📰 New U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster is an old India hand
Kenneth Juster laid foundation of the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal by negotiating for dual-use technologies with India
•The U.S.’s new Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, who presented his credentials this week to President Ram Nath Kovind, has the longest association with India among officials of the current administration. Long before the India-U.S. civilian nuclear deal was discussed, it was Mr. Juster who laid its foundations as U.S. Under-Secretary of Commerce, negotiating the “end-user agreement” for dual-use technologies with India.
•“[Ambassador Juster] was an important figure at the time the transformational changes occurred in the India-U.S. relationship,” recounts former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, who met Mr. Juster in 2004 for the signing of the end-user agreement, which led to the George Bush-Manmohan Singh announcement of the ‘next steps in the strategic partnership’, which eventually saw the beginning of negotiations on the nuclear deal.
Linchpin of diplomacy
•Mr. Juster, a Republican, moved away from the government during the Barack Obama years, but remained interested in India as a member of the U.S.-India Business Council, and joined investment firm Warburg Pincus as partner in 2010. That he was involved in advising U.S. companies on investments in India held up his nomination process this year, as U.S. agencies investigated for possible conflicts of interest, before vetting Mr. Juster, who was designated by President Trump in September this year.
•“In an administration with several rivalries and factions, the good news for India is that Ken is an Ambassador who can communicate across the board, and is known and respected, whether it is at the White house, Trade, Defence or the State Department,” former U.S. Ambassador to India Frank Wisner told The Hindu.
Trade on priority
•Many view Mr. Juster’s appointment as a signal from the Trump administration that trade will be a priority in the relationship. “It is clear that growing bilateral economic ties will be at the top of the new Ambassador’s agenda, given his background,” a U.S. official, who preferred not to be named, said, adding that it is significant that his first public address will be delivered at the U.S.’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad on November 28, along with Ivanka Trump.
•Equally important will be resolving some of the long-pending issues the two countries have had on trade, and during his confirmation hearings at the U.S. Senate, Mr. Juster spoke about some “troubling” issues over market access, intellectual property rights, and the U.S. contention that India isn’t adhering to its obligations at the World Trade Organization (WTO). “Strategic engagement cannot proceed without a strong commercial underpinning,” Mr. Juster had said, speaking at a business chamber event in Delhi in November 2003. “An enhanced economic relationship will provide a solid foundation for everything else that we wish to do together.”
•Diplomats say one of the first challenges for Mr. Juster in the strategic engagement today will be in completing the “foundational agreements” for closer military and technological cooperation, of which only one has been signed so far. Another imperative will be setting out the future course on the South Asia policy for Afghanistan, and the “Indo-Pacific” initiative at a time when President Trump’s moves with China have caused some confusion.
Challenges
•“The biggest challenge for Mr. Juster will be to assure of the credibility of security partnerships that the U.S. has in mind for India, whether it is in the Quad (with Japan and Australia), or any other,” said Mr. Saran.
📰 Judiciary not representative: President Kovind
President seeks steps to have more women, members of OBCs and Scheduled communities in courts.
•Expressing concern over the “unacceptably low” representation of women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in the higher judiciary, President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday called for long-term measures to remedy this situation.
•He said that only 4,700 of the 17,000 judges — roughly one in four — in India were women.
•“In addition, there is an unacceptably low representation of traditionally weaker sections such as OBCs, SCs and STs, especially in the higher judiciary,” the President said at the inauguration of the National Law Day conference, which is jointly organised by the Law Commission and NITI Aayog.
•“Like our other public institutions, our judiciary too has to be judicious in being representative of the diversity of our country,” he said.
•Mr. Kovind said all the three organs of the State — the judiciary, the executive and the legislature — needed to be careful not to cross into one another’s finely defined spaces. “Public life is today a glasshouse. There is a relentless demand for transparency and scrutiny. Our legal fraternity needs to be mindful of these legitimate urges of the people — the ultimate masters in a democracy. All three organs of the State are obligated to be models of good conduct,” he said.
•Explaining his comments, he said that when extraneous comments and obiter dicta came to dominate public debates, it crowded out a substantive understanding and deliberation of a well-thought-out judgment.
