Melbourne is most liveable city for last 5-years – no Indian city in top 10

The city of Melbourne in Australia continues to remain the most liveable city in the world for the 5th year in a row – the ranking is given by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) which assigns the Global Livability Index.
The EIU annual rankings focus on living conditions in 140 cities across the globe and marks are allotted based on certain parameters that cover five broad categories like stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 19 August 2015.

Melbourne scored perfect 100 in healthcare, education, and infrastructure and within the culture and environment basket. It also scored a perfect 100 on sport. These highlight that the Victorian Government is committed to continued investment in these priority areas.
The rankings began in 2002 and Melbourne has remained in the top five cities continuously – and, for last 5-years, it has been in the top spot.
Other rankings are – Vienna (2), Vancouver (3), Toronto (4), Adelaide and Calgary (5) At the other end of the spectrum are the last 5 - Tripoli (136), Lagos (137), Port Moresby (138), Dhaka (139) and Damascus (140).
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Global warming – snow on the Himalayas is melting too fast due to rise in temperatures

Due to sudden increase in temperatures within the last 72 hours, snow on Himalayas have started to melt rapidly and all snow-fed rivers like Beas, Parvati, Chenab, Satluj, Ravi and water streams are in spate with the level of water rising every day.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 20 June 2015.

With the snow cover in low-lying hills disappearing and water levels rising, warnings have been issued to people. The statewide night temperature has increased by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in the last 24 hours and the day temperature has risen over 7 degrees Celsius within a week.
AS per Shimla meteorological Centre, Una in Himachal has a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius, the hottest in Himachal. Shimla (26.6), Dharamshala (31.4), Manali (27.8), Kalpa (25.8) and Solan (31.4). Incidentally, while night temperature in Keylong and Bharmaur was below 4 degrees Celsius 10 days ago, it is now above 10.5 degrees Celsius.
The result of the fast flowing waters from the hills is that it is resulting in soil erosion and bringing with it large amount of silt. These are settling down in the reservoirs of hydel projects downstream and also on riverbeds and are not good signs for the environment.
(Image courtesy wikimdiacommons.org)

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Bhutan set a Guinness World Record – team of 100 plants 49672 trees in one hour

The government of the mountainous Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan lays great emphasis on protecting the environment. It has more than 75% forest cover and a team of 100 volunteers has set a new Guinness world record by planting 49,672 trees in one hour.
This has been reported in bbc.com dated 2 June 2015.
In doing so, they broke the existing record set by Indians by nearly 10000 trees. Indians had set that record three years ago.

Bhutan's planters had gathered in the capital, Thimphu, for their feat and it has been confirmed by the authorities of Guinness World Records. The species of trees planted were indigenous varieties like Blue Pine and Cypress.
It was a birthday gift for ex-King Jigme Singye Wangchuck on his 60th birthday – he loves the environment.
Incidentally, the team had practised for more than a week to build up the physical strength and also get right the technique of planting.
Bhutan is basically a Buddhist nation with a population of just over 700,000 people. It is sandwiched between India and China and has struggled to protect itself from the influence of the outside world. It has allowed in television and the internet just over a decade ago.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Heavy rains led to a huge landslide that sent mud and water crashing into homes in a town in Colombia`s northwest mountains leaving at least 48 people dead and injuring dozens. Carlos Ivan Marquez, the director of the national disaster unit, has confirmed that there are 48 bodies in the morgue; apart from 27 injured people who have been attended to. Search is on for survivors since many people are believed to be missing.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 19 May 2015.

It seems the earth slid into the course of the La Liboriana ravine which led to an avalanche. This, in turn, destroyed everything in its path. This has been indicated by the regional police commander Jose Angel Mendoza.
Such natural disasters are due to the degradation of environment – in hilly areas, trees help to bind the soil together but, when trees are cut down, the binding disappears and, when there are heavy rains, the soil hurtle downwards and gathers momentum. The result is devastation and death.
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Pope Francis to focus his attention, in 2015, to climate change

#PopeFrancis #ClimateChange #CatholicBishops Pope Francis has shown that he is made of a different material and he is unhappy that no one is taking climate change seriously. People call him the “superman pope”, and President Obama has cited him as a key player in the thawing of relations with Cuba. Pope Francis has also lectured his cardinals on the need to clean up Vatican politics. And, his focus is now on climate change.
Among his plans for 2015 are to issue a lengthy message on the subject to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and also call a summit of the world’s main religions. His basic intention is to influence the 2015 crucial climate meeting in Paris. On that occasion, the countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.
In March last Pope Francis had visited Tacloban – this was the city in the Philippine that had been devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan. The pope would be publishing a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. He would also urge all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds. He plans to send the document to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will be expected to distribute it to parishioners.
He has very rightly remarked that the monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. In this connection he has added that climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms that are being witnessed.
The efforts of Pope Francis would possibly meet with resistance from certain groups but, for preservation of the world and for the sake of environmental protection, his stand should be appreciated.

