SAVE TIGERS

Over the past century the number of tigers in India has fallen from about 40,000 to less than 4,000 (and possibly as few as 1,500). Relentless poaching and clearing of habitat for agriculture have been the primary drivers of this decline, though demand for tiger skins and parts for "medicinal" purposes has become an increasingly important threat in recent years.

However the news is not all bad. Research published last year showed that if protected and given sufficient access to abundant prey, tiger populations can quickly stabilize. With India's large network of protected areas and continued funding from conservation groups like the Wildlife Conservation Society, the findings provide hope that tigers can avoid extinction in the wild.

Camera trap shot of a tiger in India's Nagarahole National Park. Photo by U. Karanth/Wildlife Conservation Society.

Now a new study offers further evidence the tigers can be saved. Writing in the journal Biological Conservation, a team of scientists showed that parks in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal can sustain nearly twice the number of tigers they currently support if small conservation measures are adopted.

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, a leading tiger expert and one of the authors of the study, answered some questions about the recent findings as well as the overall state of tigers in India.

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What are the biggest threats to tigers in India?

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth: The biggest threat to tigers in India is depletion of their chief prey like deer, wild pigs and wild cattle by local people. As a result although about 300,000 square kilometers of tiger habitat still remains, much of it is empty of tigers because there is not enough food for them to survive and breed successfully.

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Mongabay: Your new study suggests that tigers can be protected within relatively large and suitable parks but what about the bulk of reserves that are too small to support tigers?

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth: What the new study shows that the bigger chunks of empty tiger forests in north-east India need urgent improvements to even reach "reasonable management" in protected areas that we have assumed in the study. The much smaller deciduous forest reserves in south and central India of 500-1000 square kilometers size can actually hold very high densities of tigers under reasonable management. At this point in time, it is these mid sized reserves in Western Ghats, Central India, Terai and Assam that hold most of the tigers in India.

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Mongabay: How can these tigers co-exist with people in human-dominated landscapes? Wouldn't there be conflict? How is WCS working to address this issue?

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth: It depends on how you define a "tiger landscape" for coexistence. Tigers can coexist with people if the landscape is defined at scale of the country, region, state or district. However, if we insist on forcing such coexistence in clusters of breeding populations inhabiting a few hundred square kilometers in conservation priority areas, there will be severe and perennial conflict and tigers will eventually be wiped out as a result; people have votes and tigers don't. WCS's strategy is primarily to ensure such cores are protected against hunting and that people within them are compensated fairly and adequately to move out. At wider landscapes, WCS works with all partners and stake holders to address human needs while ensuring the cores are protected uncompromisingly. And unlike many others, we believe in rigorous monitoring of results by counting tigers using best possible methods.

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Mongabay: What's the best way to encourage more Indian students to pursue a career in wildlife conservation? And do you have any advice for young aspiring conservationists?

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth: I think the best way is to create more opportunities in the real world for trained conservationists and conservation scientists. At present, both in the Government and the non-governmental sectors, the conservation field filled with people who are professionally untrained and are as a result offering and implementing "seat of the pants" solutions, many of which don't work. Secondly, conservationists must learn to independently function as small NGO groups without looking for government doles and jobs.

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Mongabay: How can the general public help save tigers?

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth: By not just being interested and concerned (which they often are), but by learning more, understanding issues and supporting the right solutions. Above all, by not succumbing to the gloom and doom prophesies about the tigers that have been flooding the media for the last 10 straight years.. There is much to be done and this not the time to throw up your hands and whine.

About Dr. K. Ullas Karanth

Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, who has studied tigers in India since the 1980s, is the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society India Program. Karanth has authored three books on tigers and dozens of scientific papers. He is based in Karnataka, India.

