The man who saved the western ghats

by Deepa Kandaswamy

Conservation and climate change have become hot topics in the past 30
years—we observe World Environment Day and Earth Day each year. However,
in 1916, exactly a century ago, a Scotsman realized the importance of
conservation and preservation of biodiversity and spent his entire life
towards achieving this goal.
But for Hugo Francis Andrew Wood, the lush green Western Ghats today,
especially the Anamalai range (Anai means elephant and malai means
mountain) that runs through Tamil Nadu and Kerala would have become like
the dry Eastern Ghats, doomed by British exploitation.
The Western Ghats begin in Gujarat in the north-west and span over
1,600km to the south of India. To their west lies a narrow plain
bordering the Arabian Sea, while in the east, they merge with the Deccan
plateau. It would not be an exaggeration to say it determines the
climate of India.
It stands directly in the path of the south-west monsoon and creates
heavy rainfall on the narrow coastal plains on the west and dry regions
on the eastern side. This is also the reason why the Western Ghats'
biodiversity in flora and fauna is unparalleled in the world and is a
Unesco World Heritage site.
Creation of Topslip
As I drove up the Anamalai hills, it was sunny until I entered the
mountainous road amid thick forest canopy filled with towering trees of
all kinds. Wherever the trees were broken by elephants, light shone
through upon signs like "Don't stop anywhere" and "Don't use horn".
It's exhilarating to drive amid dense jungles wondering if you are going
to encounter wild elephants—Anamalai, as the name suggests, is elephant
territory. Finally, reaching the Anamalai Tiger Reserve located on
Topslip, you see little sign of civilization until a checkpoint.
Until 200 years ago, only tribals lived in the Anamalai range, which has
the highest peak of the Western Ghats at 2,695m. Francis Buchanan
mentioned of Indian teak and other trees he came across in the Anamalai
of Madras Presidency in his travelogue A Journey from Madras through the
Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar (Volume 3) published in 1807.
The British had the Anamalai range surveyed in 1820. Both the East India
Company and the British government were thrilled when they found jungles
on the Anamalai range, which spanned several mountains in Madras
Presidency (Kerala and Tamil Nadu), were filled with giant teak trees.
They decided to harvest the timber but found that they couldn't
transport the trees down to the plains as they were too large. So, they
came up with a novel method—they cut the trees and pushed the timber
down through the slope to the river downhill. Hence the name Topslip.
In 1850, a road from Topslip to Valparai was built by Captain James
Michael of the Madras Infantry, and in 1856, Captain George Gosling, who
was also a geologist, built a road from Topslip to Parambikulam (now in
Kerala), so they could exploit the jungles in the entire range; the
timber was carried to Topslip using elephants.
When I visited the area—I travelled more than 50km inside the Anamalai
range, in the region permitted by the forest departments of both
states—I could find just one teak tree that had survived the
exploitation and is 460 years old. It's called the Kannimara Teak and is
now a tourist attraction on the Parambikulam side. (Interestingly
enough, the tree has also been awarded the Mahavriksha Puraskar,
normally given individuals or organizations for protecting certain
species of trees.)
Scientific forestry
Many people don't understand why the great Indian Railways was built or
the importance of the Indian forests to the British—or, for that matter,
the connection between the two.
In the early 19th century, the colonial powers were vying for naval
supremacy. The oak forests of Britain vanished due to irresponsible
felling of trees to make ships. The Royal Navy needed timber for new
ships, to retain its supremacy.
The British needed the railways for administration and trade. Apart from
cargo and transportation, they needed the railways to move troops
quickly to places of rebellion after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 challenged
their imperial supremacy. For each mile of railway track, around 2,000
wooden planks or railway ties/sleepers were needed to hold the track in
position.
Apart from this, wood was needed to fuel the steam locomotives. The
British government decided to expand their railway network rapidly after
1857; so, even more wood was needed.
For these purposes, they needed massive amounts of teak. So, this
species was needed to be grown and other species of trees were cut down.
They called it "scientific forestry". The British kept cutting off teak
in Anamalai and shipping them off to Tiruchirappalli (aka Trichy) or
Bombay (now Mumbai). In Trichy, it was used for building tracks across
the subcontinent.
Teaks shipped to Bombay were used to build Royal Navy ships in the
Bombay shipyard. Indeed, Indian teak contributed in making Britain a
superpower.
Roughly 40,000 trees were felled each year in government forests in
Madras Presidency alone for the railways, according to Forestination in
Madras Presidency by Dietrich Brandis (1883). This doesn't include other
species of trees that were exploited for other purposes like fuel.
In the name of civilization
Anamalai also became a political showcase of how the British were
civilizing Indians. The British believed that killing wildlife and
clearing forests for cultivation was a sign of civilization. They truly
believed they were helping Indians leave their "natural savagery" behind
by deforestation while using our timber to retain their imperial power
status.
The British accomplished this in a systematic manner. First, they
enacted the Indian Forest Act in 1865. As per this Act, they divided the
forests into three categories—reserved, protected and village.
The Anamalai forests came under the reserved category, which meant local
tribes couldn't even take twigs to use as fuel or hunt small animals for
food. They banned cattle grazing. Collecting vegetables or fruits could
land one in prison.
Before the Act, people who lived in or near the forest got their food
and fuel by hunting and the felling of branches, which had been their
traditional right for centuries. Adivasi communities were banned from
trading jungle products like tiger teeth, ivory, hides and skins,
bamboo, spices, gums, resins, medicinal herbs, etc.
British companies were instead given the trading rights. Indian
aristocrats and the British were allowed hunting licences to kill at
will wild animals that caught their fancy, especially tigers. They were,
in fact, paid for killing them. According to Indian Wildlife History: An
Introduction by Mahesh Rangarajan, over 80,000 tigers, 150,000 leopards
and 200,000 wolves were killed for rewards between 1875-1925 all over
India. Since British kept records of only the money paid out, the actual
number may be more.
Many Adivasis, on the other hand, were forced to vacate their ancient
homelands and work in British plantations for free.
To carry the huge trees, they created an elephant training camp, which
exists even today. Tribals who lived in the Anamalai area of Western
Ghats domesticated some elephants to become kumki elephants. They were
used to drive away wild elephants to the mountain range and also carry
the trees.
This went on until most of the Anamalai range was cleared up. Between
1885 and 1915, several forest officers and conservators tried to
regenerate the area but were unsuccessful. This was when an officer
named Hugo Wood decided to put a stop to the unchecked destruction of
indigenous forests.
Birth and life
On 12 June 1870, Wood was born to Elizabeth Maria Louisa and Thomas
William Wood at Byculla in Bombay Presidency. He was their second son.
He studied at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill, in
1890-93. He passed the Indian Public Service tests and chose forestry.
He returned to India in 1893. He worked on regenerating the Ajmer
forests of Rajasthan. His ability in this regard was noticed by the
British government and he was later sent to Godavari and Kurnool in
Madras Presidency, where he served in various capacities as assistant
conservator of forests and deputy conservator of forests.
Wood was asked to replicate his Ajmer work in the Anamalai range in
1915. The next year, he was posted to the South Coimbatore Division (a
region that included parts of present-day Tamil Nadu and Kerala) by the
time the Anamalai range was left with almost no trees.
Wood never married. He dedicated his life to conservation and didn't
care about race, religion, ethnicity, language or nationality. He was
finally made conservator of forests in 1918, a post he held till 1926,
when he retired to Coonoor after suffering from tuberculosis, according
to a Tamil Nadu forest department booklet.
Forestry and conservation
The continued practices of scientific forestry and poaching across the
world have led to disastrous consequences. Many of the Earth's resources
are non-renewable—once depleted, they are gone for good. Environmental
pollution, species extinction and global climate change are all results
of human mismanagement of the Earth's resources, endangering our
survival.
Wood knew this a 100 years ago. He understood the importance of the
Western Ghats to the Indian climate, as well as the dangers of
deforestation and importance of conservation.
In 1915, Wood drew up a working plan for regenerating the forests of the
Western Ghats, especially in Anamalai and the surrounding areas. First,
he talked to the tribals, the British government and other interested
parties and made them agree on chopping trees and hunting wildlife.
Second, he admonished the British for uprooting trees and introduced
coppicing. This is a method of forest management which takes advantage
of the fact that many trees will rapidly regrow in the spring if they
are cut down up to the stump during the winter. It is friendly to
wildlife and other flora and fauna.
Wood befriended the tribals and many who were displaced were brought
back. He restored the customary rights of those who lived near the
forests in the Anamalai range.
Finally, he marked out areas where no felling or coppicing was allowed
for 25 years. The British government agreed to this plan as they had
unsuccessfully tried regenerating the Anamalai range for 30 years. (Wood
also refused to provide to the British during World War I.)
In 1916, Wood, living in a bamboo hut in Mount Stuart, began the
regeneration of the Anamalai range. He cooked his own food and lived
alone.
First, he analysed why the teak trees were not growing back and
discovered that it was due to the presence of Lantana camara, a
flowering shrub which is actually a weed; an invasive species introduced
in the plantations for ornamental effect, it had spread quickly all over
the range. Wood made sure to get rid of it all.
Despite the fear of cholera and malaria due to the climate in the
region, he worked in earnest. He would go on daily walks into the
deforested land 4km away, pockets filled with teak seeds.
He would dig holes a foot deep with his silver-tipped walking stick and
plant the seeds in. He did this at 15ft intervals. Once his pockets were
emptied, he would go back for more seeds and start again from where he
left off.
In 1916, he started small, targeting an area of 25 acres; by his death,
it had spread to an area of 650 sq. km.
Death and legacy
On 13 December 1933, the first motor vehicle that drove up Anamalai's
mountainous road to Topslip was a small lorry carrying the body of Hugo
Wood. It was followed by 11 cars with British officials.
Wood had died in Coonoor on 12 December at the age of 63. However, a few
months earlier, sensing his approaching death, he drew a will asking to
be buried in Mount Stuart in the Western Ghats and also sent the money
needed for the tomb to the chief conservator of Madras Presidency.
He now lies buried among the teak trees and his legacy. The inscription
on the tomb reads "Si monumentum requiris circumspice", Latin for "If
you are looking for my monuments, look around".
Deepa Kandaswamy is an award-winning freelance writer and author based
in India.
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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some books

