Maharashtra govt., BJP cross swords over aid
The Hindu
Promise of relief hollow, says Fadnavis
After heavy rainfall in the last few days destroyed hectares of cropland in the Marathwada region, politicking over relief began between the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and the Opposition BJP in Maharashtra.
A day after Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar urged the BJP-ruled Union government not to discriminate between States while providing relief packages, former Maharashtra Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis on Friday asked why the State government had not yet announced a relief package of its own, adding that all relief promised by the MVA government for natural calamities this year had “proven hollow”.
“All the pronouncements of this [MVA] government is an eyewash… Flood-hit farmers and citizens from earlier calamities this year, including the heavy rainfall that affected the Konkan and western Maharashtra, have yet to receive compensation,” Mr. Fadnavis said. He added that he would be visiting Marathwada on Saturday.
Aasheesh Pittie says birdwatching is not very unlike hunting, except that nothing is killed. “You track… you want to follow the bird… see it,” he says about this activity that he has pursued for nearly fifty years. Pittie, the editor of the ornithological journal Indian Birds, author of many classic reference books about birds and most recently, a collection of bird essays titled The Living Air: Pleasures of Birds and Birdwatching, was speaking at an event organised by the Archives of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS).