MISCELLANY

Researchers have found in Afghanistan the first known breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler, which was dubbed in 2007 as "the world's least known bird species", according to a report in the New York Times.

Researchers for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Sweden's Gothenburg University said they had found the breeding area in the remote and rugged Wakhan Corridor of north-eastern Afghanistan that has escaped the worst effects of war.

They used field observations, museum specimens, DNA sequencing, and the first known audio recording of the species to find the birds and verified the discovery by capturing and releasing almost 20 birds, the largest number ever recorded. A preliminary paper on the finding appears in BirdingASIA, describing the discovery in Afghanistan as "a watershed moment" in the study of this bird.

The first specimen of the large-billed reed warbler was discovered in India in 1867 in Himachal Pradesh but the second find was not until 2006 in Thailand.

The find came after Robert Timmins from the WCS was conducting a survey of bird communities in the area.

The Wakhan Corridor has escaped the worst effects of the long years of war suffered elsewhere in Afghanistan since the December 1979 invasion by the Soviet Union. The corridor, populated primarily by Wakhi farmers and yurt-dwelling Kyrghyz herders, is also home to snow leopards and wild Marco Polo sheep.

Timmins heard a distinctive song coming from a small, olive-brown bird with a long bill which he taped and later discovered to be a large-billed reed warbler.

The following summer WCS researchers returned to the same area and used a recording of the song to bring out others and catch almost 20 birds for examination.

Have you ever thought how many trees are sacrificed every year to produce the tonnes of tissue paper used by people in toilets, majority of whom live in the Western countries?

It takes a cool one hundred million trees to manufacture it. These trees are enough to provide breathing oxygen to one billion human beings, or nearly one sixth of the humantiy. A tree gives benefits worth Rs. 15.5 lakh over a period of 50 years. Calculated on this basis, all those 100 million trees that are felled every year for the sake of toilet paper are worth Rs. 31,000,000.

In 2007, Australians spent $ 728 million to buy 1,20,000 tons of toilet paper. They consumed it at the rate of 5.5 kgs per person each year. The average per person per annum in United Kingdom is 18 kgs and in the United States 16 kgs. Figures for the European Union are 7 kgs per person per annum. America's has only five per cent of the world's people but it consumes half of the world's toilet paper products. India being a low income and low-consumption country, uses only 7 grams of toilet paper per person, per annum. The toilet paper output is worth Rs. 250 crore.

In order to conserve the trees, the sanitary ware manufacturers are engaged in developing commodes that directly wash the bottoms, with devices that remove the odour and even dry them with hot air besides keeping the seat rims warm.

George Kennan, recipient of the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, chairman of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, wrote in the top secret Policy Planning Study No. 23 immediately after the end of the World War II :

'We have about 50 per cent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population. . . . Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity . . ." To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality. . . . We should cease to talk about vague and . . . unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization.'

India has now 2.5 million places of worship, but opnly 1.5 million schools and barely 75,000 hospitals. religious pilgrimages now account for 50 per cent of all package tours, while the bigger pilgrimages sites now vie with TaJ Mahal for the most visited sites: the Balaji Temple in Tirupati had 23 million visitrs last year, while 17.25 million trekked to Vaishnodevi Temple. In a 2007 The Hindustan Times-CNN survey, 30 per cent respondents said they had become more religious in the last five years.

In Rajasthan the state government spend Rs. 260 million on renovation of temples and training of Hindu priests. Sri Sri Ravishankar's Art of Living Empire claims 20 million members; much of its land has been donated by the Government of Karnataka.

Source: Meera Nanda in her book titled : The God Market: How Globalisation is making India more Hindu by Random House.

A part of southwest Houston, Texas, home to a large number of South Asians, including Indians, has been officially renamed Mahatma Gandhi district to honour the Father of Indian Nation on his 141st birth year. An ethnic conclave, Hillcroft was renamed in January, fulfilling the seven-year long demand of over 100,000 strong Indian-American population living in the Greater Houston area.

City Mayor Annise Parker announced the change of name along with Consul General of India in Houston, Sanjiv Arora. Officials of the India Culture Centre have been working relentlessly for renaming the area that is popularly known as "Little India" due to the high concentration of south Asian shops and restaurants.

Renaming the Hillcroft area required 75 per cent of commercial property owners on a street to sign a petition in its support, according to the municipal law. Only then the City Council can consider the change of the name.

Thirty years ago, Glyn Bindon, the founder of Trijicon, a Michigan Defense contractor, instituted the practice of stamping references to New Testament Bible verses on combat rifle sights manufactured for the U.S. military.

Trijicon has now released a statement that they will quit their three decades of practice and also provide the armed forces modification kits to remove the Scripture citations from the 300,000 telescoping sights already in use by the Marines, Army and which are being used to train Afghanistan troops.

Beyond the charges of breaking the American government rule that bars proselytizing by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, this ABC video clip exposes a thriving Crusader mentality in the US Military and a gross failure of intelligence by Christian's regarding their own faith. (Source: Information Clearing House)