Chemistry : Gilbert William Castellan
Stories : Supernatural short stories of Charles Dickens
Collected Stories , My boyhood days by Rabindranath Tagore
Palmerhon : Frank Lloyd Wright
Jorasanko : Aruna Chakravarthi

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lehiyam

Deepavali lehiyam
Shenbagalakshmi Srinivasan


It's the time to gorge on sweets. But worried about what that would
lead to? Fret not, for the Deepavali legiyam (or 'Deepavali marundhu'),
is a special preparation made in many Chennai households to aid
digestion of the rich food consumed this time of the year. Starting
your day with one teaspoon of this marundhu can help you stay healthy.
Here's how you make it:

Ingredients:

Ajwain (omam) – 25 gm

Arisi thippili (dried long pepper) – 20 gm

Kanda thippili (dried root of long pepper plant) – 20 gm

Athimathuram (liquorice root) – 10 gm

Dry ginger (sukku) – 25 gm

Chitharathai ('thai ginger' or 'finger root') – 10 gm

Sirunaga poo – 10 gm

Parangipattai – 10 gm

Vayu vidanga (False black pepper) – 20 gm

Valmilagu (cubebs or tailed pepper) – 10 gm

Milagu (black pepper) – 4 tbsp

Dry dates – 100 gm

Dry grapes (raisins) – 50 gm

Ghee – 300 gm

Jaggery – 3/4 kg

Method:

1. Break arisi thippili, kanda thippili, athimathuram, chitharathai,
parangipattai and dry dates (remove the seeds) into small pieces.

2. Dry-roast all the ingredients (except dry dates and dry grapes) in a
kadai for five minutes on low flame.

3. Soak dry dates and dry grapes separately in warm water overnight.
Soak all other ingredients in water overnight as well.

4. Grind all the ingredients using the soaked water into a fine paste.

5. In a kadai, add the ground paste and saute for five minutes. Then,
add grated jaggery and saute again on medium flame.

7. Add ghee in small intervals and saute till you get a fine paste and
it reaches 'halwa consistency'. It should be non-sticky; if you can roll
it out as soft balls, then you've got the right consistency.

The above method is the traditional one of making the medicine. However,
due to constraints of time, people prefer instant powder that is readily
available in local medicine shops. Once you buy it, mix it with twice
the quantity of water and cook in a heavy-bottomed vessel. Add jaggery
and ghee until the legiyam comes together and the ghee is separated.

Keywords: How to make Deepavali legiyam, Deepavali legiyam, Deepavali
legiyam recipe, traditional medicines

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A classic Tirukkural translation is reborn

A classic Tirukkural translation is reborn B. Kolappan
Balasubramaniam's book is being released 54 years after it was first
published

At a public lecture on May 13, 1961 at the Kapaleeswarar temple in
Chennai, one member of the audience, Sarvepalli S. Radhakrishnan
listened attentively to K.M. Balasubramaniam, who was speaking on the
Periyapuranam . Impressed with the talk, he urged the speaker to devote
his skills and translate the Tirukkural into English, just as he had
rendered the Thiruvachagam .

Balasubramaniam, whose work on Manickavachagar's composition had earned
him the title of Thiruvachakamani, told Dr. Radhakrishnan, who was then
the Vice-President, that he was on the job. The author then expressed
his wish that he become the President. That moment came exactly a year
later, on May 13. The year also witnessed the release of
Balasubramaniam's Tirukkural work, dedicated to Dr. Radhakrishnan, who
had written the preface.

Now, 54 years later, the same book will be released on Wednesday for a
new generation of readers.

"In Tamil literature, commentators with felicity of expression matching
the original authors were placed on a par with them. K.M.
Balasubramaniam was one such commentator," said Sivalayam J. Mohan,
publisher of the book. He has already published Balasubramaniam's
Thiruvachagam .

As an ardent disciple of Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar and
subsequently, as collaborator of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai, he
accompanied the two leaders to Bombay to meet Mohamed Ali Jinnah to
discuss the idea of 'Dravida Nadu' (Dravidian land). "Later, he became a
spiritualist and delved deep into philosophy and Saivite literature. But
he had a rational approach towards his translation. He even started
translating Periyapuranam , but died in 1974 without completing it,"
said Mr Mohan, an engineer-turned-entrepreneur.

Comprehensive, poetic

Many scholars including Rev. Fr. C.J. Beschi, popularly known as
'Viramaamunivar', G.U. Pope, freedom fighter V.V.S. Iyer, Rajaji and
V.R. Ramachandra Dikshitar have produced translations of the Tirukkural
, but Balasubramaniam's version was, to many, more comprehensive and
poetic.

The point is reiterated by Kamil Zvelebil, who in his preface to the
book, had said, "at last the English speaking world will be in
possession of a poetic translation of Tirukkural , in possession of an
able rendering of this unique Tamil classic into English verse, which is
without exaggeration and almost adequate to the original."

