Read The Hindu Notes of 2nd March 2019 for UPSC Civil Service Examination, State Civil Service Examination and other competitive Examination

The Hindu Notes for 2nd March 2019
  • Topic Discussed: The Hindu Notes of 2nd March 2019

    • Ensure a minimum income for all

    A basic income scheme will deliver benefits to the poor only if it comes on top of public services

  • The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) is gaining ground globally. It has supporters among the political left and right, and among proponents as well as opponents of the free-market economy. A UBI requires the government to pay every citizen a fixed amount of money on a regular basis and without any conditionalities. Crucial to the appeal for such a demand — for a UBI — is that millions of people remain unemployed and are extremely poor, despite rapid economic growth in the last three decades. The National Democratic Alliance government has already unfolded a limited version of the UBI in the form of the Pradhanmantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN) which promises ₹6,000 per annum to farmers who own less than 2 hectares of land. Going by media reports, the election manifesto of the Congress Party may announce an even more ambitious version of the scheme.

    • Where it will work

  • The UBI is neither an antidote to the vagaries of market forces nor a substitute for basic public services, especially health and education. Besides, there is no need to transfer money to middle- and high-income earners as well as large landowners.
  • However, there is a strong case for direct income transfers to some groups: landless labourers, agricultural workers and marginal farmers who suffer from multi-dimensional poverty. These groups have not benefited from economic growth. They were and still are the poorest Indians. Various welfare schemes have also failed to bring them out of penury.
  • A case in point is the access to institutional credit issued by banks and cooperative societies. According to National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data from the 70th round, institutional credits account for less than 15% of the total borrowing by landless agricultural workers; the figure for marginal and small farmers is only 30%. These groups have to borrow from moneylenders and adhatiyas at exorbitant interest rates ranging from 24 to 60%. As a result, they do not stand to benefit much from the interest rate subsidy for the agriculture sector. Likewise, the benefits of subsidised fertilizers and power are enjoyed largely by big farmers. In urban areas, contract workers and those in the informal sector face a similar problem. The rapid pace of automation of low-skill jobs and formalisation of the retail sector mean the prospects of these groups are even bleaker.
  • An income support of, say, ₹15,000 per annum can be a good supplement to their livelihoods — an amount worth more than a third of the average consumption of the poorest 25% households, and more than a fourth of the annual income of marginal farmers.
  • This additional income can reduce the incidence of indebtedness among marginal farmers, thereby helping them escape moneylenders and adhatiyas. Besides, it can go a long way in helping the poor to make ends meet. Several studies have shown that at high levels of impoverishment, even a small income supplement can improve nutrient intake, and increase enrolment and school attendance for students coming from poor households.

    • Better productivity

  • In other words, income transfers to the poor will lead to improved health and educational outcomes, which in turn would lead to a more productive workforce. It seems to be a good idea to transfer the money into the bank accounts of women of the beneficiary households. Women tend to spend more of their income on health and the education of children.
  • The effect of an income transfer scheme on unemployment is a moot point. In principle, cash transfers can result in withdrawal of beneficiaries from the labour force. However, the income support suggested above is not too large to discourage beneficiaries from seeking work. In fact, it can promote employment and economic activities. For instance, income receipts can come in handy as interest-free working capital for several categories of beneficiaries (fruit and vegetable vendors and small artisans), thereby promoting their business and employment in the process.
  • Moreover, such a scheme will have three immediate benefits. One, it will help bring a large number of households out of the poverty trap or prevent them from falling into it in the event of exigencies such as illness. Two, it will reduce income inequalities. Three, since the poor spend most of their income, a boost in their income will increase demand and promote economic activities in rural areas. Nonetheless, an income transfer scheme cannot be a substitute for universal basic services. The direct income support to the poor will deliver the benefits mentioned only if it comes on top of public services such as primary health and education. This means that direct transfers should not be at the expense of public services for primary health and education. If anything, budgetary allocation for these services should be raised significantly. Programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme should also stay. With direct income support, the demand for the programmes will come down naturally. However, in the interim, it will serve to screen the poorest in the country and give them a crucial safety net.

