Multiple states in India are taking to an SMS-based early warning system that informs people in an area about the movement of elephants.

In 2010, the elephant was declared as the national heritage animal of India, a title befitting an animal that has been a part of this country’s religious, cultural and social legacy since Harappa. However, these millennia-old ties have weakened with time as the human population has boomed and the contest for natural resources has intensified. In elephant-range states like Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka, the human-elephant relationship is dominated by discord and conflict today.

In this context, neither people nor the elephants can be said to be trespassing, at least not at first glance. As M. Ananda Kumar, a wildlife scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, says, the problem is not the animal but the situation. It is to tackle this tricky situation and prevent it from escalating that Kumar and his team devised an early warning system a few years ago that’s since been adapted by West Bengal and Kerala, among others.

Texting out of trouble

For the people of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, living with elephants doesn’t come easy. The three districts constitute a traditional paddy cultivation belt that lies adjacent to the dense forests of the states of Jharkhand and Odisha. A few decades ago, the same region was covered with thick sal forests and was home to numerous elephant herds, both of which were put paid to by urbanisation. But in the 1980s, elephant herds from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in Jharkhand started visiting south Bengal again. They initially numbered between 20 and 50 but the numbers have only been increasing since.

In his study on human-elephant conflicts in south Bengal in 2009-2012, Subhamay Chanda, a forest officer in the Sunderbans, observed how two features of the landscape encouraged the jumbo migration: change in cultivation patterns from mostly rain fed to year-round irrigation agriculture and, second, an afforestation drive carried out by the forest department and local communities in a joint forest management (JFM) programme. This drive converted degraded lands into forested areas. The elephants thus had adequate cover to hide in and adequate food from the lush fields around them.

Today, there are an estimated 140-150 elephants in south Bengal, including the migratory elephants from Dalma, the resident elephant population and a third group of elephants that migrated from Odisha through the Mayurjharna elephant reserve. But regardless of the group, human-elephant encounters have caused widespread damage to lives (both human and animal) and livelihoods. Moreover, victimised villagers have turned their ire on the forest staff for their inability to tame the wild elephants.

In Bankura alone, according to reports, the forest department has assessed 1,598 hectares of crop damage and 1,677 houses destroyed by elephants in 2015. In Midnapore in the same year, 500 hectares of cropland was damaged. The total compensation paid to villagers was Rs 1.21 crore. As for loss of lives: 108 people died in the state in 2015 alone (of which 71 were in south Bengal) while 14 elephants were (deliberately) electrocuted. In 2016, 29 people were killed in Bankura. Five have already died in 2017.

In all, despite West Bengal harbouring only 2% of the country’s wild-elephant population, the state has over 20% of the total human deaths.

Multiple mitigation tactics have been tried and have failed to deliver: trenches, bursting crackers, installing electric fences, etc. Even using a specifically trained village task force to chase herds away didn’t work. Under extreme circumstances, ‘rogue elephants’ have also been hunted and killed.

So in an effort to break from grisly tradition as well as pursue a more peaceful, technologically assisted solution, the West Bengal government has decided to do things differently from this year.

One such solution uses SMSes. In Bankura, a person can now learn of the movement and sightings of elephants by giving a missed call to a designated number (+919015181881). In West Midnapore district, bulk SMS alerts are being sent to administrative and panchayat officials and to members of the forest protection committee (FPC), who relay the information to locals and travellers. The idea is to help people avoid accidental encounters with herds.

This isn’t the first time this system has been tried. In Valparai, Tamil Nadu, the system – developed by Kumar and his colleague Ganesh Raghunathan in 2002 – has almost completely eliminated accidental encounters.

In the Valparai data as well as through surveys, the duo found that elephants preferred to stay within forested areas during the day and stray out only after dusk. They would cut through routes cleared for the people to access their plantations because these routes would also have fragmented the forests. And it was here that surprise encounters would occur.

“During the course of the study it became more and more evident that the local residents had a perception of exaggerated numbers of elephants using the plantation landscape,” Raghunathan told The Wire. “As there was no prior information on the location of elephants, any sighting of an elephant caused surprise and fear in people.”

He and Kumar realised that informing people of the presence of elephants could help them avoid these areas. Subsequently, estate workers, plantation managers, the media and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department met and began to plan an early warning system. The first iteration was a word-of-mouth system where those tracking elephants would pass on info to local TV channels, which would display it as a ticker. A second iteration switched to mobile networks, with the SMS used to relay updates.

Community participation

Raghunathan said, “The SMS system created a ‘my message’ attitude among the people and a dedicated helpline was set up so people could reach out for help or communicate sightings of elephants. This brought people closer than before to jointly work towards sharing information on elephants and inculcate certain changes to their lifestyle to avoid negative interactions with elephants.”

