Dehradun, 29 Jan 2008

The redefining of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the recent delimitation process has affected the political fate of many Uttarakhand stalwarts.

From state Congress president Mr Yashpal Arya to its former chief Mr Harish Rawat and state BJP president Mr Bachi Singh Rawat to chief minister Maj-Gen BC Khanduri, all of them would have to redefine their individual political work areas.

With this delimitation, six Assembly constituencies of Dhumakot, Kanalichina, Bironkhal, Kanda, Bhikiasain and Nandprayag of Almora, Pauri, Bageshwar, Chamoli and Pithoragarh districts would cease to exist.

An equal number of new constituencies would be added to the plain districts of Hardwar, Nainital, Dehradun and US Nagar. The Lok Sabha constituencies have also undergone a drastic change. The situation has put at stake the political fate of many senior leaders of the hill state.
The Dhumakot Assembly seat is being represented by Maj-Gen Khanduri. For another stint at the Assembly, the chief minister would have to look for another seat.

Same would be the case with the senior Uttarakhand Kranti Dal leader Mr Kashi Singh Aery , who would have to look for another seat after losing the Kanalichina seat from where he had been contesting.

Former state minister Mrs Amrita Rawat had been representing the Bironkhal seat in the Assembly for the second time. It is called her husband, Mr Harish Rawat’s citadel. But she would also have to look for another seat and generate a new mass following.

Mr Arya would also be in trouble. He contests elections from the Mukteshwar seat, which is reserved but after the delimitation, the seat would lose the reserved status. Mr Arya may not be able to get an easy win. The Almora Lok Sabha seat represented by Mr Bachi Singh Rawat for three consecutive times would be a reserved seat. This seat is also the political battlefield of Congress leader Mr Harish Rawat who had represented it thrice. The arch rivals would have to scout around for another constituency after the delimitation.The Hardwar Lok Sabha seat, at present reserved, would be a general seat and put at stake the political claim of the Samajwadi Party state president Mr Amrish Kumar.

The delimitation is affecting almost every leading political party. From time to time, the UKD and the Congress have opposed it. Even the BJP is unhappy and the chief minister had said that he would pursue the case with the Centre and request it to maintain status quo.

News Source: http://www.thestatesman.net

Aarti Dhar

New Delhi, 27 Jan 2008

Initiative to restore environment gains momentum in Uttarakhand;
Annual ‘River Day’ to be observed.

Laxmi Ashram takes up the challenge to create awareness

2008 declared “Save the Rivers Year”

Global warming, climate change and environmental degradation are terms experts discuss on international fora. Women in Almora district of Uttarakhand may not be able to give the meaning of these words, but can tell you what they have done to preserve the environment, increase the water table and prevent deforestation.
Magistrate order

It was in 2003 that the District Magistrate declared that water from the Kosi river could not be used for irrigation, as it had to be pumped to provide drinking water to the city. The police were deployed along the river to implement the order.

At the same time, a Kumaon University survey said the flow of water in the Kosi fell from 985 litres per second to 85 litres between 1992 and 2003. If nothing was done, the river would dry up in 10 years. The non-glacial rivers in Uttarakhand also indicated a reduced flow, thanks to environmental degradation — cutting of forests and drying up of waterbodies due to increased withdrawals — and construction of hydro power projects.

This raised an among the people living along the Kosi, and the Laxmi Ashram, working in the area for 60 years for the education of girls, took up the challenge. In a bid to restore environment, its activist Basanti Behn worked with women at Luisal, Channi Bijoria, Kaphari and other villages in the Borara Valley, organising them into mahila sangathans.

In the next five years, the trees started regenerating naturally, denuded forests became green again and the water levels went up. Soon, 60 villages joined the movement to manage the forest on their own.

To give a further boost to the movement, activists of the Laxmi Ashram took out a week-long padayatra in May 2007 from the Pinnath forest, source of the Kosi, covering Someshwar, Mansa Nala and the Lodh Valley, says Radha Behn, chairperson of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, who has been and associated with the Ashram for 57 years now.

The Ashram then decided to involve other organisations to save not only the Kosi but also all other rivers in Uttarakhand, receiving spontaneous response from civil society groups and institutional organisations.

The Ashram organised simultaneous padayatras along the 14 rivers between January 1 and 15 and decided to observe an annual ‘River Day’ when people will work for conservation of rivers, clean them and plant saplings along the banks. The year 2008 was declared the “Save the Rivers Year.” Ms. Radha Behn, who initiated the programme, was elected its coordinator.

The campaigners have decided to meet the Chief Minister to work together on the initiative.

News Source: http://www.hindu.com

Dehradun, 26 Jan 2008

The Election Commission on Friday announced that the Lok Sabha by-election from Pauri in Uttarakhand will be held on February 24.

Chief Electoral Officer Radha Raturi said that although the official notification would be issued on January 30, nominations can be filed up to February 6.

The nomination papers will be scrutinised on February 7 and the last date for withdrawals is February 9. Counting of votes will take place on February 27.

The Pauri Lok Sabha seat was vacated by Chief Minister Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri after winning the Dhumakot Vidhan Sabha seat that was vacated by Congress strongman and former Minister Lt. Gen.(Retd) T. P. S. Rawat. General Rawat’s name has been forwarded by the State BJP unit to the party high command as the most preferred candidate.