Balasubramaniam also rendered into English the commentaries of
Parimelazhagar, Manakudavar, and Kalingarayar, drawing substantially
from parallels in the Bible and the Koran, from Shakespeare, Milton,
Alexander Pope, Dryden, George Herbert, Francis Bacon and Dr. Johnson.
In fact, 50 per cent of the 530 pages in the book are dedicated to
detailed notes.

Suddhananda Bharathi, who has also translated Tirukkural into English,
describes the essence of the book thus: "the author takes the ideas of
Valluvar, and embellishes them, so the reader needs no other
commentary."


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melamine in milk

A new handheld device to detect melamine in milk R. Prasad

Detecting melamine in milk has become extremely easy, quick and
inexpensive thanks to a handheld melamine detector developed by
researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Leaf
extract of a commonly seen weed parthenium along with silver nitrate is
used for detecting the presence of melamine in milk. The results were
published in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

"The presence of melamine in milk can be detected at room temperature
within a few seconds through a change in colour," says S.C.G. Kiruba
Daniel from the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics, IISc
and the first author of the paper.

"Our sensor has a very high sensitivity as it can detect melamine even
at a low concentration of 0.5 ppm in raw milk." Melamine content of more
than 1 ppm in infant formula and more than 2.5 ppm in other foods should
be viewed with suspicion of adulteration, says the Food Safety and
Standards Authority of India.

In 2008, at least four babies in China died and around 100,000 became
sick after consuming powdered milk baby food laced with melamine. Due to
the presence of nitrogen, the addition of melamine to milk makes it look
protein-rich.

Prior to melamine detection, the milk is processed to remove fat and
proteins as they tend to interfere with detection. While most
researchers had used already prepared silver nanoparticles for melamine
detection, the IISc team added silver nitrate and the leaf extract in a
particular ratio and at a particular pH to the preprocessed milk to
synthesise silver nanoparticles.

"If melamine is present then it interferes with the synthesis and there
is abrupt formation of nanoparticles leading to colour change," says Dr.
Daniel.

The change in colour depends on the amount of melamine present and,
therefore, the extent of its interference with the synthesis of silver
nanoparticles. "The colour change can be directly observed by the naked
eye and also recorded by spectral change," he says.

The silver nanoparticles are reddish yellow in the absence of melamine,
while it becomes nearly colourless when melamine is present. Light
absorption at 414 nm wavelength is a signature of silver nanopartciles.
But when melamine is present the absorption of light is reduced as
nanoparticle formation decreases.

"Currently, milk samples have to be brought to a central testing
facility, so very less testing gets done. But all this can change with
our handheld device," Dr. Daniel says. As little as 1 ml of milk is
sufficient for carrying out melamine detection.

The team is in the process of commercialising the product through a
start-up that is incubated at the Society for Innovation & Development
Centre at IISc.


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Exercise and Lifespan

A class of molecules released during intense physical activity promotes
the growth of telomeres, which play a critical role in replenishing cell
tissue.

It may be passé to suggest that physical exercise is good for you but
there is evidence from an unusual source that explains just how — at the
level of individual cells — exercise keeps the body from ageing.

Telomeres are specialised caps on the end of chromosomes and have been
known to play a critical role in ensuring that cells, which are damaged
by daily wear and tear and metabolism, are able to replenish themselves
properly. Short telomeres indicate that a cell has aged — not
necessarily chronologically but in its ability to replenish tissues —
and studies over decades have shown that those who live long frequently
have long telomeres.

Since 2011, scientists have found that those who exercised — even
moderate walking — had longer telomeres. This was evidenced from studies
in athletes as well as in a study of elderly women, who turned out to
have longer telomeres and better bone density than that of their
sedentary counterparts.

Jacob Koshy

TERRA and telomeres

This week, however, a group of scientists report in Science Advances
about a set of chemical factors that are released during exercise and
may be closely linked to producing a class of molecules called TERRA
(Telomeric RNA) that promote the growth of telomeres. TERRA, the authors
claim, have a key role in maintaining the health of telomeres.

Aurelie Diman and her colleagues identified Nuclear Respiratory Factor 1
(NRF1), found on the tips of chromosomes, and another molecule, PGC-1
álpha, involved in energy metabolism and one that's known to interact
with NRF1. When they tested 10 healthy, young volunteers who performed
endurance exercise (cycling) for 45 minutes, they found that precursors
to TERRA molecules, called TERRA transcripts, increased in skeletal
muscle biopsies of volunteers post-workout. This increase was also
positively correlated with the activation of AMPK, the enzyme involved
in PGC-1 álpha activation in response to exercise. Being able to fully
describe the chemical pathway — from exercise to telomere — could also
help identify new therapeutic drugs that could slow down ageing,
according to Dr. Diman in an accompanying statement.

Still a work in progress

Mere physical exercise, however, isn't enough. Anabelle Decottignies,
one of the authors involved with the study and based at Université
Catholique de Louvain, Belgium told The Scientist that exercise led to
an increase in reactive oxidative species (ROS) that may damage
telomeres. So it was possible that TERRA molecules produced in the way
her team had shown actually consumed the ROS and protected the telomere.
That, however, is a hypothesis and still remains to be tested.

Independent commentators said that while the study did show good
evidence that exercise was connected to the formation of TERRA, it
didn't yet make a convincing case that TERRA played a role in
maintaining telomeres. "That NRF1 and PGC-1 álpha are linked to exercise
is well-known, and the paper suggests the role of these factors in
increase of TERRA. But, since how TERRA impacts telomere maintenance is
still not quite clear, more TERRA doesn't necessarily mean healthier
telomeres," says Shantanu Chowdhury, a researcher at the CSIR-Institute
of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, and who investigates the
role of telomeres in the genome. "The TERRA molecules have an
interesting structure for therapeutic purposes but the link (with
telomere maintenance) is still correlative."

Dietary recommendations

Focussing on exercise alone for telomere isn't a viable strategy — as
the authors themselves admit in their Science Advances study — and
several other lifestyle factors may be more important. As telomeres
shorten with age and progressive telomere shortening leads to
senescence, they lead to genomic instability and cancer. Older people
with shorter telomeres have three and eight times increased risk of
death from heart and infectious diseases, respectively.

Smoking, exposure to pollution, a lack of physical activity, obesity,
stress, and an unhealthy diet increase oxidative burden and the rate of
telomere shortening. In a review of existing research on telomeres and
health, researcher Masood Shammas, in Current Opinion in Clinical
Nutrition and Metabolic Care suggests that "to preserve telomeres and
reduce cancer risk and pace of aging, we may consider to eat less;
include antioxidants, fiber, soy protein and healthy fats (derived from
avocados, fish, and nuts) in our diet".

This, he says, is in addition to staying lean, active, healthy, and
stress-free through regular exercise and meditation. Specific dietary
recommendations for healthy telomeres include tuna, salmon, herring,
mackerel, halibut, anchovies, catfish, grouper, flounder, flax seeds,
chia seeds, sesame seeds, kiwi, black raspberries, lingonberry, green
tea, broccoli, sprouts, red grapes, tomatoes, olive fruit, and other
vitamin C-rich and E-rich foods. "It's also premature to say to what
extent exercise is more important than these other factors," Dr.
Chowdhury adds.

jacob.koshy@thehindu.co.in

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Essay to read

Doing good in a material world

With the hold of religion gone, faith in god shaken and moral values
discarded, are there any incentives to goodness left?

Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-79) was a freedom fighter, social reformer and
political leader. The following post titled Is there any incentive to be
good? appeared in a 1952 issue of Freedom First and was published again
in November 1979.
*****
In days gone by men tried to be good, impelled by some higher moral
force in which they believed; and goodness means such things as
truthfulness, honesty, kindness, chastity, unselfishness. Men felt that
it was the highest moral duty to try to be good. Whether they succeeded
in their trial, or whether they tried at all, was a different matter.
The important point is that society provided every individual with the
motive to be good; it was the command of religion, of God; it was
necessary for one's highest growth, for self-realization; it brought
peace and supreme happiness; it brought salvation and freedom from
births and deaths.
In present society, with the hold of religion gone, faith in God shaken,
moral values discarded as deadweights of the dark ages of history; in
short with materialism enthroned in men's hearts, are there any
incentives to goodness left? Indeed, has the question any relevance at
all to present facts, problems and ideals of human society?
I hold emphatically that no other question is more relevant to us today.
In spite of what may be broadly described as the materialist climate of
present society, men everywhere are engaged, in their different ways, in
creating a heaven upon earth—in remaking, refining, perfecting human
society. These efforts, even the most idealistic and ambitious, such as
communism of its original conception, seem, however, to be shipwrecking
on one obdurate rock—human baseness. It is clearer today than ever that
social reconstruction is impossible without human reconstruction.
Society cannot be good unless individual men are good and particularly
those men who form the elite of society.
Here then is the crux of the modern problem. Men wish to create, if not
an ideal, at least a good society.
Modern science and technology make that task far easier than ever
before. But men lack the tools with which to make themselves. And the
ideas are forgotten, and they begin to fight for power, position,
spoils, bringing down the whole edifice of the new society.
Therefore, the problem of human goodness is of supreme moment today. The
individual asks today why should he be good. There is no God, no soul,
no morality, no life hereafter, no cycle of birth and death. He is
merely an organization of matter, fortuitously brought into being, and
destined soon to dissolve into the infinite ocean of matter. He sees all
around him evil succeed—corruption, profiteering, lying, deception,
cruelty, power politics, violence. He asks naturally why he should be
virtuous. Our social norms of today and the materialist philosophy which
rules the affairs of men answer back: he need not. The cleverer he is,
the more gifted, the more courageously he practices the new amorality;
and in the toils of this amorality the dreams and aspirations of
humankind become warped and twisted.
For many years I have worshipped at the shrine of the
goddess—dialectical materialism—which seemed to me intellectually more
satisfying than any other philosophy. But while the main quest of
philosophy remains unsatisfied, it has become patent to me that
materialism of any sort robs man of the means to become truly human. In
a material civilization man has no rational incentive to be good. It may
be that in the kingdom of dialectical materialism, fear makes men
conform, and the Party takes the place of God. But when that God himself
turns vicious, to be vicious becomes a universal code.
I feel convinced, therefore, that man must go beyond the material to
find the incentives to goodness. As a corollary, I feel further that the
task of social reconstruction cannot succeed under the inspiration of a
materialist philosophy.
It may be asked if any social conditioning is at all necessary for men
to acquire goodness. Is not man essentially good? Are not most men in
every society decent?
Yes and no.
Man is a socio-organic being: he is partly the product of "nature" and
partly that of society. What man is by nature cannot be said with
certainty. Indeed, the very concepts of good or bad are supernatural or
super-organic. There is nothing good or bad in nature. Human nature,
apart from the instincts of self and race preservation, is most likely
of a neutral character which acquires moral tones in accordance to
social conditioning.
It is true that in every society most men are decent and good. These men
go through life without being called upon to make any vital moral
judgements. Their routine of life runs within narrow circles and custom
and tradition answer for them the questions concerning right and wrong.
But, firstly, these harmless decent men are apt under social stimuli to
turn suddenly wild and vicious. Decent Hindus and Muslims, living
peaceably together, didn't hesitate, as we know to our cost, to fly at
each others' throats when the social passions were aroused.
Secondly, what is vital for the character of society, and for the
direction of its growth, is not so much the character of the inert mass
as that of the elite. It is the philosophy and action of this group of
the select that determine the destinies of men. To the extent the elite
become godless or amoral, to that extent evil overtakes the human race.
Let me hasten to remove a possible misunderstanding. I do not mean to
suggest that all those who profess a philosophy of materialism are
vicious nor that all non-materialists are good. But what I do assert is
that there is no logic in materialism for the individual to endeavour
deliberately to acquire and practice goodness. On the other hand, those
who go beyond matter will find it difficult to justify non-good.
Non-materialism—I am using this negative phrase because I have no
particular school in mind—by rejecting matter as the ultimate reality,
immediately elevates the individual to a normal plane, and urges him,
without reference to any objective outside of himself, to endeavour to
realize his own true nature end fulfil the purpose of his being. This
endeavour becomes the powerful motive force that drives him in its
natural course to the good and the true. It will be seen as an important
corollary of this that only when materialism is transcended does
individual man come into his own and become an end in himself.

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Karkidakam

From the Hindu:

From special discounts on religious books to ready-made mix of
'Karkidaka Kanji,' a special gruel made during this season, the city
markets are all set for the 'panja' month, as it is popularly known.

Decades ago, 'Karkidaka masam' was marked by heavy rain, a time when
people prayed to the Gods to prevent nature's fury. Times have changed
and so have the prayers, but some traditions continue to be followed.

From special discounts on religious books to ready-made mix of
'Karkidaka Kanji,' a special gruel made during this season, the city
markets are all set for the 'panja' month, as it is popularly known.
This year Karkidaka Masam, the last month in the traditional Malayalam
calendar, starts on July 16 and ends on August 16.

The month, also known as the 'Ramayana masam,' is normally dedicated to
reading the Ramayana and following other religious rituals.

"The month represents a time when there is heavy rain and people read
the Ramayana to build self-confidence during the difficult times. It is
not always possible to complete the entire book, so mostly
'Sundarakandam,' the fifth book is read," academic M.G. Shashibhooshan
says.

In connection with the season, the State Institute of Languages is
organising a month-long 'Darshinika Pushthakolsavam,' starting on July
16.

"This is a month for reading as per tradition. Thirty new collections of
philosophical books and other religious texts will be available at
special discounts," M.R. Thampan, director, says.

Mr. Shashibhooshan says that in the Hindu tradition, it is believed that
the sage Valmiki completed the epic Ramayana during this month. It also
marks the season for a ritual dedicated to dead ancestors and relatives
that is performed on the Amavasi or no-moon day when people visit
seashores and riverbanks to perform the Bali ritual, he says.

Another age-old tradition of savouring the Karkidaka kanji, a spicy mix
of rice and medicinal herbs, remains intact among a few families even
today. While it may now have become difficult to find the herbs in the
courtyards of houses, branded 'Karkidaka kanji' ready mix is available
in the market.

"There is good demand for the product among people who want to follow
the tradition, but are unaware of the herbs and medicinal plants that go
into it. The special mix is already available in the market,"
Reghunandanan V. Menon, an official at Oushadhi, a public sector company
manufacturing Ayurvedic products, says.

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Gut bacteria spotted eating brain chemicals for the first time

Gut bacteria spotted eating brain chemicals for the first timeBy Andy
Coghlan

Bacteria have been discovered in our guts that depend on one of our
brain chemicals for survival. These bacteria consume GABA, a molecule
crucial for calming the brain, and the fact that they gobble it up could
help explain why the gut microbiome seems to affect mood.

Philip Strandwitz and his colleagues at Northeastern University in
Boston discovered that they could only grow a species of recently
discovered gut bacteria, called KLE1738, if they provide it with GABA
molecules. "Nothing made it grow, except GABA," Strandwitz said while
announcing his findings at the annual meeting of the American Society
for Microbiology in Boston last month.