    • Using datasets

  • If basic public services are maintained, there is limited fiscal space for direct income support. It will have to be restricted to the poorest of poor households. The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 can be used to identify the neediest. Groups suffering from multidimensional poverty such as the destitute, the shelter-less, manual scavengers, tribal groups, and former bonded labourers are automatically included. The dataset includes more than six crore landless labourers. It also includes many small farmers who face deprivation criteria such as families without any bread-earning adult member, and those without a pucca house.
  • The other needy group, small farmers, missing from the SECC can be identified using the dataset from the Agriculture Census of 2015-16. Together, these two datasets can help identify the poorest Indians, especially in rural India. However, many households such as marginal farmers belong to both datasets. The Aadhaar identity can be used to rule out duplications and update the list of eligible households.
  • As an approximation, the number of eligible households is 10 crore. That is, even in its basic form, the scheme will require approximately ₹1.5 lakh crore per annum. The PM-KISAN Yojana can be aligned to meet a part of the cost. Moreover, the tax kitty can be expanded by reintroducing wealth tax. Nonetheless, the required amount is beyond the Centre’s fiscal capacity at the moment. Therefore, the cost will have to be shared by States. States such as Telangana and Odisha are already providing direct income support to their farmers. These States can extend their schemes to include the ‘non-farmer poor’. The other States too should join in.
  • The income transfer scheme is costly. However, the cost of persistent poverty is much higher.

    • The mixed signals from Pakistan

    One can get a fair idea of the Pakistani military’s thinking by analysing the politicians’ statements and actions

  • Now that the first round of military tit-for-tats is over, it is important that New Delhi settles down to parsing the mixed signals coming out of Pakistan. While keeping all options open, it is important for the government to make a definitive assessment regarding Pakistan’s intentions before taking the next step in both the military and diplomatic spheres. This is a difficult job, among other things because the real decision-makers in Pakistan are not the Prime Minister and his cabinet but the top generals ensconced in General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
  • Nonetheless, one can get a fair idea of the thinking by Pakistani decision-makers by analysing the statements and actions of politicians because they are often orchestrated by the military high command. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s pronouncements are, therefore, worth following closely. His most recent statement in the Pakistan Parliament betrays the internal conflict in both his and his generals’ assessment of the current India-Pakistan standoff and its impact on the standing of the Pakistani military in the eyes of the country’s population.
  • Mr. Khan has, on the one hand, emphasised his desire for de-escalation without accepting blame for the initial action, the Pulwama terrorist attack, that triggered the present crisis. While ostensibly addressing the Indian government, he has attempted to present a reasonable face to the international community by expressing his yearning for peace in the subcontinent. He has especially emphasised the fact that both countries are nuclear powers and, therefore, any further escalation could lead to disastrous results.

    • The de-escalatory ladder

  • His announcement on Thursday that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman would be released “unconditionally” falls in this category of de-escalatory signals. His statement also made it clear that he wanted to link the release to the reopening of negotiations with India in order to find a way out of the current crisis.
  • While India welcomed this move, it refused to give Pakistan credit for what Islamabad considers a humanitarian gesture. India has characterised it as an act undertaken in consonance with the Geneva Convention that Pakistan, as a signatory, is compelled to follow. Therefore, Islamabad does not deserve extra credit for merely fulfilling its international obligations.
  • In the same speech, Mr. Khan warned the Indian leadership, “Do not take this confrontation further”, saying otherwise Pakistan will be “forced to retaliate”. He also made no apologies for the terrorist acts committed by jihadi groups spawned by Pakistan’s military intelligence. Instead, he once again asked New Delhi for proof that the Pulwama attack could be traced to Pakistan despite the Bahawalpur-based Jaish-e-Mohammad’s acknowledgement, immediately after the suicide bombing, that it was responsible for the incident.
  • There are various reasons one can decipher for Pakistan’s double-speak. Mr. Khan’s de-escalatory rhetoric is in part the result of external pressure, especially from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Foreign Minister made a dash to Islamabad to advise the Pakistan government not to let the crisis get out of hand. It was also clear from U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement in Hanoi, in which he suggested that good news was about to emanate from South Asia, that Washington had put pressure on Islamabad and possibly on New Delhi not to engage in further military action.
  • It is true that the fear of escalation to the nuclear level haunts both Indian and Pakistani decision-makers and acts as a formidable restraint preventing both from intensifying the conflict. An action-reaction dynamic, such as the one that started with the Pulwama attack, can conceivably graduate to the nuclear level if Pakistan, which does not accept the “no first use” doctrine, decides to take recourse to tactical nuclear weapons, which it has stockpiled, if it finds itself unable to withstand India’s superior conventional power.
  • On the other hand, the Indian nuclear doctrine does not make a distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear strikes and implies that India will respond through massive retaliation even if a tactical weapon use does only a limited amount of damage. It is, therefore, difficult to predict in this context where the escalatory process, if left unchecked, would end.
  • However, all these very real concerns about uncontrolled escalation have to be measured against the Pakistani military brass’s obsession with its honour and credibility among its people. Both have been severely damaged by its inability to anticipate and thwart the Indian aerial attack on Balakot deep inside Pakistani territory. The military is the real power behind the throne in Pakistan. Mr. Khan’s ascent to office was deftly managed by the military high command, which, unlike in India, is also in control of the country’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

    • The need for care

  • These facts make any future escalatory scenario look very scary. For, if pushed to the wall and in danger of losing control of the state, the Pakistani military can employ a highly reckless strategy that would unleash an unprecedented catastrophe in the Indian subcontinent. It is no wonder that Mr. Khan has to speak with both sides of his mouth in a desperate attempt to preserve the military’s honour while attempting to get off the escalatory ladder that can lead to unpredictable consequences.

    • Hanoi hiccup

    Despite the collapse of talks, the U.S. and North Korea must persist with CBMs

  • The abrupt end of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi is clearly a setback to attempts to find a peaceful solution to the Korean nuclear crisis. Both sides cut short a two-day summit on the second day on Thursday without even signing a joint communiqué. They also gave conflicting versions on why the talks collapsed. Mr. Trump said Mr. Kim insisted on a full withdrawal of American sanctions in return for the closure of only one nuclear facility. However, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho later said Pyongyang had sought only partial sanctions relief in return for dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear site, the North’s main facility. Whatever the actual reason, one thing is clear: the bonhomie between the two leaders after last year’s Singapore summit was missing in Hanoi. After the Singapore meet, both sides had agreed to have “new U.S.-DPRK [North Korea] relations” and establish a “lasting and stable peace regime” on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang had also promised to work toward “complete denuclearisation”. No such comments about the future course of the peace process were issued this time. The North Koreans have ruled out any immediate plans for a future meeting between the two sides.
  • A part of the problem was the failure of both Washington and Pyongyang in following up on commitments made in Singapore. A few weeks ahead of that summit in June, North Korea had announced a complete freeze on nuclear and missile tests as a reconciliatory gesture. It had asked the U.S. to reciprocate — its main demand was a formal declaration of an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, but the Trump administration refused to do so. Lack of confidence-building measures too blunted the momentum created in Singapore. When U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo first visited Pyongyang, Mr. Kim refused to meet him. Later, the American intelligence community reported that North Korea continued its ballistic missile programme after the first Trump-Kim summit. With these problems still in place, the second summit between the leaders was announced. Any hopes of clinching a big agreement in Hanoi fell as both sides stuck to their respective demands. However, the setback need not necessarily bring the peace process to a halt. Mr. Trump himself has said denuclearisation is a long process. The freeze on nuclear and missile tests that Mr. Kim announced is still in place. The Korean peninsula has been calm, while inter-Korean relations have markedly improved. Before the Hanoi summit, there were reports that the U.S. would declare an end to the Korean war and that both countries would open liaison offices in each other’s capitals as part of normalisation of ties. They should go ahead with such measures and build confidence and mutual trust while also taking a phased approach to dealing with more contentious issues such as denuclearisation.

