayan bagged the ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year – People’s Choice Award,’ constituted on the occasion of the 51st anniversary of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition conducted by the Natural History Museum, London.
Thomas Vijayan is the first Malayali and the fourth Indian to win the award.
The award, which is regarded as the world’s most prestigious award in wildlife photography, is referred to the Oscar in Wildlife Photography.
The award winning photograph is that of a common langur hanging on the tails of two others and swinging naturally as humans do. It was short-listed by nine expert juries from over 42,000 entries from across 96 countries. “This image, captured at Kabini in Karnataka, is special in its own way as it was selected by the juries for the people to select,” said Vijayan.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Kerala / by Express News Service / January 13th, 2016
Mayor V. Rajendrababu inaugurating the harvest of banana crops cultivated under the ATMA scheme at Uliyakovil in Kollam city on Monday.— Photo: C. Suresh Kumar
A two-acre plot at Uliyakovil in Kollam city, which was lying idle for years with overgrown shrubbery and infested with rodents, is now a rich plantation with 1,000 banana plants ready for harvest
The harvest was formally inaugurated by Mayor V. Rajendrababu in the evening on Monday.
Owner of the plot Binoy Abraham says about 200 plants are ready for harvest and the remaining will season in the coming few days and get ready for being harvested. The entire crop is being sold locally.
But Mr. Binoy gives the credit of converting his idle plot into a farm to his employees at the printing press run by him. The idea sprouted in the mind of Pramod, a native of Neyyattinkara, who comes from a family of traditional farmers.
Kuwait-based Mr. Binoy, who nursed a deep interest in farming, agreed to the idea and assured the required financial support. Technical help came from the Agriculture Department through the Kollam Krishi Bhavan, and the plot that was earmarked for banana crop was soon included as a scheme the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA).
Soon the plot was cleared, the land made ready, and a year ago the banana saplings were planted.
Pramod and his colleagues turned farmers during their free time, and tended to the saplings and experimented with some inter crops like tapioca and vegetables.
Assistant Agricultural Officer Shaji D., who supervised the activities, says that plot soon turned out to be the biggest banana plantation in the city.
Only organic farming methods have been used and what is being harvested from there is pure organic, he says. After the harvest, the land will be made ready for the next banana crop.
A small function was held at the plot to herald the harvest and the main reason for that is to encourage people to use idle land for farming.
“It contributes towards food security,” says Mr. Binoy. The function was presided over by Principal Agricultural Officer (Kollam) Stanley Chacko.
Bishop of the Kollam diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Zachariah Mar Anthonios, former Deputy Mayor, M. Noushad, Assistant Director (Agriculture) S. Venu and, agriculture field officer R. Babu spoke.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Ignatius Pereira / Kollam – January 12th, 2016
Activists take part in a march in New Delhi. (Raj k Raj/HT File Photo)
Kerala will set up a justice board for transgenders aimed at ensuring justice and equality for members of the community.
The first-of-its-kind board in the country, which is part of the state transgender policy announced two months ago, will hear the transgenders exclusively and take steps to bring them into the mainstream.
Also, it will provide free legal aid to check growing discrimination and violence against them.
After the Supreme Court recognised transgenders as a third gender in 2014, many people from this community came out openly to claim their rights. But violent incidents against them also increased subsequently.
The board will set up a 24×7 helpline, issue ID cards and ensure hassle-free arrangements to mark their status in all records.
It will help arrange home stay facilities for those ostracised by their families. Besides, necessary steps will be taken to make educational institutions transgender-friendly.
Some prisons in the state have already introduced separate blocks for third sex inmates.
According to a recent survey conducted by the state social welfare board, transgenders undergo maximum exploitation in jails and police stations.
“We have brought aboard departments such as health, education, home and revenue to set up an effective board which will help the invisible community to be visible. The board will help end their exclusion,” state social justice department director VN Jithendran said.
The department recently conducted a survey with the help of community members and the findings were disturbing.
According to the survey, at least 60% of transgenders tried to commit suicide and 58% dropped out of school because of harassment and similar reasons. Only 10% of the community members revealed their true identity to their family and 80% are forced to marry ignoring their sexual inclination.
In Kerala, their numbers are about 30,000 but only 4,000 are visible. Ironically, Kerala is the first state to bring a state policy for transgenders.
“The situation is alarming. Most of the members are forced to migrate to other states for a living. We hope the transgender policy would bring some acceptability and respectability to the community,” said a member of the survey team.
Though the literacy rate of transgenders is 93%, only 12% have regular jobs, the survey shows. Social activists said an exclusive justice board for transgenders would help reduce their sufferings.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home / by Ramesh Babu, Hindustan Times, Thiruvananthapuram / January 11th, 2016
The first hydroelectric project in the district, coming up at Barapol in Ayyankunnu panchayat near Iritty, will be commissioned by the end of this month.
The work of the Rs 120-crore project is in the final stage and almost 96 % of the works have already been completed, said an official. Only some minor equipment are to be installed, which would be completed in the next few days.
The water flow through the canal to run the turbine was successful and the trial run will begin in the next few days to solve last minute glitches, he said.
“Though this is a small project with the capacity of producing only around 36 million units a year, which is hardly equal to the power consumption in the state in a day, the advantage is that the maximum production would be during the rainy season, which would help save the water in the dams like Idukki, and it could be used in the summer,” said Anil G, the executive engineer of the project.
He said a three megawatt solar power station is also coming up there, and the panels are being installed over the canal.
The power project is developed by making a three kilometer canal from Bharathapuzha coming from Coorg, and the water reaches through this canal at Palathinkadavu, where three turbines have been set up, which could produce 15 megawatt power a day.