GABA acts by inhibiting signals from nerve cells, calming down the
activity of the brain, so it's surprising to learn that a gut bacterium
needs it to grow and reproduce. Having abnormally low levels of GABA is
linked to depression and mood disorders, and this finding adds to
growing evidence that our gut bacteria may affect our brains.
Treating depression

An experiment in 2011 showed that a different type of gut bacteria,
called Lactobacillus rhamnosus, can dramatically alter GABA activity in
the brains of mice, as well as influencing how they respond to stress.
In this study, the researchers found that this effect vanished when they
surgically removed the vagus nerve – which links the gut to the brain –
suggesting it somehow plays a role in the influence gut bacteria can
have on the brain.

Strandwitz is now looking for other gut bacteria that consume or even
produce GABA, and he plans to test their effect on the brains and
behaviour of animals. Such work may eventually lead to new treatments
for mood disorders like depression or anxiety.

"Although research on microbial communities related to psychiatric
disorders may never lead to a cure, it could have astonishing relevance
to improving patients' quality of life," said Domenico Simone of George
Washington University in Ashburn, Virginia.

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thus spake

THus Spake Aristotle :
"Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand,
remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is
living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life
except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the
shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's
equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Our loss,
therefore, is limited to that one fleeting instant, since no one can
lose what is already past, nor yet what is still to come—for how can he
be deprived of what he does not possess?"

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Bestozyme

Enzymes and carminative mix for improving digestion in children
Alpha-amylase
Fungal diastase derived from Aspergillus Oryzae
Papain IP
Anis oil
Carraway oil
Cinnamon oil
Dill oil


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piano journee

<from the Hindu>

It's 300 years since the piano was first created in an obscure part of
Italy, says a Medici family catalogue

There is a scene from Amadeus that shows a piano recital Mozart gives al
fresco, which starts with four foot soldiers carrying the piano ahead,
while he follows them in a horse-drawn carriage. The pianos he seems to
be playing are the early prototypes, a few decades after the original
Cristofori models came into vogue. The keys are black, and the entire
instrument resembles a harpsichord rather than a pianoforte. Nearly 250
years later, we are doing the same thing metaphorically. The foot
soldiers are many, taking the instrument all over the globe.

I have had the pleasure of playing abandoned instruments in the Pacific
Northwest, in parts of Europe, and as far afield as an abandoned
warehouse in Jamaica. In New York, I got to play on a beautifully
reconditioned Steinway that Duke Ellington owned, and in Chennai, more
memorably, I got to restore, along with the wonderful craftsmen at Musee
Musicals, the grand piano at Kalakshetra that belonged to the late great
M.S. Subbulakshmi.

A month later, I had the same experience with a piano that belonged to
Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, the maharaja of Mysore. Both these
instruments had made their way to India a century previously, a journey
that must have involved mind-boggling logistics, with traverses as steep
and treacherous as the mythical one in James Hilton's Lost Horizon. The
piano has come a long way: it is 300 years old, if one goes by the first
official record of the instrument in the Medici family catalogue of May
1716, and attributed to Bartolomeo Cristofori, its creator.

In Vienna, one can see the pianos that Beethoven used across all his
turbulent years — the ones that he specially reconditioned so that the
soundboard and body of the piano lay on the ground. This way the deaf
composer could feel the vibrations as he pounded out the notes on his
beloved instrument. In Poland and in large parts of France, we see the
pianos touched by Chopin, venerated in what resemble shrines, while
across many public places all over the world, "public piano" projects
have become a rage — instruments littered across parks, airports and
even sidewalks — inviting the community to unite through music-making.
No other instrument enjoys the piano's immense popularity, and its rich
history has seen it meld with genres and cultures.

In May this year, Carnatic vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan and I were in a
primary school in San Antonio, Texas, with Indian music accompanied by
the piano. I found it significant when one child asked if I could give
him the notation, so that he could try and use it to pick up Indian
musical ideas. The piano had come full circle. From being a Western
classical instrument to being adapted for Indian music, and now a
vehicle of our music for the West.

The most accessible instrument in the world owes its origin to the
humble yet prodigious Cristofori, who was hired providentially by the
progressive and impetuous Prince Ferdinando di Medici of Tuscany.
Working his way through the existing keyboard instruments of the time,
notably the spinet and later developments on the clavichord and
harpsichord, Cristofori created several masterpieces.

The 1720 pianoforte, with almost all the features of the modern piano
save the iron frame and the composition of the hammers, sits in state at
the Metropolitan Museum of New York. That this creation from an obscure
part of Italy is now in all corners of the globe and spans a universe of
musicians, instrument makers, composers, and technologists owes in large
part to its highly dynamic tone and sonic properties and to its quick
adoption by almost all leading composers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The piano came into its own perhaps with the romantic revolutionaries,
Liszt and Chopin.

But the piano travelled alongside history. It was the instrument that
catapulted into the world scene a statesman such as Polish premiere (and
concert pianist) Ignacy Jan Paderewski. It was the instrument around
which statesmen and nation-makers celebrated their biggest victories,
and it was the social lubricant of choice for families worldwide. It was
an integral part of the early 20th century "coffeehouse" and later
"pubhouse" cultures, the instrument around which everyone gathered, the
early breeding ground for such diverse genres as ragtime (Ernest Hogan
and then Scott Joplin, basis of the African-American march time music
and big bands of the early 20th century), early, and then, serious jazz
(which needs a separate article), and in improvisational music of any
form in the middle and late 20th centuries.

Perhaps the piano's greatest contribution is that it has always been a
great leveller. From the fingers of concert pianists to film music
composers such as M.S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraja and A.R. Rahman, it has
transformed the way we listen to and process music across the globe.
It's a journey that knows no beginning or end, exactly as Madame
Sousatzka (essayed by the incredible Shirley Maclaine in the eponymous
1988 film) said.

Here's to the next 300.

Anil Srinivasan is a Chennai-based pianist who works across genres.