Religions in India

Indian religions are the related religious traditions that originated in the Indian subcontinent[1], namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, inclusive of their sub-schools and various related traditions. They form a subgroup of the larger classes of "Eastern religions" and also Indo-European religions . Indian religions have similarities in core beliefs, modes of worship, and associated practices, mainly due to their common history of origin and mutual influence.
The documented history of Indian religions begins with historical Vedic religion, the religious practices of the early Indo-Aryans, which were collected and later redacted into the Samhitas, four canonical collections of hymns or mantras composed in archaic Sanskrit. These texts are the central shruti (revealed) texts of Hinduism. The period of the composition, redaction and commentary of these texts is known as the Vedic period, which lasted from roughly 1500 to 500 BCE.
The late Vedic period (9th to 6th centuries BCE) marks the beginning of the Upanisadic or Vedantic period.[2][3] This period heralded the beginning of much of what became classical Hinduism, with the composition of the Upanishads, later the Sanskrit epics, still later followed by the Puranas.
Jainism and Buddhism arose from the sramana culture. Buddhism was historically founded by Siddhartha Gautama, a Kshatriya prince-turned-ascetic, and was spread beyond India through missionaries. It later experienced a decline in India, but survived in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and remains more widespread in Southeast and East Asia. Jainism was established by a lineage of 24 enlightened beings culminating with Parsva (9th century BCE) and Mahavira (6th century BCE).[4]
Certain scholarship holds that the practices, emblems and architecture now commonly associated with the Hindu pantheon and Jainism may go back as far as Late Harappan times to the period 2000-1500 BCE.[5][6]
Hinduism is divided into numerous denominations, primarily Shaivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, Smarta and much smaller groups like the conservative Shrauta. Hindu reform movements such as Ayyavazhi are more recent. About 90% of Hindus reside in the Republic of India, accounting for 83% of its population.[7]
Sikhism was founded in the 15th century on the teachings of Guru Nanak and the nine successive Sikh Gurus in Northern India[8]. The vast majority of its adherents originate in the Punjab region.

Dowry System In India

Dowry System in Indian Marriages can be called the commercial aspect of the marriage. The practice of giving dowry was very common among all people of all nations. A girl gets all the domestic utensils that are necessary to set up a family. Dowry system in India was prevalent since the Vedic period. In Epic period gifts from parents, brothers and relatives and relatives were recognized as woman`s property - stridhan. According to Kautilya "Means of subsistence or jewellery constitutes what is called the property of the woman. it is no guilt for a wife to make use of this property in maintaining her son her daughter-in-law or herself if her absent husband has made no provision for her maintenance". Considering the evils of dowry system, the dowry prohibition Act 1961 was passed in India. According to the Act if a person gives or takes dowry then he is liable to be punished for an imprisonment and fine. If a person demands directly or indirectly dowry from the guardians o the wife after the marriage has been solemnized then such a person is liable to be punished for an imprisonment of six months and a fine of Rs. 5000. Today, in India both divorce and remarriage are completely legal, whereas polygamy and polyandry are both criminal offences for Hindus, punishable by law. The Islamic personal law of Sheriat allows up to four wives for a man, and it is legal for a Muslim to have multiple wives in India. Marriage, a strong bond, a relationship between a man and a woman. It relies on the pillars of love, complete trust and faith in the spouse. Marriages in India are known with different names like Parinay, Shaadi, Vivah, Kalayanam, and Lagna, etc.

Canada Green Card

Canada Green Card is a term that is used figuratively to describe Permanent Residency in Canada.Officially however, a green card is uniquely American and is the popular name for a United States Permanent Resident Card. An American green card which, by the way, has not been printed on green paper since 1977, gives its holder permission to live and work in the United States.Instead of a Canada green card, Permanent Residents of Canada have the right to a Canada Permanent Resident Card as proof of their Canada immigration status. Though you may be thinking that the distinction is only a question of semantics, there is a significant difference in the philosophies behind the issuance of a United States green card and a Canada Permanent Resident Card. Here’s the distinction: An American green card grants the holder the permission to enter and live in the United States. In contrast, Canada Permanent Resident status grants an individual the right to enter and live in Canada. In the context of immigration status, having permission and having the right are two very distinct claims. Permission is akin to a privilege and, in the case of a green card, the privilege is granted by the U.S. government, speaking for the American people. A right is something more - it is a legal entitlement. It is inherent to the holder. True, both privileges and rights have limits and both may be revoked under certain circumstances, but that is not to say that they confer equal status. A simple example demonstrates this point. Permanent Residents of the United States must be in possession of their U.S green cards at all times and must be prepared to show them to U.S. authorities upon request. Canada Permanent Residents have no such obligation. Not only do they not have to carry around their Canada Permanent Resident Card, they are not even required to apply for the card. Though useful to have, a Canada Permanent Resident Card is purely voluntary. The difference between United States and Canada Permanent Residency is really about attitudes and conceptions - how residents are viewed by their fellow countrymen. More importantly, however, the distinction between having permission and having the right to live in the United States or Canada can shape personal perceptions - how one sees oneself in the mirror - as Permanent Residents contemplate their place in society. Canada Permanent Residency is much more than a Canada green card...it is a fundamental entitlement.