Speedy justice
•Mr. Kovind said that there was a crying need to ensure speedy justice. “While we take pride in our courts and their independence, it is a paradox that the poor often shy away from a legal battle, worried about the duration and the cost,” he said.
•He called for relook at “adjournments”. “As I have said earlier, perhaps the time has come to examine the issue of adjournments and whether they are to be limited just to absolute emergencies or continued to be allowed to be used for tactical delays by one party or the other,” he said.
•The President said there was a need to look at alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Mr. Kovind said lawyer fees needed to be brought down and India’s reputation of having an expensive legal system must be changed.
📰 Performance and privilege in politics
Candidates have to climb up the ladder from the municipal level to the national level in Danish and French politics. This is not so in India
•The municipal elections in Denmark concluded early this week. These are the only public Danish elections in which non-citizens can vote. If you are permanently settled in Denmark but have not taken a Danish passport, you can still vote in the municipal elections. It is a wise rule.
•This means that I follow Danish municipal elections closely, because for once I can go out to vote. It is, unlike the scene in India, a kind of family outing in Denmark: families stroll to a school or another such institution in the neighbourhood being used as a polling station, stop to talk to acquaintances, and cast their votes. There are no aggressive party workers or policemen around.
Young faces
•Of course, all the electricity poles and blank walls are festooned with posters of different candidates, as they would be in India. I cannot help comparing these posters with those I usually see during Denmark’s national elections (in which I cannot vote).
•Now, all parties in Denmark, except the staunchly leftist Enhedslisten, use predictably charming photos of their candidates on the posters. (Enhedslisten, which is against personality politics, uses only party symbols and general illustrations.)
•Before the elections, all these faces were there, smiling down at me from the posters, probably photoshopped. They belonged to all kinds of parties — from the far Right to centre of Left. I could not help looking at them when I walked, cycled, or drove to work. What I noticed most of all was the difference between those faces and the faces on the posters for the Danish national elections.
•A far greater number of aspiring municipal politicians in Denmark seem much younger than nation-level politicians. Though the Mayor candidates tend to be around my age, most of the others seem to be in their twenties and thirties. I recall this difference also from a visit to France some years ago, which had coincided with the municipal elections there.
•It seems that in places like Denmark and France there is a significant difference of age between aspirants for municipal positions and those who contest national or State-equivalent elections. This makes sense, if one sees politics as a process, an education and a test. It makes good sense for an aspiring young person to pass through municipal politics, and, if she distinguishes herself, to be moved on to State and national levels.
•However, being Indian, I also cannot help noticing that this difference does not seem to obtain in my motherland. From what I have seen of municipal candidates in India, I cannot pinpoint a similar age difference, a difference that signifies a movement up the party political hierarchy, a gathering of experience and testing of capabilities. If anything, I feel that younger candidates, when they appear, tend to pop up right at the top level of State or national politics in India.
Having the right connections
•This difference is significant. It indicates not just, as I have highlighted above, that politics is seen less as a job to be done well in India than it is in places like Denmark and France. Indian politics, it suggests, is not tied as much to experience and performance as to other factors. What are these other factors? You know: they are basically ‘connections’ and privilege. The reason why younger candidates seem to pop up at senior political levels in India, rather than at the municipal levels, is an indication of this.
•If you do not have the right sort of connections, you might go through the municipal and local route. But if you do, why should you bother? You will get a ticket to start off directly as an MLA, if not an MP or a junior minister. The fact that you have no real political expertise, that you have not cultivated any local franchise, and that you have not proved yourself at a smaller scale, why, all these factors are immaterial if you have the right connections in India.
•Of course, politics is not the only field where this obtains. To some extent, it is the case in other fields too. I distinctly recall that one of the factors that made me quit journalism in India and opt for academia (despite its own hierarchies) was my realisation that the way from being a staff reporter to becoming an editor was long and uncertain in a profession where some seemed to start too near the top. But politics in India, I am afraid, presents a far more extreme scenario than other professions, where it is less easy to hide a lack of performance behind the smokescreen of rhetoric and bombast.