Work on Tidal energy project in Scotland to begin January 2015

#TidalEnergy In order to provide a cleaner environment, a tidal energy project would be coming up in Scotland and the project would have the capacity to light up to 175,000 homes through a network of 269 turbines.
Construction is expected to begin from next month on the largest planned tidal energy project in the world on the seabed at Ness of Quoys in Caithness, north-east Scotland.
MeyGen is involved in this, the largest planned tidal energy project in the world, which would have a capacity of almost 400MW and, the first power to the national grid is expected to be delivered by it in 2016.
Experts believe that wave and tidal power, if properly harnessed, could provide 20% of the UK's electricity and Scotland could take advantage of this and develop the technologies to turn this potential into a reality because it would, simultaneously, create new green jobs for the people.
Apart from energy-saving measures, such marine based renewables projects will play a critical role in helping Scotland reduce climate emissions as the polluting fossil based fuels are phased out. The bottom line is - save the environment, save the world.

Fury of Nature seen in New York and Brisbane – snowfall and storms cripple lives

Lady Nature is unhappy at the way our environment is being destroyed and the ecological balance is getting disturbed and she is expressing it in her own unique way – by unleashing storms and snowfall in different parts of the world.
Over a four-day period, New York received nearly seven feet of snow – as per reports, the total snowfall in western New York was staggering. Wales Center and Hamburg witnessed an incredible 85 inches (seven feet) of snow. According to records maintained by the National Weather Service, the largest snow event on record in Buffalo, N.Y, was 81.6 inches in 2001 and that had accumulated over a period of five days.
After the large scale snowfall that crippled the life of New York, she has now moved on to Australia and crippled Brisbane, the third largest city. It was lashed by its worst storm in decades, with roofs flying off and wind, rain and hailstorm resulting in cutting power lines, flooding streets and injuring a dozen people.
As reported by the state-owned electricity supplier Energex, up to 90,000 homes had been without power, with trees and hundreds of power lines brought down by winds gusting at 87 mph and, as it gained in intensity, 68,000 homes remained blacked out.
The storm struck and caught commuters unawares – they remained stuck for hours in the stalled electric trains due to the power cuts. The electronic media went to town with the news and showed the devastation caused in the form of smashed high-rise windows and light planes flipped upside down on an airfield while cars were nearly submerged in flooded streets.
Queensland State Premier Campbell Newman has described the storm as the worst to hit the city of 2.2 million people since 1985.

Fish and rice keep the Bengalis happy

There is no disputing the fact that fish and rice are two items that can keep the Bengalis happy. This is because Bengal is a state where there are innumerable villages and small bodies of water that go by the common nomenclature of ponds. Fish thrive in these waters and are easy pickings for the locals.
Moreover, many landlords had their own ponds in which fishes were grown especially for the families. Hence, dependency of Bengalis on fish existed from time immemorial and it kept growing.
As long as the villages existed, fish was available in abundance but, with the gradual destruction of the environment due to construction work in the name of development and infrastructure in the form of roads, the water bodies began to disappear. But, not the hunger for fish of the Bengalis and, this led to them to go outside the state for the procurement of the fish.
Right now, fish meant for Kolkata come from adjoining Orissa and Andhra Pradesh - however, the range of fish that Bengalis are accustomed to do not always come from neighboring states. While fish like pomfrets, lobsters, crabs and prawns apart from carps and fish from the catfish family do arrive, the varieties of small sweet water fish are absent. There are many Bengalis who have a soft corner for such fish and, obviously, the local fishermen from the villages exploit this weakness and sell off their catch at a premium.
The method of cooking the fish depends on many factors and, thanks to the Electronic media, one can get hundreds of ideas from the TV shows hosted by men and women who are experts in coking – some of them are housewives others are chefs of hotels.
Broadly speaking, Bengalis like their fish either fried or steamed or wrapped in plantain leaves and roasted. Fish like prawns and hilsa are the tastiest and most favored. Even the lobsters have their fans as do the carps and catfish variety. However, sea fish like pomfrets do have followers but are not in any great demand.
Unfortunately, in spite of what people may say, the average consumption of fish in urban Bengal is hardly 1.032 kg per head per month while in Lakshadweep, it is 3.801 kg of fish a month.