    • The Akali factor

    With its alliance in Punjab, the BJP admits the need to take a back seat in some States

  • The Shiromani Akali Dal has been among the most steadfast allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the two parties having been in coalition since 1998. It comes as no surprise that they have aligned again in a seat-sharing arrangement in Punjab for the Lok Sabha election, with the Akalis as the dominant partner to contest 10 seats in the State and the BJP contesting the other three. In 2014, the alliance won 35% of the vote to secure six of the 13 constituencies in a tripartite contest. The Congress, which won three seats, will seek to build on its victory in the Assembly elections in 2017 as State-level incumbents usually enjoy some momentum going into a national election. The Akali-BJP alliance took a beating in the Assembly election after having been in power for two terms, but still managed a substantial 30.6% vote share, which could keep it competitive in the Lok Sabha election. There is also the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party as a viable contestant in the State (especially in the southern Malwa region). For the BJP, a coalition with the Akalis, despite being allotted only three seats, was therefore an imperative. As with its other coalition partners such as the Shiv Sena, the alliance in Punjab too went through degrees of rough weather, but there was too much at stake for seat-sharing talks to fail. Besides reasons of arithmetic, the SAD also presents a strong and traditionally anti-Congress position in its ideological core, tinged with a certain degree of sectarianism. This coheres well with the overall vision of the BJP.
  • In allocating a larger share to the Akalis in Punjab, the AIADMK and other partners in Tamil Nadu, besides retaining its alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the BJP has signalled its awareness of the efficacy of coherent pre-poll coalitions based on the party’s strengths in these States. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has seen some attrition since 2014, with the loss of the Telugu Desam Party. But it has compensated with additions such as the Janata Dal (United), besides the retention of other allies. Even though it has projected a certain personalised form of administration with Prime Minister Narendra Modi being the dominant face of the government, the BJP is crucially dependent on the support of its allies. In the last five years, the party has steadily lost parliamentary by-elections and its current tally in the Lok Sabha is below the majority mark. Only with the support of the allies does the NDA now have a comfortable majority. The BJP might scoff at attempts made by the Opposition to form a grand coalition and portray them as an incoherent mishmash of organisations, but the fact that coalitions in Indian politics are here to stay is not lost on its leadership.

    • Changing the stripes of conservation

    Was the ‘man-eating’ tigress Avni that was killed in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district a casualty of rising man-animal conflict, or was some other dynamic at play? Serish Nanisetti on how development projects in tiger habitats and the fragmentation of migration corridors call for a rethink of conservation policies

  • The modest stretch of forest that’s visible from the roadside is flanked on either side by cotton fields and toor dal (split pigeon pea) crop. A few kilometres away, on the other side of this jungle, in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, is National Highway 44 (NH 44). These fields are cultivated by the residents of Sarati village, where the Forest Department has set up a camp to search for a tigress cub. The cub belongs to the litter of T1, or Avni, the tigress that was killed on November 2, 2018 and caused a huge national outcry.
  • The killing of the tigress may have slipped from public memory. But for many villagers in Wedshi, Vihirgaon, Pimpalshinde, Borati, Ralegaon, Loni, and other villages in Yavatmal district, the terror of the tiger remains real. The media had highlighted the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary as a hunting ground for the tigress, which had been declared a man-eater. But the tigress, when it was killed, was several kilometres away, in a different forested tract. How the tigress sought out new territory, found a mate, and had a litter in the small deciduous forest surrounded by agricultural fields and villages is still a matter of conjecture for conservationists.
  • “We began cultivating here in 2003. The forest was right till here [he points to the road]. We cleared it and began cultivating. That was the first time I ever saw a tiger, and I cannot describe the fear I felt,” says Gautam Patil, recalling the day he caught a glimpse of Avni during the monsoons, at the height of the man-eater scare. Patil, a farmer, points to his five-acre field. “This might be a small forest, but we cannot see beyond a few metres during the monsoons. We cannot cultivate anything other than cotton, as wild boars and other animals raid the fields.”
  • Just three lamp posts away is the house of Gajanan Shyamrao Pawar. He went to his cotton farm abutting the forest to check on his crop on October 24, 2018, and never returned. The 30-year-old’s half-eaten body was later discovered in the jungle by his brother. “He had food at 10 a.m. and went to the farm. He didn’t return for lunch. A goatherd called to say he was missing. We began a search, and his body was found far inside the jungle at around one in the afternoon,” recalls his mother Indukala Pawar, sitting on the doorstep of their small house. Soon after killing Pawar, the tigress had disappeared from the area.