•We are told to be proudly ‘Indian’ about our large national achievements, real or proposed: leading from matters like our railway system, which is actually admirable despite the heavy pressures it faces, to proposed bullet trains. But, finally, large achievement might be less important than cumulative smaller ones. Nations might be made far less in metropolitan capitals and far more in every little municipality. National leaderships too.
•I can’t help appreciating the fact that Danish municipal candidates seem much younger than their nation-level colleagues. It makes me feel that my vote at the municipal level matters and that, to some extent, performance and evaluation remain part of Danish (or French) politics. I mourn its lack in India because I am a proud Indian but, unfortunately, not a blind one.
📰 Living, breathing stones of splendour in Mamallapuram
Sculptures crafted in Mamallapuram have a life of their own, an artistry now recognised by the GI tag
•Mamallapuram, some 60 km from Chennai, a living testimony to the creativity of Pallava-era sculptors, remains an abode of artists who work their magic in stone. Recently, their work got the Geographical Indication tag for its intricate designing and fine chiselling.
•“The town, as we know, got its name from Narasimha Pallavan (AD 638-668), who was also known as Mamallan (great wrestler). It was he who shifted his creative efforts to this port town. The town has temples in diverse styles, cave temples and bas-reliefs. The monuments were under sand from the 10th to the 16th centuries,” says S. Swaminathan, heritage enthusiast and author of a book on Mamallapuram.
•Even today, while approaching the town, a visitor is welcomed by the strains that metal coaxes out of stone. Close to 1,100 artisans work in the area with large units housed along Thirukazhukundram Road. Despite a lack of stone, everyone has some work because of the worldwide demand.
•“You can pick up stone artefacts at prices from ₹200 to ₹10 crore here. In the 1970s, there were not many units, but as demand grew, families of artisans and students who learnt the craft at the Government College of Sculpture flocked here,” says M. Durairaj, a veteran who has been in the trade for over 40 years now and has trained many hands.
•It is the quality of work that separate the rice from the chaff, says T. Baskaran, a sculptor who has been running a unit for 30 years now. “Very few customers know how to pick a quality product from among the works available in Mamallapuram. For example, a Ganesha idol crafted exquisitely would stand out. It would have life in it. Intricate work would have gone into it,” he says.
•The lack of quarry permissions to extract blue metal stone has put the trade in a quandary now. “We use quality blue metal that gives out a beautiful sound when metal falls on it and is more affordable for both sculptors and customers. We don’t use granite since it has high density and is very costly. We hope the government can intervene and help us procure stones,” Mr. Baskaran says.
📰 Here comes the sun watcher, India’s Aditya-L1
Made in India probe prepares to study solar phenomena
•Sometime in 2019 or 2020 India will send ISRO’s solar mission Aditya-L1 to a vantage point in space, known as the L1 Lagrange point, to do imaging and study of the sun. This launch will happen in the early part of the next solar cycle - an occurrence in which sunspots form on the face of the sun, growing in size and number and eventually diminishing, all over a period of eleven years. It will be a mission of many firsts.
•The so-called L1 point is 1.5 million kilometres away. Here, due to the delicate balance of gravitational forces, the satellite will require very little energy to maintain its orbit. Also it will not be eclipsed from the sun. The 1,500-kg class satellite will be programmed to orbit this point and image the sun’s magnetic field from space for the very first time in the world. Scientists hope to capture the close-ups of the sun from here, uninterrupted by eclipses for years.
•Few other space agencies have successfully placed their satellites at this location. Among the few, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a NASA-ESA collaboration involving America and Europe, and NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) are at L1 exclusively to study the sun and space weather, respectively. Aditya-L1 is expected to be the very first to study from space two months from the time of launch, the magnetic field of the sun’s corona. The corona is the outer layer that we see during total solar eclipses. It will be the first 100% Indian mission which will not only negotiate a challenging orbit, but will also benefit the global scientific community in understanding the sun.