Mobile-operated ‘red alert’ indicators were also set up at vantage locations to guide those without phones, such as schoolchildren, and they have been fully operational since 2013. In early 2016, a collaboration with the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation brought these announcements into public transport buses as well.

The SMS service, which began in July 2011, now reaches 4,800 families in Valparai everyday. Between 1994 to 2002, about three people were being killed in elephant encounters every year; since 2011, this number has dropped to one per year, with no incidents of injuries or fatalities reported in 2016.

Ultimately, despite plantations fragmenting their habitats, elephants now have their much-needed connections to forests as well.

Can the same success be replicated in West Bengal? Raghunathan feels confrontational situations can be avoided through an early warning system such as an SMS, but that every place also needs its location-specific measures.

“Some systems such as SMS/voice call alert systems will work in most places. The most important thing to do along with these early warning systems is to engage and regularly interact with local people and respond quickly to situations where help is required,” Raghunathan said. “Within a distance of 50 to 100 km, we see a lot of differences in landscape, vegetation and people. So it is very important to use location specific measures rather than blindly replicating methods that have worked in other states or countries.”

So, the West Bengal government is not relying on SMSes alone. As another unique countermeasure, the forest department has been tasked with constructing toilets in the region so that villagers don’t have to defecate in the open and accidentally bump into an elephant. The compensation given to villagers has been hiked from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh. Special vehicles equipped with gadgets to warn, intervene or provide prompt help ahead of an impending encounter have also been deployed. Only time will tell if these measures are effective.

The early warning system is also being used in Kerala this year, since the severe drought has brought animals closer to human settlements. In Wayanad district in north Kerala, a 72% rainfall deficit rainfall over the last two monsoons has forced elephants, bisons, deer and boars to regular enter villages. The banks of the Kabani, once home to around 800 elephants, now hosts fewer than 120 because the river is drying up. As a result, some elephants have even been seen to travel 7-8 km inside human areas.

In response, the system is being used around the Wayanad Wildlife sanctuary as a pilot project by the forest department. A 24-hour SMS alert centre also has been set up by Nature Conservation Foundation at the rapid response team’s office at Sulthan Bathery. Apart from texts, the team is communicating through LED boards installed in the villages of Aranappara, Bavaly, Valluvadi and Thottamoola. Similar measures are also set to be introduced in the Mannarkkad, Silent Valley and Nilambur (south) forest divisions.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 27 April, 2017

Link: Giving elephants the space they need, one sms at a time

Image by István Mihály from Pixabay

Flamingoes have been known to fly into high-tension wires strung over saline wetlands, where the birds like to feed, but efforts to take the wires down have seldom succeeded.

Brijesh Shah of Bhavnagar Animal Helpline has had a habit of visiting the salt pans of Kumbharvada, a known feeding site for flamingoes, on the city’s outskirts once a day. But over the last two months, Shah has had to visit them out of concern. He scouts the shallow waters, observing the flock, and hopes that he does not come upon a charred or decapitated bird around the 8-to-10-km-long stretch with high-tension wires overhead.

The first incident they’ve been involved with was on 10 December 2016, when 20 of the pink birds were reported to have died after flying into the wires. On February 11 and then again over the next two days,  more than two score birds had been electrocutes. The favoured feeding site had quickly devolved into a mass graveyard.

“There is a wetland created out of unused salt pans and areas inundated with wastewater from Kumbharvada city,” Shah tells The Wire. “[Some] 1,500-2,000 flamingoes are seen here all year round as they come to feed in the shallow waters. But the high-voltage wire is right above that small valley. It is a 66-KV Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited powered line. As soon as the birds fly above the shallow lake after their meal, they collide with the wire just 50 metres away.” They’re killed instantly – either by electrocution or the force of impact.

Shah and his colleague Shashikant, a veterinary doctor who answers the animal helpline,  recall how, after the moment of collision, the birds turn black or just swell up and burst like balloons.

“The bird is huge – over five feet and has long legs, wings and neck,” they say. “It doesn’t get hurt when it touches one wire. It is only when its wing touches two wires at once that it gets an electric shock.”

The Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited (GETCO), however, denies that the birds in the last four incidents were electrocuted. They claim that the transmission line in question hasn’t been switched on in the last half year.

When it was in use, according to GETCO, it was being used by Nirma, a company manufacturing household chemicals, at a facility nearby. The company is now said to be taking power from the Ahmedabad Highway Systems.

Shrenik Shah, a local environmental activist, isn’t convinced: “Even if there is no power supply, collision with the wires is almost always fatal for the birds. Their wings get cut or their necks are broken or, even worse, the body is cut in two pieces due to the severity of the collision. We were unable to rescue even a single one out of the fifty that died this year.”