    • More tigers than before

  • According to the records of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests based in Nagpur, the tigress killed three other people — Gulab Mokashe of Wedshi village, Waghu Raut of Vihirgaon, and Nagorao Junghare of Pimpalshinde — in a span of 24 days in August 2018. The Pandharkawada Forest Department records the names of Avni’s other victims: Sonabai Bhosale of Borati, Lakshmi Rampuchrey of Jira, Shankar Atram, Jira, and Chanduk Phutki of Adni. All these villages border the small forest which the tigress had made its territory. A few months later, the tigress was shot dead by the son of a hunter tasked for the job by the Forest Department.
  • Missing from the discourse focussed on the ‘man-eating’ tigress is the story of how a rising tiger population is forcing the animal to seek out new hunting grounds, as tigers need a huge prey base. Not too long ago, there was a real fear of the big cat’s extinction. But things have changed since. Aided by excellent conservation efforts, more awareness, and forest management and control over poaching, the overall tiger population in the country has gone up.
  • The 2006 tiger census by the National Tiger Conservation Authority had pegged the number of tigers at 1,411. Officials involved with the 2018 tiger census operations say that the number is now closer to 2,600. “We have completed the tiger census that was begun in 2018, and the analysis is going on. We will release the information by the end of May,” says Y.V. Jhala of the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India, which deployed about 15,000 camera traps spread over 400,000 sq. km in 18 States for the census.
  • India began a quadrennial scientific tiger census, discarding the old pug mark counting method, from 2006. In 2010, there were 1,706 tigers, and in 2014, the number jumped to 2,226, raising expectations of optimistic numbers for the 2018 census as well.
  • The surging numbers have pushed the count of tigers to about 400 in Madhya Pradesh, made famous by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. But is there land to keep us with this increase? One tiger was mapped travelling from Chandrapur district, bordering the Tadoba-Andhari National Park in Maharashtra, to the Satpura range near Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh. Another tiger, fitted with a tracking collar, was found to have travelled 500 km in 72 days, starting from its habitat in the 138 sq. km Bor Tiger Reserve in Wardha district. It travelled through Amravati and Nagpur before getting electrocuted on a farm in Wardha.
  • “He bag, waghache panje (see here, the pug marks of a tiger),” says Nilesh Gaddamvar in Marathi, pointing to large pug marks in the dust. Gaddamvar works as a guide at the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary. Officials say that there are now 18 tigers in the Sanctuary. “We are getting visitors from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai. Most of them manage to spot the tiger in its habitat here and take photographs,” says Gaddamvar. He adds that there were only five tigers here in 2011, when he began working as a guide.
  • Safari visitors usually make a stop at the Hanuman temple located next to a small artificial lake on a ridge in Tipeshwar. The luckier among them might get to see frolicking tigers and cubs a few yards away from the road and their protected vehicles. How the temple came into being and why it is now deserted is a success story of Indian conservation efforts: nearly 500 villagers of Tipeshwar were evacuated and the population resettled outside the forest in Parva village in 2010. Another 140 villagers from Mihirgaon, inside the forest, were paid about ₹7 lakh per family and relocated outside the forest area in 2014.
  • While these two villages have been pulled out of the forest and resettled, the hamlets on the fringes of the jungle have expanded rapidly. Sarati, which didn’t exist before 2003, has 1,057 voters, Vihirgaon has 719 voters, and Lone, another village where Avni claimed a human life, has 417 voters.

    • Frequent accidents

  • On February 2, the Field Director of Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra issued a statement: “A road-hit case of a tiger has been reported near Devalapar, Harnakund, on NH 7, this evening between 7 to 7.30 pm. PTR teams, as well as the team of Nagpur division, have reached the spot. There is a trail of blood, and we have also identified the vehicle. Teams reported that the tiger is nearby, and they have heard growling too. They are monitoring the situation, and a proper decision will be taken as per the local circumstances. The rescue team has left for the spot.” Such reports of road accidents and electrocutions involving tigers are barely noticed beyond a small circle of tiger conservationists and observers.
  • As a matter of fact, roadkill incidents are quite common on NH 44 (earlier known as NH 7), which passes through some of the most picturesque river valleys, ridges, and forested zones in central India. In this region, NH 44, which connects Srinagar to Kanyakumari, passes through small agricultural fields draped with rows of colourful saris to keep wild boar at bay.