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Money and Education

Thanks very much for inviting me to speak today. First, congratulations
to all of you who are receiving degrees today. Congratulations also to
your teachers, family, and friends who have invested in you and
supported you.
Convocation speeches are meant to give you one last set of issues to
ponder on before you are let loose on the world. I will actually talk
about two issues – an economic point deriving from my training as an
economist, and a point about private universities deriving from my work
at one for over 20 years. I embark on this talk comforted by the
knowledge that the bar for convocation speeches is low. If you even
remember a word I say a few years from now, I will have surpassed the
average convocation speaker – most people don't remember who spoke at
their convocation, let alone what they said.
First, the economic point: In a very interesting recent book, Harvard
philosopher Michael Sandel points to the range of things money can buy
in modern society. He seems to want to make us angry at the growing
dominance of the market.1 Professor Sandel worries not just about the
corrupting nature of some exchanges as they are monetized but also
questions their effectiveness; For instance, do kids really develop a
love of reading if they are bribed to read books? He is also concerned
about unequal access to money, which makes trades using money inherently
unequal. More generally, Sandel fears that the expansion of anonymous
monetary exchange breaks down social cohesion, and argues for reducing
money's role in society.
While Sandel's concerns are not entirely new, his examples are worth
reflecting on. For instance, some companies pay the unemployed to stand
in line for free public tickets to Congressional hearings in the United
States. They then sell the tickets to lobbyists and corporate lawyers
who have a business interest in the hearing but are too busy to stand in
line. Clearly, public hearings are an important element of participatory
democracy. All citizens should have equal access. So selling access
seems a perversion of democratic principles.
The fundamental problem, though, is scarcity. We cannot accommodate
everyone in the room who might have interest in a particularly important
hearing. So we have to "sell" entry. We can either allow people to use
their time to bid for seats – the one who stands the longest wins the
seat -- or we can auction seats for money. The former seems fairer,
because all citizens seemingly start with equal endowments of time -- we
all start with 24 hours in a day. But is a single mother with a high
pressure job and three young children as equally endowed with spare time
as a student on summer vacation? And is society better off if she, the
chief legal counsel in a large corporation, spends much of her time
standing in line for hearings?
Whether it is better to sell entry tickets for time or for money thus
depends on what we hope to achieve. If we want to increase society's
productive efficiency, people's willingness to pay with money is a
reasonable indicator of how much they will gain if they have access to
the hearing. Auctioning seats for money makes sense – the lawyer
contributes more to society by preparing briefs than standing in line.
On the other hand, if it is important that young impressionable citizens
see how their democracy works, if it is important that we build social
solidarity by making corporate executives stand in line with jobless
teenagers, perhaps we should force people to bid with their time by
standing in line, and make entry tickets non-transferable. And if we
think that both objectives should play some role, perhaps we should turn
a blind eye to some operators hiring those with spare time to stay in
line in lieu of busy lawyers, so long as they do not corner all the
seats.
What about the sale of human organs, another example Sandel worries
about? Something seems wrong when a lung or a kidney is sold for money.
However, we celebrate the kindness of a stranger who donates a kidney to
a young child. So, clearly, it is not the transfer of the organ that
outrages us -- we do not think the donor is misinformed about the value
of their kidney or is being fooled into parting with it. Nor, I think,
do we have concerns about the scruples of the person selling the organ –
after all, they are parting irreversibly with something that is very
dear to them for a price that few of us would agree to.
I think part of our discomfort has to do with the circumstances in which
the transaction takes place. What kind of society do we live in if
people have to sell their organs to survive? But while a ban on organ
sales may make us feel better, does it really make society better off?
Possibly, if it makes society work harder to make sure people are never
driven to the circumstances that would make them contemplate a sale.
Possibly not, if it allows society to turn its back on the underlying
problem, either moving the trade underground, or forcing people in dire
circumstances to resort to worse remedies.
But I also think part of our unease has to do with what we perceive as
an unequal exchange. The seller is giving up part of her body in an
irreversible transaction. The buyer is giving up only money – perhaps
earned on a lucky stock trade or through an overpaid job. If that money
was earned by selling a portion of a lung, or by painful savings
accumulated after years of backbreaking work, we might consider the
exchange more equal. But the central virtue of money is precisely its
anonymity. We need know nothing about the rupee we get to be able to use
it. But because money's anonymity obscures its provenance, it may be
socially less acceptable as a medium of payment for some objects.
Professor Sandel makes us think. But he seems to move too quickly to
prescribe banning monetary transactions, when his real concern is
perhaps with the unfair distribution of money. What he also seems to
ignore are the virtues of anonymity. In a free market, all it takes to
buy what you want is money. You do not need a pedigree, a great family
history, the right table manners, or the right fashionable clothing or
looks. It is because money has no odour, because it is the great
equalizer, that so many people across history have been able to acquire
resources and invested them to make the world we live in. Indeed, making
it easy for Dalits to start businesses may do more for their social
status because money empowers than many other forms of affirmative
action. Rather than prohibiting the use of money and wealth, let us
think about increasing society's tolerance for its use.
What can you take away from all this? First, that it helps to question
everything, including my interpretation of Sandel, for only with
questioning comes clarity. Second, if you believe my interpretation,
there is a strong link between society's support for free markets and
the fairness with which wealth and opportunity is distributed among the
population. Unfortunately, even while inequality between countries is
diminishing today, inequality within countries is increasing. Today,
even well-run market economies seem to be favouring those who already
have plenty. In part, this is because skills and capabilities have
become much more important in well-paid jobs, and those born in good
circumstances have a much better chance at acquiring these. The
winner-take-all nature of many occupations, where a few of the most
capable entrepreneurs and the best workers take most of the income
(think apps, architecture or acting, for example) accentuates the value
of early childhood preparation; and hence the benefit of being born to
the right parents in the right community. Income inequality is on the
rise, with some having colossal incomes and others worrying about the
next meal.
What can we all do to restore faith in markets? We have to work to
provide effective access to schooling and healthcare for all, a
non-discriminating job market with many jobs, equal opportunities for
further advancement regardless of gender, race or background. All this
will increase the perceived legitimacy of wealth and society's
willingness to broaden the areas where it is spent. Thoughtful
philanthropy, as reflected in the founding of this school, can further
help enhance society's acceptance of great wealth. Finally, as you
embark on careers that are likely to be very successful, you should earn
by creating perceptible value and, equally, spend to create value. Not
only will your work be more enjoyable, but you will strengthen the
economic freedoms we sometimes take for granted.
Let me turn briefly to my point about private education. Private
education across the world is expensive, especially in high-quality
research universities, and getting more expensive all the time. That is
because the critical resource, good professors, is in short supply. Two
solutions are proposed. One is technology. Why not have the best
professors beam lectures at thousands of students over the net? The
problem is that while such classes seem theoretically attractive,
completion rates are abysmal. We do not finish such courses perhaps for
the same reason we do not simply take a course syllabus and read the
recommended books in the library – there are too many distractions in
life for us to complete without other forms of compulsion. Online
courses still need to figure out, not just how to get student
commitment, but also how to provide the learning support that a
university community and environment offers.
A second solution is to dispense with research and to have teachers who
do not do research. After all, such teachers do not need Ph.Ds, and
there should be many more available. Yet it does appear that students
prefer degrees from research universities in the United States to those
from teaching colleges, even for their undergraduate degrees where
students do little research. Let me conjecture why. It is not that
research professors know more about the basic material that has to be
taught – their research is often specialized in a narrow area. Neither
does research necessarily make you a good teacher – understanding the
material at a deeper level may sometimes make it more difficult to
explain. I do think, however, that good research requires curiosity.
Almost all researchers remain curious through their lives, and
constantly update their teaching material to reflect developments in the
field. I would conjecture, though I have no proof, this is why teaching
at research universities is, on average, preferred to teaching at
teaching colleges – you are taught more up-to-date challenging material
in the former.
The bottom line is that education at high quality research universities
will remain expensive for a while, certainly till we learn to combine
technology and people better. Given the need to broaden access to all
the deserving, we have to make degrees affordable. One part of the
solution is student loans, but we have to be careful that student loans
are repaid in full by those who have the means, while they are forgiven
in part for those who fall on bad times, or those who take low paying
public service jobs. We also should make sure that unscrupulous schools
do not prey on uninformed students, leaving them with high debt and
useless degrees. A second part of the solution is philanthropy, not just
by the founders, but by the successful students from a university.
Giving back to the university is a way of subsidizing the costs of
future generations acknowledging the subsidies you received from the
founders when you got your degree. I hope we develop a strong culture of
alumni giving in India.
You have been very patient in listening to me. Let me conclude. India is
changing, in many ways for the better. You will be able to help shape
our country, the world, and your place in it. By all means set yourself
ambitious goals. But remember that, as both ancient Indian philosophers
and modern day behavioural psychologists say, the achievement of narrow
personal goals -- greater wealth, rapid promotion, or increasing renown
– rarely brings you anything other than brief pleasure. I don't claim to
know the secret of happiness, but this seems obvious – if you like the
journey, if you get pleasure from the work you do, it matters far less
when, or indeed whether, you reach your destination.
You have far more control over the journey you choose. And often the
most enjoyable journeys are those where your goals are broader and where
you take others with you, especially others who could not make it
without your help. In doing so, you will make this world a better, and
more stable, place.
Thank you! I wish you good luck in your future endeavours and hope they
are crowned with success.

btw, this Speech was by Raghuram Rajan, RBI governor 2016

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Speeches translated to Tamizh

Former IRPS officer G. Marimuthu has launched his third book Great
Speeches of Great Men that saved Humanity (Manuda Amaidhikku
Vazhivagutha Perarigyarin Peruraigal). The book is a translation of
famous speeches delivered by well-known personalities.