Deeper look
•Earlier, the NASA-ESA mission SOHO was launched in 1995, and while it made many discoveries, its coronagraph, meant to image the sun, broke down shortly after the mission commenced. Hence there is currently no satellite imaging the sun from space. Aditya-L1 will not only fill this gap it will also literally, look deeper into the sun than SOHO. “The nominal mission lifetime is expected to be five years, though it is expected to go on for much longer, perhaps even ten,” says Dipankar Banerjee from Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP), Bengaluru, which is collaborating with ISRO on this project.
•The mission will carry seven payloads,consisting of a coronagraph, equipment that will image the sun using ultraviolet filters, X-ray spectrometers, and particle samplers all being made within the country.
•The largest payload, or instrument, aboard the satellite, will be the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VLEC). This can view the sun more closely than has been done before even by SOHO.
•With this advantage, the instrument has the capacity to observe the loop-like magnetic structures that form in the corona, the outer layer of the sun. “This will be the first experiment to measure the coronal magnetic field from a space platform. This was not even done by SOHO,” says Dipankar Banerjee, the principal investigator of the VLEC.
•Between them, the three payloads — VLEC, the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) and the X-ray spectrometers — can image the sun in all wavelengths.
•Like seasonal changes on the earth, the sun experiences approximately eleven-year-long cycles during which sunspots, caused by the sun’s magnetic field, start forming, increase in the ascending phase and decrease in the descending phase towards the end of the cycle.
•“Studying coronal mass ejections [a phenomenon that would correlate with high sunspot activity] is not the only objective. This study can also help us understand the coronal heating problem,” says Prof. Banerjee. The ‘coronal heating problem’ refers to the fact that the photosphere, a deeper layer of the sun, is at a much lower temperature than the outer layer, the corona. Since it is believed that the heating process happens from within, what causes this heating of the outer layer, the corona, remains a mystery. Observations by Aditya-L1 of the magnetic fields bubbling out of the photosphere into the corona will help shed light on this.
•First proposed in 2008 as a 400 kg-class satellite with one scientific instrument, a coronagraph, the project has since changed and grown in size and scope. Aditya-L1 will carry seven payloads. Each of these will either image the sun or sample the space around it for traces of charged particles spewed out by the sun during coronal mass ejections.
•The payloads alone will weigh close to 250 kg. The biggest of these is the VLEC, about 170 kg. The next is SUIT, weighing around 35 kg; others are much lighter. Orbiting about the L1 point, due to a play of gravitational forces acting on it, Aditya-L1 will require little energy to keep it in place.
•The ultraviolet (UV) imaging payload will capture the sun using UV filters, something that is not possible from Earth. the wavelength range 200-400 nanometres. This is The range of ultraviolet light to be observed is prevented from entering the lower layers of the earth’s atmosphere by the ozone layer in the stratosphere. Ozone depletion can lead to this radiation filtering through to lower levels where it can have harmful effects. Since this radiation is stopped at the stratosphere, images of the sun in this wavelength cannot be obtained on earth. Therefore, this will be the first time a UV imaging of the sun will be done.
•Durgesh Tripathi and A.N. Ramaprakash of Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) are the principal investigators for the SUIT payload. “When it was decided that the project expanded and the satellite was to be placed in L1 point, ISRO called for proposals for developing more instruments. The original payload was also improved to form the VLEC and six more payloads were added,” says Prof. Tripathi.
•Apart from this, the two in situ particle-detection payloads - Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) and Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) will study aspects that affect space weather. the origin of solar wind ions, their reaction to coronal mass ejections, the distribution of these in the heliosphere – the space around the sun that extends up to Pluto - and so on. The various payloads in Aditya-L1 will also study space weather.
📰 Why has India struggled to buy fighter aircraft?
Why is the IAF looking for new jets?
•The Indian Air Force, one of the largest in the world, operates a diverse mix of legacy and modern fighter jets, including MiG-21, MiG-27, MiG-29, Jaguar, Mirage 2000, Su-30MKI and Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. India sees the possibility of a two-front war — with Pakistan in the west and China in the north — and to be able to tackle it, the IAF has a projected requirement of 44 fighter squadrons. However, it now has 33 squadrons, much lower than the sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons. With the IAF set to phase out 11 squadrons of the ageing MiG-21s and MiG-27s, the number may dip to 25 squadrons, according to a report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence released early this year.
Have we tried in-house?