The project is directly implemented by the KSEB and the power from Barapol would be taken to the 110 KV substation in Kunnoth, from where it would be distributed.
Apart from the power production, the power project would also increase the tourism potential of the place. Though major developments cannot be made there, as the Karnataka forest is nearby, KSEB is planning to develop some facilities like watch towers and gardens to promote hydel tourism, said the official.
Meanwhile the district tourism promotion council (DTPC) officials are also exploring the possibility of an ecotourism project there on the lines of Malampuzha. However, it is just in the planning stage and the project could be finalized only after getting environmental clearance, said officials.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / January 02nd, 2016
As a part of Kerala’s vast and scattered diaspora, I grew up hearing interesting titbits about the land I had sprung from: communism, literacy, matriliny and, more recently, Arabian Nights-type tales about treasures hidden in the vaults of Padmanabhaswamy Temple. I absorbed this information in my childhood without exploring it in any depth because the only books available were either written by colonial-era social anthropologists or Indian historians too wedded to the format of academic books to make them genuinely readable, crammed full of dates and details but with little attention paid to literary art.
Portrait of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi by her granddaughter and artist Rukmini Varma |
Luckily, debut author Manu S Pillai has now accessed all of those texts and created the book I always longed for—a narrative history of Kerala that faithfully records and indexes its sources but also tells a cracking story. The focus is on the last queen of erstwhile Travancore state, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi (aka Senior Maharani), who ruled from 1924 as a regent for seven years while the British authorities waited for the future Maharajah, Chithira Tirunal, to come of age. Chithira Tirunal was the son of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s adoptive sister who came to be known as Junior Maharani. Many people in Trivandrum remember the publicly fraught relationship that existed between these two Maharanis grappling for power in the decade before India became independent, an event that was unforeseen at the time and ultimately rendered their fight rather poignantly futile.
In reality, the two ‘sisters’ were first cousins who were adopted together in 1900 from the Kolathiri clan of Mavelikkara to preserve Travancore’s shaky matrilineal line. After a series of miscarriages beset the Senior Maharani, it was the Junior Maharani who bore the heir to the throne. While it fell upon Sethu Lakshmi Bayi to play regent as the future Maharajah grew up, the Junior Maharani, cast in an unenviably vacuous position during the regency years, naturally made it her business to ensure a powerful role for herself as soon as her son became king. This was eventually achieved, with much help from the flamboyant and brilliant Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer, and was—the book suggests—employed to make the Senior Maharani’s position untenable once Chithira Tirunal came to power. The present royal family residing at Kowdiar Palace in Trivandrum are descendants of the Junior Maharani while the family of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi left Kerala to settle in Bangalore, Chennai and beyond after the regency period came to an end.
Manu Pillai charts this divided journey in vivid and comprehensive fashion, bringing events virtually up to the present day and telling the story occasionally like a family saga. Personal letters and interviews reveal the kind of tensions and jealousies that run through all families and this is rendered doubly riveting when set against the backdrop of ‘palaces and princes’.
However, it would be doing the book a huge disservice to suggest that it does not rise beyond mere historical biography. This 700-page whopper of a book is much, much more than the story of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, fascinating as it is to read about this able female ruler who was responsible for many policies now taken for granted in Kerala (eg, the Nair Succession Act that effectively and, in my view, rather regrettably abolished matriliny). For me, the best aspects of The Ivory Throne lay in those authorly excursions that efficiently answered all the questions I had stored up from my childhood in a maranaadan Malayali home.
From Vasco da Gama’s chaotic arrival on the shores of Calicut to Martanda Varma’s ingenious melding of royalty and divinity when he declared himself Padmanabhadasan, from the Temple Proclamation Act that finally allowed lower caste Hindus into temples to the abolition of the privy purse—this book swirls through Kerala’s history like a dervish possessed by the intention of telling a magnificent story, and telling it marvellously well.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> LifeStyle> Books / by Jaishree Misra / January 09th, 2016
Yuhanon Mor Philoxenos, the former metropolitan of the Jacobite Syrian Church’s Malabar diocese, passed away at a private hospital in Kalpetta at 10am on Wednesday. He was 74. He had been undergoing treatment for age-related ailments at the hospital.
The Patriarch had honoured him with the ‘valiya metropolitan’ title in recognition of his service to the Jacobite Church.
Popularly known as valiya thirumeni, Mor Philoxenos had stepped down as metropolitan in August 2009 following ill health and had been leading a retired life ever since.
His mortal remains were taken to his birth place at Pambadi in Kottayam district. The funeral will be held at the St Mary’s Simhasana Church there on Friday.
Born on December 5, 1941, Mor Philoxenos did his schooling at Pampady and took his BA degree from Baselios College, Kottayam and MA from SV University. Later he took his doctorate in theology from Logos Graduate School of Theology, New York and obtained Doctor of Divinity from Orlando International Seminary, Florida.
He was ordained as ramban at the Pambadi Simhasana Church on August 30, 1985 and was consecrated the metropolitan of Malabar diocese at St Peter’s and St Paul’s Cathedral at Meenangadi in Wayanad on September 12, 1985.
Mor Philoxenos was instrumental in setting up a number of educational and charitable institutions, like the Mor Elias Sneha Bhavan orphanage, Karunya Bhavan old age home, St Peter’s and St Paul’s Higher Secondary School and St Gregorios Teacher’s Training College, all at Meenangadi. He also took the lead in setting up a new diocese based in Kozhikode by dividing the Malabar diocese, in 2008.
As metropolitan, he had introduced many reforms, including retirement for priests on turning 70, welfare fund and pension for priests.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / December 31st, 2015