"The book is aimed at instilling values in students and I have chosen
speeches that have changed the destiny of the world," says 63-year-old
Marimuthu, who worked on the translation for close to a year.

A total of 41 speeches of international leaders and heads of nations,
from the 1600s, find a place in the book.

The book begins with Michelle Obama's speech and ends with that of
Barrack Obama, as an appreciation of their oratorical skills. Queen
Elizabeth's statesmanship and Pope John Paul's approach to religion are
some of the messages the author has conveyed.

Seven women speakers are also celebrated in the book. Gandhi's 'The
Great Trial' speech and Kevin Rudd's apology to 'aborigines' in
Australia are the other highlights.

The author has previously written two books – Silappathigarathil
Sirappana Vazhviyal Sinthanaigal and Arivupasikku Arumaiyana
Sinthanaigal. With an educational background in history and law,
Marimuttu's aim to become a professor and educate the younger generation
was unfulfilled. To fulfil this dream and to channelise his love for
literature, he started writing.

"I am inspired by the speeches of Thamizharuvi Maniyan, Suki Sivam and
Sudha Seshayyan," says the resident of Arumbakkam, who plans to recite
these speeches in government colleges and at training programmes.

The book is priced at Rs.169. "Proceeds from sales will be utilised to
help students from poor and rural communities," he says. For further
details, call 9444628276.

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Reality check : how to be happy :--)

What we were trying to do <...> is bring that focus back into people's
attention. For example, rather than sitting in front of the TV, a father
might decide to play a little game of baseball with his son. What people
might do varies, but when there's a reminder, what we discover is
that—and these are studies conducted with Fortune 500 employees,
undergraduate students—they make seemingly small, you might even call
them trivial, decisions, but they add up to a happier life overall. This
simple reminder on an everyday basis is a kind of reality check, which
puts things in perspective for people.

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news items

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/rare-sighting-of-amur-falcon-sets-birdwatchers-hearts-aflutter/article8556734.ece

Rare sighting of Amur Falcon sets birdwatchers' hearts aflutter

Royal Society Fellows:

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/iisc-professor-among-royal-society-fellows/article8544377.ece

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90year old in Chernobyl

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/chernobyl-disaster-30-years-on-ninety-year-old-man/1/651571.html


Chernobyl disaster 30 years on: Meet the 90-year-old man who still lives
in the nuclear wasteland
Thirty years ago today, the world's worst nuclear disaster took place in
Chernobyl. But this 90-year-old man still lives in his birthplace which
is poisoned with radioactive fallout from the nuclear meltdown.

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Restaurant for long-billed vulture

The habitat of the long billed vulture now has 24 adults and 6 chicks in
2 roosting points and 10 nests.

For vulture conservationists, there is no sight more beautiful than the
highly decimated-in-number scavenger birds feeding on a carcass offered
at a "vulture restaurant".

A group of dedicated forest officials and personnel, involved in
reviving the picturesque vulture habitat in Adilabad district, are an
exhilarated lot as their painstaking effort for over a year in making
the majestic birds feed in their "restaurant" has yielded results.

The 100 m high and 250 m wide habitat of the long billed vulture (Gyps
indicus), the picturesque Pala Rapu cliff in Murliguda beat of Bejjur
forest range in Kagaznagar division, at present has 24 adults and 6
chicks living in 2 roosting points and 10 nests, though there are over
40 of them, all abandoned. Five of the 10 have been occupied only after
the conservation efforts helped the number of the scavenger birds go up
from 10 to 30 in a span of two years.

"We do not know when, but the nests were certainly abandoned because of
shortage of food. A survey conducted in 10 surrounding villages revealed
that cattle carcasses were not available since long, as farmers sell
away their cattle," recalled Bejjur Forest Range Officer M. Ram Mohan,
who leads the conservation effort.

"Supplying food to the vultures became our first priority as the habitat
did not lack in the other two parameters for survival of the birds —
availability of water and of higher perching places. We established a
vulture restaurant on top of the cliff and on the Peddavagu stream bed
to attract the scavengers to the habitat," Mr. Ram Mohan added.

"Though we had placed a carcass near the stream about six months ago, it
was for the first time that the birds fed on it on February 20 and
21,"says wildlife biologist and field researcher M. Ravikanth. "We
missed photographing the first day's action involving seven vultures but
made sure we carried a camera the next day."

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Forester's hall of fame

<From the hindu>

Forest Department's book highlights their life and work and traces the
history of forests over 160 years.

In an effort to inspire the present and future generations of foresters,
the Tamil Nadu Forest Department has brought out a book – 'Hall of
Fame', illuminating the life and work of 25 illustrious foresters of the
past.

The book begins with Dr. Cleghorn, considered the father of scientific
forestry in the country, right down to 'Elephant Doctor' V.
Krishnamurthy and naturalist par excellence M. Krishnan.

Through these personalities, the book traces the forests' history over a
160-year period. If you travel to the Tamil Nadu Forest Academy in
Coimbatore, you may have to take the Cowley Brown Road, named after its
founder principal.

Its first Indian principal C.R. Ranganathan also finds a mention in the
book for his outstanding working plans in Madras province. His theory of
dual climax about montane sholas and grasslands is a pioneering one.

If you have been to the grave of Hugo Wood at Mt. Stuart at Anaimalais
surrounded by teak, you might have seen the inscription 'SI MONUMENTUM
REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE' meaning "If you want to see me, look around". He
had successfully carried out artificial regeneration method of teak.

The present-day foresters still refer to V.S. Krishnaswamy's book,
'Thoughts on Indian Forestry' and T. Jayadev happens to be the forest
chief with 17 years' standing in the history of the forest department.

There are vignettes too. K. Andiappan, as an assistant conservator of
forests, was responsible for the Javadis road scheme at Tiruppattur
before independence. K Venkatakrishnan was the 'Architect of Rubber
Plantations'.

T. Achaya the 'Planter' finds a place for his invaluable contributions
to the development of tea plantations, particularly the TANTEA, and,
Mohammed Ansar Badsha for his dedication to the formation and
development of wildlife sanctuaries.

Then there are others who were not part of the department. 'Elephant
Doctor' Krishnamurthy, a veterinarian, had treated more than 3,000
elephants in his career, captured 160 wild elephants and treated them,
oversaw the birth of 99 calves in captivity. He was the one to perform
the first post-mortem on an elephant.

M. Krishnan is known for his magical writing, delightful prose and
original thinking and one who had great respect for natural history.
What is not known is that he had conducted surveys for 14 States and
their forest departments across the country in amazing detail and depth.

One cannot miss out on Richard Radcliff, the man who stood like a Banyan
tree - protecting and nurturing the Nilgiri Wildlife Association for
over 30 years or E.R.C Davidar, who fell in love with Ooty as a child
and went on to do a pioneering work on the elephant corridors of the
Nilgiris and Anaimalais "to preserve them in perpetuity".

"This is only the beginning and more such compilation will be brought
out in future," says a forest official involved in the project.

The book 'Hall of Fame' illuminates the life and

work of 25 TN foresters

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"Opaque tangle of spaghetti"

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/neuroscientist-karl-deisseroth-on-how-we-see-and-control-brain/article8116854.ece?homepage=true

The "tangle of spaghetti", as neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth describes
the wiring of the brain, has posed a singular challenge to researchers:
how do you navigate an opaque mesh of 80 billion neurons to decipher
brain activity — emotions, memory and learning — or identify diseased
circuitry that manifests as autism or schizophrenia?

