Swap boost to birds
www.telegraphindia.com
Kalimpong, Aug. 7: Over a hundred children in Lava and Algarah today exchanged their catapults for gifts and vowed never to stone birds again.
The Siliguri-based Association for Conservation of Tourism (ACT) organised the programme at Algarah and Lava, 16km and 34km from here respectively. The area is well known for its avian fauna and is a major draw for nature tourists.
“The idea is to spread awareness on bird conservation,†said Raj Basu, the president of ACT.
Seventy-three schoolchildren in Lava and 42 in Algarah surrendered their catapults. In turn, they were given T-shirts, caps and toothbrushes. The area and the adjoining Neora Valley National Park are home to rare species like laughing thrush and trogan. Besides, birds like red and yellow-billed magpies, pheasants, tragopan pheasants and bulbuls are also found here.
The swap programme was conducted with the assistance of Kolkatabird.com, Delhibird.com and Bangalorebird.com, all websites run by bird lovers.
“The idea was mooted by Bijay Cavale, a Bangalore-based ornithologist, who had come to visit Lava and Algarah three years ago,†said Basu.
August 12th, 2007 at 2:50 am IST
Good to see a new post on a topic other than ACT issue of North Sikkim. I have all the concern and sympathy for the noble cause being undertaken by ACT and the support extended by hill people but excessive reporting of this matter in kalimpong.info has somewhat started giving an impression that it is an official site of ACT, therby depriving the nitizen, of other relevent issues or happening in and around Kalimpong.Person like me who stays far off from KPG would even like to read the Ritu’s or Shankar Bhandar’s gossip going around for catching the changes in the town, so affectionately close to my heart. Do post on various topics,which it used to do sometime back, rather than sticking to only one.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:47 pm IST
Thank you for your comment.
The Teesta issue involves all the inhabitants of the Darjeeling hills in addition to those of Sikkim. As concerned individuals we should use every effort to publicize the issue which is, to date, languishing in local papers and relegated to a single tiny column in the back pages of national papers.
http://www.kalimpong.info is not an official site of ACT. weepingsikkim.blogspot.com is. Reporting on the ACT hunger strikes will not deprived the valued readers of this site from other news from the area. It is as easy to post 2 news articles than just one.
It is important to highlight the issue to the world and the administrators of this forum are doing their little bit of contribution to the general situation through the dissemination of information about ACT and the impact on the Teesta valley.
That being said, this website will endeavor to publish news and stories about Kalimpong from all available sources and on all available topics.
Thanks for the readership and your valuable comments.