MoT hosts webinar titled ‘Destination: Sariska Tiger Reserve’

The 13^th session of the Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh webinar titled, ‘Destination- Sariska Tiger reserve’ was held recently.

• The objective of the Ministry of Tourism’s webinar series is to create awareness about and promote various tourism destinations of India – including the lesser known destinations and lesser known facets of popular destinations.
• Sariska Tiger Reserve is located in Aravali hills and forms a part of the Alwar District of Rajasthan.
• The Reserve is immensely rich in flora and fauna, and is famous for Royal Bengal Tiger.
  • The park has populations of leopards, Nilgai, Sambar, chital etc. It also shelters a large population of Indian peafowl, crested serpent eagles, sand grouse, golden backed woodpeckers, great Indian horned owls, tree pies, vultures,etc.
• Sariska was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1955 and was declared the tiger reserve later in 1978, making it a part of India's Project Tiger.
• The Sanctuary houses ruined temples, forts, pavilions and a palace.
  • Kankarwadi fort is located in the center of the Reserve and it is said that Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had imprisoned his brother Dara Shikoh at this fort in struggle for succession to the throne.
  • The Reserve also houses a famous temple of lord Hanuman at Pandupole related to Pandavas.

Project Tiger

• Project Tiger is an ongoing Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change providing central assistance to the tiger States for tiger conservation in designated tiger reserves.
• The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body of the Ministry, with an overarching supervisory/coordination role, performing functions as provided in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
  • The NTCA was launched in 2005, following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force. It was given statutory status by the 2006 amendment of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
• India now has as many as 2,967 tigers in the wild, with more than half of them in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, according to the latest tiger estimation report for 2018.
• The population of tigers have increased by 33% since the last census in 2014 when the total estimate was 2,226.
• Sariska is the first tiger reserve to have successfully relocated Royal Bengal tigers in India and at present there are around 20 tigers in the reserve.

Dekho Apna Desh

• Dekho Apna Desh is one of the three components of the Paryatan Parv.The other two are Tourism for All and Tourism & Governance.
• It intends to encourage Indians to travel their own country.

From disinfectant drones to robotic nurses, Covid-busting tech- Corona Killer 100

• Corona-Killer 100 is an automated disinfecting Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed by Garuda Aerospace - an ISO- 9001 company.
• These drones will aid in the sanitation of public places, hospitals and tall buildings up to 450 feet amid Covid-19 outbreak.
• It is equipped with fuel efficient motors that enable the drone to be deployed for 12 hours a day.
• Drone operations are faster, longer & safer than manual spraying by workers who can become potential carriers of Covid-19.
• It also consists of patented autopilot technology, advanced flight controller systems.

Drone as a Service

• Historically, many UAV applications were developed in the military as spy or reconnaissance vehicles used during wartime.
• However, the development of this type of aircraft has evolved towards commercial, civil and consumer spaces, including professional videography, surveying, construction, inspection, traffic management and last mile delivery.
• Commercial drone services are developing UAV services, sometimes called Drones as a Service (DaaS), to help industries, such as agriculture, construction, search and rescue, package delivery, industrial inspection, insurance and videography, with tasks like collecting imagery and measurements and managing or broadcasting events.
• Drone services seem cost-effective, portable, and – in extreme emergencies like Covid-19 can – provide the first take, including visuals, assessment and extent of damage.

Amid lockdown, Tripura groups protest Bru settlement

In the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, two community-specific groups have renewed their opposition to the permanent settlement of Bru refugees from Mizoram in Tripura.

• The two groups namely, Nagarik Suraksha Mancha (mostly representing Bengali people displaced from erstwhile East Pakistan post-partition in 1947) and the Mizo Convention have submitted a memorandum protesting against the proposed settlement of the displaced Brus in Tripura.

Genesis

• Bru or Reang is a community indigenous to Northeast India, living mostly in Tripura, Mizoram and Assam. In Tripura, they are recognised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.
• In Mizoram, they have been targeted by groups that do not consider them indigenous to the state. In 1997, following ethnic clashes, nearly 37,000 Brus fled Mamit, Kolasib and Lunglei districts of Mizoram and were accommodated in relief camps in Tripura.
• Since then, 5,000 have returned to Mizoram in eight phases of repatriation, while 32,000 still live in six relief camps in North Tripura.
  • In June 2018, community leaders from the Bru camps signed an agreement with the Centre and the two state governments, providing for repatriation in Mizoram. But most camp residents rejected the terms of the agreement.
  • The camp residents say that the agreement doesn't guarantee their safety in Mizoram.
• The Centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura and leaders of Bru organisations signed a quadripartite agreement in January (2020) to let the remaining 35,000 refugees who have stayed back to be resettled in Tripura.
  • The rehabilitation package offered included financial assistance of ₹4 lakh and land for constructing a house for each family.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups

• In India, tribal population makes up for 8.6% of the total population.
• Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) are more vulnerable among the tribal groups.
• In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, who are less developed among the tribal groups. In 2006, the Government of India renamed the PTGs as PVTGs.
• PVTGs have some basic characteristics - they are mostly homogenous, with a small population, relatively physically isolated, absence of written language, relatively simple technology and a slower rate of change etc.
• Among the 75 listed PVTG’s the highest number are found in Odisha.