•The LCA programme was launched in the early 1980s to indigenously build a single-engine lightweight fighter jet to replace MiG-21s. But delays in development, coupled with sanctions, meant time and cost overruns. After a long development cycle, the Tejas is now in the process of being inducted. The IAF has placed orders for 40 of them in the basic configuration and constituted its first squadron last year with three aircraft. It is scheduled to place orders for 83 aircraft in the Mk-1A configuration with specific improvements. So, by 2024, the service is likely to have 123 Tejas aircraft, making up six squadrons.
Is there need to import jets?
•The delay in the development of Tejas and its induction meant looking for the alternatives from abroad. The idea to buy new fighters to replace the single-engine MiG-21s came up in 2000. After several iterations, the search for a single- engine fighter metamorphosed into the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contest for which both single- and twin-engine aircraft were evaluated. The request for proposal (RFP) for 126 MMRCA was issued in 2007, and after extensive evaluation, the twin-engine Rafale, built by Dassault Aviation of France, was selected as the lowest bidder in 2012 and contract negotiations began. The aircraft was supposed to be built in India under technology transfer, but after several years of negotiations there was a gridlock.
What is the deal for Rafale?
•In 2015, visiting Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise announcement to buy 36 Rafale jets in a fly-away condition through an inter-governmental agreement, citing “critical operational necessity” of the IAF. After some tough negotiations in September 2016 the two countries concluded a €7.87-billion deal for 36 aircraft, spares, weapons and a five-year maintenance guarantee. This was the first fighter aircraft deal India had signed since the purchase of Sukhoi from Russia in the late 1990s. Deliveries are scheduled between 2019 and 2022. However, 36 is too small a number to meet the requirements or even make operational viability for maintenance and support. Over the last few weeks, a controversy has been raging over the Rafale deal for 36 jets. The Congress has raised questions about the high cost per aircraft, about ₹1,640 crore, without any technology transfer, the relatively small number, and also alleged that procedures were circumvented in the announcement.
What is the way forward?
•In the next couple of months, the IAF is scheduled to issue the tender under the strategic partnership model of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) for selecting a single-engine fighter over a 100 of which will be built in India by a private sector player with technology transfer by the foreign original equipment manufacturer. However, given the convoluted procurement process and the inexperience of the private sector in defence manufacturing, it has to be seen how soon the deal is concluded.
•In addition, India and Russia have been negotiating the joint development of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft. But talks have protracted over high cost and the work share. Given the current trend, the travails of the IAF to make up the fighter strength are likely to continue.
📰 Pre-monsoon dust aerosol loading reduces over north India
Whenever dust is high over north India, the early part of monsoon rainfall is higher
•Though the aerosol burden over north India is three times more than the global mean value and has been increasing at about 3% per year for the past few decades, the amount of dust aerosol during the pre-monsoon period has decreased by 10-20% during the period 2000 to 2015.
•“Past studies have shown that whenever pre-monsoon dust aerosol is more over north Indian region, the early part of monsoon rainfall is higher,” says V. Vinoj from the School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar, Odisha. “Our study shows that dust aerosol loading is declining during pre-monsoon period, but the bad news is that rainfall may be reducing during early monsoon.”
•Besides gathering data from ground-based stations, the team of researchers led by Dr. Vinoj used satellite-based measurements from different platforms.
•All five ground-based stations (AERONET sites) show a decreasing trend in the aerosol loading during the pre-monsoon period across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Largest decrease has been over Jaipur and the least reduction was in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Since the amount of aerosol loading has been increasing in this region on an annual basis, the reduction registered at these stations must be due to decrease in dust aerosols, the researchers say. The results were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
•“Maximum reduction [in terms of quantity] in total particulate loading during pre-monsoon period is seen in the northwest part of India. However, the eastern parts of India have witnessed the greatest percentage reduction in particulate loading,” says Dr. Vinoj. “This indicates that the source of observed changes is towards the west.”
Proof of dust reduction
•The satellite-based measurements too indicate a reduction in aerosol loading during the pre-monsoon period over a large swathe of area over northwest India. Generally, satellite-based methodologies are not very good at distinguishing between aerosol types. However, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board the Aura satellite, which is sensitive to absorbing aerosols, shows a decreasing trend. This indicates that the changes are related to dust and/or black carbon, both of which are more absorbing in nature.
