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I had to write this note today, for if I can’t start a debate, register a protest on the use of recorded bird calls for sighting on Salim Ali’s birthday, what other time would be appropriate. Two years ago at BNHS Sasan Gir camp we noticed almost all the guides on the safari (In almost all national parks, the guides are boys appointed by the forest department during the safari season, and they are allotted by rotation) had recordings of bird calls on their mobile phones. What was seen as a good tool to learn and identify bird calls has become a tool in the hands of ill-informed guides to please their customers – I presume the birds responded to calls and were sighted. We had in Gir told the guides not to play any calls. In Gir at least the issue is settled for most visitors come hoping to sight the lions and not so much for birding. Also, a dry forest like Gir makes bird sightings lot more easier than the dense Himalayan forests or the rain forests of North East. We were ...

November 1990, was more grim and looked a real winter of discontent than what November 2015 looks like, not sure how many would agree with that. 25-years ago when I took up my first job as a trainee journalist with Bennett Coleman, deputed to the now extinct The Independent the discussion inside and out of the newsrooms were about the imminent breaking up of India, the balkanisation of India, and how the idea of India wouldn’t hold anymore. Like a rangoli drawn on water, to literally translate a Tamil idiom, neer mel ezhudhiya kolam the National Front government fizzled out. Even after Bofors Rajiv Gandhi had some sympathy among voters, and V.P.Singh some elite following after Mandal. It was in those turbulent days one travelled alone to Bombay then, alone. In September of 1990 one had written the last academic exam of life and was immersed in writing the thesis to get M.Phil., degree. Already had UGC certificate for lecturership after passing the first  ever such nat...