‘Telangana is the centre of sand mafia’
The Hindu
YS Sharmila, president of the YSR Telangana Party, has alleged that Telangana has turned into a centre of sand mafia and the ruling party members were either involved or actively encouraging it. Ms. S
YS Sharmila, president of the YSR Telangana Party, has alleged that Telangana has turned into a centre of sand mafia and the ruling party members were either involved or actively encouraging it.
Ms. Sharmila made these allegations at Shetloor village in Bichkunda mandal of Kamareddy district after calling on the family of four, who drowned in a local rivulet because of illegal sand mining. She said illegal and indiscriminate mining in rivulets and rivers was resulting in drownings but the government was least bothered.
She said it was shameful that despite four people dying, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not bother to visit the families of the deceased. The villagers who interacted with her alleged that though permission was to mine for three metres in Manjeera river the contractors were mining up to 10 metres.
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).