•Ground-based stations in Karachi, Lahore and Kanpur, which have the longest available data, show “significant reduction” in dust loading during 2000-2015. The decreases are 10-20% over all the sites.
•The decrease in aerosol has been most pronounced in the areas west of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, with Jaipur registering about 3% drop per year with respect to the year 2000, while Kanpur showing a relatively lower reduction of about 0.5%.
•Based on aerosol size and absorption information collected from ground-based stations, the researchers have been able to confirm that the decreasing trend is due to dust particulates. MERRA2, a more sophisticated, model-based analysis, too, shows similar trends. “This is proof that it is dust which is reducing the total particulate loading during recent times,” Satyendra K. Pandey from IIT Bhubaneswar and the first author of the paper.
•The reason for a reduction in dust loading during the pre-monsoon period is due to increased rainfall, with maximum increase seen over Pakistan region and Thar desert, which is a dust-source region. The pre-monsoon rainfall makes the soil wet thereby reducing the amount of dust that gets emitted and also increases the removal of dust present in the atmosphere.
•In addition, there has been a gradual slowdown in wind speed in the vicinity of Thar desert. “These two factors might be contributing to reduced dust loading during pre-monsoon period over north India,” he says.
•“In the last 10-15 years, the area under irrigation in Rajasthan has increased and so is the area under vegetation,” says Prof. Vimal Mishra from the Civil Engineering department at IIT Gandhinagar, who is not part of this study.
📰 New identity for an Eastern Ghats resident
After 70 years, Mahendragiri gecko termed distinct species
•For the last 70 years, it did not get its rightful place in the classification scheme.
•But the Dutta’s Mahendragiri gecko has come into its own now, and is the latest addition to the species list of the Eastern Ghats. Discovered from Andhra Pradesh’s Mahendragiri hills, it is the second gecko to be found endemic to the area. The discovery highlights the biodiversity importance of the region, say scientists.
Genetics help
•Genetic analysis, which involves scrutiny of an organism’s DNA, helped scientists from institutes including the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Zoological Survey of India discover that the Dutta’s Mahendragiri geckos were not a population of Spotted rock geckos (found in the northern Western Ghats in Maharashtra) as it was believed. “DNA sequence data showed that these two geographically-separated populations are different and a careful examination of their characteristics showed that the new species has many unique, diagnostic characters,” says Varad Giri (NCBS), lead author of the six-year-long study published in the journal Zootaxa .
•Dutta’s Mahendragiri gecko has golden eyes and pale, black-bordered horizontal bands. Christened Hemidactylus sushilduttai in honour of herpetologist Sushil Kumar Dutta, the lizard is the 32nd species of Hemidactylus gecko found in India.
📰 Rajasthan seeks nod to bring tigers from other States
Move aimed at rehabilitation, development of strong breeds
•After seeking the Centre’s nod for shifting of tigers from Ranthambhore to Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve, the Rajasthan government has asked for permission to bring tigers from other States for their rehabilitation and cross-mating in order to develop strong breeds of the big cat.
•State Forest and Environment Minister Gajendra Singh said two tigers could soon be relocated from the Ranthambhore National Park to the Mukundara Hills tiger reserve, located in the Hadoti region, which has been waiting for the big cats since its establishment in 2013.
•Mr. Singh, who met Union Environment and Forest Minister Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi on Friday, said the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Alwar district, where the tiger population had vanished a few years ago, had brought back a significant number of big cats. More tiger couples could be rehabilitated there, he added.
•The Minister pointed out that shifting tigers to Rajasthan would help resolve the problem of hereditary diseases among them and improve their breeds through cross-mating.
•He also sought the Centre’s assistance in the relocation of villages situated in the National Park areas and conservation of forest land.
•The Mukundara Hills is the third notified tiger habitat in the State, after Ranthambhore and Sariska. Though it was established to cater to the spill over tiger population from Ranthambhore, the majestic cat is still missing from its wildlife population.