    • Broken migration corridors

  • Wildlife conservationists have read the recent rise in the number of tigers as indicating the existence of a broad and long migration corridor — a tongue of land in central India that is changing the tiger story. This tiger corridor is criss-crossed by seasonal rivers such as the Godavari, Wainganga, Penganga, Dollara, and countless other smaller water channels and ravines.
  • According to officials of the Wildlife Conservation Trust, about 24,000 km of roads cut through these corridors, and they have a deadly impact on tigers. About 16 tigers have been killed in road and train accidents over the past five years. Forty-two leopards have also come under wheels. And no one has been keeping track of the number of smaller mammals such as foxes, rabbits, deer, wolves, snakes, peacocks and other wildlife that die on these roads.
  • “The problem is that we haven’t yet mapped the tiger corridor, or any of the well-defined routes that the tigers may be using for migration and resettlement. Adding to the confusion is that there are many forest tracts that abut the roads. We want a problem-solving approach to linear intrusions and habitat fragmentation. It is important to work on conservation, but it is also important to work on maintaining connectivity between sub-populations,” explains Milind Pariwakam of the Wildlife Conservation Trust.
  • Pariwakam had drafted a report on the factors behind the fragmentation of the fragile tiger corridor. The report calls for a rethink of India’s approach to infrastructure development, and recommends special pathways for wildlife so that their movement during migration or resettlement is not affected.
  • “Tipeshwar is one of the better-maintained forests which visitors can check out. There has been no man-animal conflict here ever since we evacuated the villages from the core area. Places where such conflict occur are more than 40-50 km from Tipeshwar,” says P.B. Panchabhai, District Forest Officer of Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district.

    • Threat from big projects

  • “The threat to tigers is not due to the man-animal conflict. It is due to the large-scale projects that are coming up near the sanctuaries. Forest Department officials have trans-located a village called Agarzari on the border of the Pench Tiger Reserve. But the resorts that cropped up there after changes in land use continue to operate. These use barbed wire and electrified fencing to keep animals at bay, leading to accidents,” says Vinod Thakur, a veterinary doctor and conservation activist who was part of the tiger census operation.
  • He blames the ‘four-laning’ of the national highway running through the Pench Tiger Reserve and Kanha Tiger Reserve, and the widening of the railway line in central India from narrow gauge to broad gauge, for the fragmentation of the habitat. “Even Jai, the tiger which became famous as Asia’s biggest feline, fell to this development juggernaut in the Umred-Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary. Jai’s cub, Srinivas, died due to electrocution. Jai sired around 20 offspring, but now very few of them are in Umred-Karhandla in Maharashtra. The rest have migrated,” says Thakur.
  • Big-ticket projects pose an even bigger threat. For instance, according to filings with the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Birla Cement Corporation is planning to set up a 3.9-tonne greenfield integrated cement plant with a 40 MW captive power plant in Yavatmal district’s Mukutban village. Mukutban is on the southern side of the Pandharkawada Forest Department, where man-animal conflict has captured media attention. How a cement plant and the ancillary activities associated with it will affect the environment is anybody’s guess.
  • Of the 50 designated tiger reserves in the country, the 16 in central India form a continuous tiger corridor. The Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary has about 18 tigers. Kawal, though designated as Kawal Tiger Reserve in 2012, has seen a tiger or two only in the last four years. This year, a tiger got electrocuted after it came in contact with an electrified wire trap set up by poachers. The Umred Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary, on the other hand, is not a tiger reserve but is home to many tigers. “The Pench Tiger Reserve at present has 30 tigers. While an adult tiger requires 25-40 sq km of forested area to enjoy sufficient quantity of prey, now there is one tiger for every 8-10 sq km, leading to spillage. The tigers are moving out to other forests to find prey. This can be an opportunity to improve our record and practices in wildlife conservation,” says Thakur.
  • While the killing of Avni triggered celebrations among some villagers, there are also a few who see it differently. “I am unhappy that the tigress is dead. It is a big loss. When the tiger scare was at its peak, I was hopeful that this village would be shifted. The tiger was merely protecting the jungle, which was its home,” says Gunawant Tekam, who runs a small shop near the fields that border the jungle in Sarati. “I am saying this because I have seen the fear of the people as well as the changes in the landscape.”
  • The depredations of Avni may have grabbed the headlines. But of far greater significance, though missing from the mainstream discourse, is the changing dynamic of tiger migration and movement, which suggests that India needs to rework its conservation and forest settlement policies.