Now, two path-breaking techniques devised by Prof. Deisseroth and his
colleagues at Stanford University are changing the way we see,
understand and control the brain. The first technique "illuminates" the
brain, enabling researchers to manipulate electrical activity. In a
process called "optogenetics", specific targetted cells are infused with
a gene that directs the production of a light-sensitive protein (derived
from algae or other microbes) that can then turn brain cells on or off
in response to a focussed light signal.

The second is a "transparent brain" engineered through a method called
"CLARITY". This process makes brains transparent, by building a hydrogel
inside the brain, removing lipids that make the brain opaque. This
allows scientists to study the wiring of a three-dimensional brain in
its entirety, without having to laboriously dissect and reassemble
tissues as has been the practice.

Prof. Deisseroth, who is D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of
Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University, was recently
awarded the prestigious Life Sciences Breakthrough Prize for 2016. He
spoke to Divya Gandhi in Bengaluru, where he begins a three-city lecture
tour as part of the Sixth Annual Cell Press-TNQ India Distinguished
Lectureship Series. Excerpts:

Laboratories around the world have begun using optogenetics to study and
manipulate the brain. Are there specific disorders that the technique
has proven particularly useful in shedding light on?

One of the most exciting things for me about this whole field is that I
get to see corresponding principles with my own clinical practice. In
the clinic, I see patients with treatment-resistant depression and also
those with autism spectrum disorders. And these are really challenging
and complicated clinically but they have certain symptoms — symptoms you
can study in animals. And another big example is anxiety. Anxiety is a
prominent feature of depression and is also a major problem in autism
spectrum disorders. We can study anxiety in a very reliable way in mice.
And that's been probably one of the biggest success stories.
Optogenetics is sorting out how anxiety works in the brain, what are the
pathways and cells that cause it or control it, and how it is all put
together. Anxiety is complicated. We know there are lots of parts to
anxiety. There is the heart rate change and the breathing rate change
and there is the avoidance aspects. Optogenetics has helped sort out how
all those parts are assembled.

Not least because of the lack of academic opportunity, doctors in India
tend not to go in for a PhD, something that critically undermines
cutting-edge research. As a clinical psychiatrist and a neuroscientist
doing front-end research, what would you recommend to encourage more
physician-researchers in India?

One thing that makes it work well in the U.S. is the existence of a very
well-defined MD-PhD training programme that is supported by the
government. It really helps to attract some of the best people to the
programme because you get support through medical school and through
graduate school from the federal government. The other thing is, at a
later career stage, making sure there are employment opportunities,
where one only practices in a clinic one or two days in a week, because
to really make competitive advances in research you need to spend most
of your time doing research.

How did you go about creating a see-through brain? And have there been
any significant, or unexpected, discoveries through CLARITY?

Around 2009, optogenetics was working really well in controlling neurons
with light. But we noticed that we couldn't quite make the final
intellectual step in understanding how the wiring of the brain causes
behaviour. With optogenetics, it is like roughly knowing where the parts
are in a computer but not knowing the detailed circuit diagram.

The central nervous system is the hardest thing to make transparent and
the reason is that the nervous system uses electricity to communicate
and it has to create insulated wires to send all that electricity
around, and the way the brain makes insulation is through lipids or fats
and those scatter photons. So it is almost impossible to make a living
transparent brain. You can slice it up into several thin sections and
try to reconstruct, which is the standard way of doing it. But that's
difficult and takes a long time. So we thought: how could we keep the
brain intact and make it transparent? So we had to remove the things
that are making it opaque — the lipids and fat. But that would normally
be destructive and cause the whole thing to dissolve, so we had to build
a new kind of support for the brain while we removed the fat. We
developed a chemical engineering trick by basically building a gel
within the brain that gives it the support it needs when we remove the
lipids and see through the brain.

The new insights have been pretty exciting actually. CLARITY has been
developing faster than optogenetics. But even in just the last year,
labs around the world are using CLARITY to make new discoveries. We have
been surprised to see certain patterns of wiring and connections across
the brain that we didn't know were there. It has also been used in human
brain tissue — Alzheimer's brains for instance — and seen some
interesting patterns.

In India, a country of over a billion people, we have, according to
guesstimates, just between 3,000 to 8,000 psychiatrists. Is that a
worrisome statistic, and is there an ideal ratio?

The best thing under these circumstances would be figuring out how to
train general practitioners to at least recognise the disorders and know
enough about the medications to provide. Of course, psychiatrists are
best because they have spent the most time thinking and learning the
about the ins and outs — but this may be the best short-term solution.

In 2010 you wrote about the stigma that surrounds psychiatric disease,
"just as a cancer diagnosis once carried more stigma than it does now."
Would you say there is a growing awareness about mental illness now and,
by extension, less prejudice around it?

I think that is happening. There is detectably, in the U.S., a more open
discussion and less stigmatisation of psychiatric disease but it is not
yet where it needs to be. A couple of things seem to help with reducing
prejudice and stigma. If people really understand how something works,
then they tend not to assign prejudicial or superstitious explanations.
The general public in the U.S. is getting a deeper knowledge and
understanding of psychiatry as biological. There has also have been
individual people writing books and speaking out and sharing their
experience with psychosis, depression or drug abuse. People aren't
hiding, they are coming out, saying "this is me".

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Japan, Hinduism, heritage, history

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hindu-gods-forgotten-in-India-revered-in-Japan/articleshow/50525067.cms

KOLKATA: Did you know that at least 20 Hindu deities are regularly
worshipped in Japan? In fact, there are hundreds of shrines to Goddess
Saraswati alone in that country, along with innumerable representations
of Lakshmi, Indra, Brahma, Ganesha, Garuda and others.

Even deities forgotten in India are worshipped in Japan. A unique
exhibition at Indian Museum here is set to throw light on the country's
long lost history that survives in a foreign land.

The Japan Foundation and filmmaker and art-historian Benoy K Behl have
collaborated to hold an exhibition of rare photographs that will be
inaugurated on Monday and will continue until January 21.

"The exhibition will be a rare treat for the eyes and the mind," said
Indian Museum education officer Sayan Bhattacharya.

The research that accompanies Behl's photographs reveals startling facts
about the importance of Indian heritage in Japan.

For instance, the 6th century Siddham script is preserved in Japan,
though it has disappeared from India. 'Beejaksharas' (or etymology of
alphabets) of Sanskrit in this script are regarded as holy and given
great importance. Each deity has a 'Beejakshara' and these are venerated
by the people, even though most of them cannot read it. Some Japanese
tombs are adorned with the Sanskrit alphabet.

At Koyasan, they still have a school where Sanskrit is taught in
Siddham, Behl's research revealed.
A number of words in the Japanese language have their roots in Sanskrit.
In Japanese supermarkets, a major brand of milk products is called
'Sujata'. The company's personnel are taught the story of Sujata who
gave sweet rice-milk to the Buddha, with which he broke his period of
austerity, before he achieved enlightenment. "All this and more are
revealed through Behl's photography," Bhattacharya added.


Apart from the language, there are deeper civilizational connections
that can be traced to early developments of philosophy in India, he
said.

Behl wrote in his research, "In many ways, this philosophic
understanding is most well preserved in Japan. Japan has not had the
breakdown of cultural norms which India suffered when a colonial
education system was created. Therefore, most Indians learnt about our
own culture from the Western point of view. The dominant and admired
language was English, which it remains till today."


The National Geographic had carried an 18-page story on ancient Indian
art revealed through Behl's photography to the world. The exhibition
will also explain how India's relationship with Japan.


"The deep-rooted spirit of the Buddha's teachings energizes the Japanese
people. Buddhist temples are numerous and vast numbers of people visit
these every day. Besides the Buddha, many ancient Indian deities and
practices (prevail) in their temples. An Indian feels quite at home in
Japan," Behl wrote.

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