Both Gen. Rawat and the Chief Minister have been nursing the Pauri constituency well by touring the remote areas and announcing several sops for the locals over the past several weeks.

News Source: http://www.hindu.com

Statesman News Service
New Delhi, 25 Jan 2008

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide a $350 million loan to improve urban infrastructure and services in 31 towns and cities in Uttarakhand, one of the country’s top tourist destinations.

The Manila-based development bank has identified Uttarakhand as one of its priority states in India because its development is lagging behind other states. Improved urban services are needed to support tourism and industry – two economic sectors with substantial development potential in the state, the ADB said in a communique from Manila, Philippines.

Despite its attractiveness to visitors with its dramatic landscapes and rich cultural and religious heritage, the mountainous state is one of India’s less developed states.

News Source: http://www.thestatesman.net

By Arti Saggi | New Delhi, 22 Jan 2008

The Uttarakhand Government has completed the upgradation work at the Jolly Grant Airport and Pant Nagar Airport. The airports are scheduled to start operations in February, 2008. Besides, three airstrips at Naini Saini in Pithorgarh, Gochar in Chamoli and Chinyalisaur in Uttarkashi are also ready for operations.

Talking to TravelBiz Monitor, Prakash Pant, Minister of Tourism, Uttarakhand, said, “The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has said that it will start operations at these airports by the last week of February.” The state has already written to all the airlines, asking them to start operations to Uttarakhand. Till date, it has got responses from Indian Airlines, Deccan and Kingfisher Airlines.

While Deccan will initially start with a frequency of two flights a week, the other two airlines are yet to decide on their flight frequency. Prior to the commencement of the upgradation work, Indian Airlines, Jagson Airlines and Air Deccan operated from the airports. “After the upgradation, the airports now have the capacity to handle the landing of Airbus 320 and Boeing 787. The Jolly Grant Airport at Dehradun essentially caters to the Gharwal region in the state, while the Pant Nagar Airport caters to the Kumano region,” offered Pant.

Commenting on the need to extend helicopter operations in the state, Pant said, “We want to extend the helicopter facility to the Char Dhams of Uttarakhand, i.e. Gangotri, Yamnotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. We would also like to extend it to Hemkunth Sahib, the renowned religious pilgrimage site of the Sikhs. The government will provide free water, security, power, fire services, etc, to the helipads.”

At present, talks are going on with Jagson Airlines, Prabhatam Aviation and Pawan Hans Helicopter Services, and Jagson Airlines has already evinced interest in the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, which the state is keen to promote through helitourism. The state government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Gharwal Mandal Vikas and Pawan Hans Helicopter Services for developing religious tourism in the state.

Currently, the state has 64 helipads, of which 40 are controlled by the state government, while the rest are under the control of the Indo Tibetian Border Police Force (ITBP). Of the 40 state-owned helipads, 15 are still under construction.

News Source: http://www.travelbizmonitor.com

New Delhi, 21 Jan 2008

A variety of corn with extra protein developed by scientists in Uttarakhand may be the first of a series of designer crops that India plans to develop without genetic modification involving alien genes.

Scientists at the Vivekananda Paravtiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan in Almora last week announced that a variety of corn they had produced through a combination of modern biology and traditional breeding had a protein quality that approached that of milk.

Standard corn, maize, is the third-largest cereal crop grown in India, but is deficient in lysine and tryptophan, two key amino acids that are the building blocks of proteins. Now, the Vivekananda scientists have created a hybrid with 30 per cent higher lysine and 40 per cent higher tryptophan than in ordinary maize.

This was achieved through marker-assisted breeding, a technique in which scientists painstakingly screen segments of the genome in genetically distinct varieties of corn to find the right combination of two corn varieties to cross.

“This technique does not involve insertion of a gene from any other organism into the crops. So, it won’t draw any concerns about environment or health,” said Pawan Agrawal, a scientist at the biotechnology division of the institute.

The high-protein corn was created by repeated breeding experiments aimed at inserting traits of a variety called QPM, discovered in the 1960s by an international maize research institute in Mexico, into an indigenous variety called Vivek 9.

The increase in the levels of these amino acids makes the protein in this corn approach the quality of milk protein, Agrawal said. The yield of this variety is about 10 per cent higher than that of its indigenous parent.

The marker-assisted breeding technique also speeded up the creation of a new variety. Traditional breeding would have taken about 10 years, while the genetic screening methodology made the feat possible in about three years, Agrawal said.

“This is significant. Although we have already commercialised a few varieties of high-protein corn, this work combines QPM with an attractive variety,” said Samar Bahadur Singh at the Directorate of Maize Research in Delhi.

The Centre’s department of biotechnology will launch a programme to create more such designer crops with beneficial agricultural traits, without genetic engineering, said biotechnology secretary M.K. Bhan. “We’ll use the transgenic route when there is no other route, otherwise we’ll proceed with marker-assisted breeding wherever possible.”

A panel of experts has been asked to draw up a list of crops of interest, Bhan said. Among the candidate crops are rice, wheat, chickpea, oil seeds, uradbean and mungbean, said R.R. Sinha, adviser in the biotechnology department.

In genetic modification involving alien genes, crops are given new properties through the insertion of genes from other species — either bacteria or from other plants.

News Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com