According to him, the power line has been there in the Kumbharvada area for the last decade or so. The flamingoes have been using it as a feeding habitat for much longer, leaving only for a few months before the monsoons to breed, returning again in June-July with many of their young ones. Shrenik says that a flamingo is killed every year. “Because of the industrial development in the area, the population of the birds might have reduced, lowering the [number of] bird hits. The incidents are not regularly reported, but the wires still hang there as a constant threat.”

The flamingo state

In June 2011, hundreds of flamingoes were killed by the same high-tension wires in Bhavnagar – but GETCO remained stubborn, denying all allegations. It said that the birds could have been killed by something else. But after conservationists protested, the municipal corporation and GETCO asked Bhavnagar’s mayor to drain out the habitat and give the flamingoes no reason to visit the city at all. Thankfully, the forest department and environmentalists intervened, highlighting the importance of the wetland and the many years it had taken to establish a safe habitat. The habitat was spared.

Gujarat is a flamingo hub in the country. Two species of flamingos are found here: the greater flamingo and the near-threatened lesser flamingo. Both species are residents of the state.

Virag Vyas, who studied the lesser flamingo for his PhD – with special reference to ecology, threats and conservation management, says that the portion of the Gulf of Khambhat near Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar districts, the coastal areas of Bhavnagar and Jamnagar and Kutch are major congregation sites for the birds during their non-breeding season. In fact, ‘Flamingo City’ in Kutch has been promoted as a tourist destination for being the only breeding site for flamingoes in Asia, being home to over 1.5 lakh birds throughout the year.

While the greater flamingoes do migrate over long distances, the lesser flamingoes are non-migratory nomadic species with flocks constantly moving between different feeding sites. Standing on their stick-like long legs in shallow mudflats, these birds stir up the bottom with their feet and duck their beaks down to catch their meal: shrimps, crustacea and algae.

The carotenoid pigments in this food gives the flamingoes their distinctive pink colour. And the specialised habitat that provides this food is not available in many places in the world. These environments also tend to be naturally saline – and have been exploited by humans to produce salt over many centuries.

So, even if the Kumbharvada wetland complex is small, it is still uniquely important for the flamingoes. It is a habitat they cannot afford to lose to rapid industrialisation, highway projects and the life-threatening high wires – a fact that bears repeating in the face of the number of times flamingoes have been threatened by human activities, and the number of times nothing changed.

In 2010, the world’s attention was drawn by Gujarat’s Khadir region when no fewer than 400 flamingoes were charred to death after hitting the wires. About 400,000 flamingoes had migrated to Khadir that year.

In 2011, Anika Tere, a zoologist at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, and B.M. Parasharya, an ornithologist at Anand Agricultural University, had published a study that stated: “A passing vehicle or even a flipping fish can create a flutter in the flamingo colonies, leading to the birds flying into the cables. Overhead wires are not visible to them and they do not have enough time to manoeuvre to avoid collision.” The duo mapped seven sites in Kutch, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar where high-tension cables ran close to flamingo sites.

Under the media’s gaze, the forest department scurried to  install radium tags on the wires in Khadir. These acted as reflectors and warned the birds stay away. Then again, it was over three years and repeated follow-ups by environmentalists before the wires were taken underground.

In their study, Tere and Parasharya had briefly discussed the the Kumbharvada threat as well. “The collision of flamingoes with electric lines was noticed repeatedly at Nirma salt pans and Kumbharvada sewage pond in Bhavnagar district,” the paper read. “The collisions at these sites are so frequent that the local fishermen have learnt to scan areas with overhead wires and collect the birds for consumption.” This warning was ignored – with the effect that flamingoes continue to be killed to this day.

A persisting threat

Devesh Gadhvi, a deputy director at the Kutch Ecological Research Centre and a noted conservationist, says, “Since 2011, the mortality [among flamingoes] has been observed in Bhavnagar due to collision with the power lines. It is more of the collision than the electrocution. Dogs also play a role in such incidents: They chase the birds to kill them and, in haste, the birds fly haphazardly and collide with the power line.”

According to Gadhvi, the high-tension wires had been installed without conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA). “Power lines should not be installed in any areas having frequent bird movements. A proper EIA study prior to the installation can solve this issue.”

As it happens, the Central Electricity Authority has issued multiple guidelines to all states asking for appropriate measures to save wild animals from electrocution. They include putting spikes on the lines to ward off animals, taking cables underground where possible, inspecting transmission lines twice a year and investigating every electricity fault. Even the UN Environment Programme had released guidelines in November 2011.

After the four incidents in Kumbharvada, the team from the Bhavnagar Animal Helpline installed a camera for a few days in the area. They wanted to prove – once and for all – to the media, the forest department and the government that the wires were killing the birds, contrary to what GETCO believed. Whether it was irony or sheer luck, no flamingo collided with the wires in this period. No new deaths have been reported since February either.

Brijesh Shah says, “It is thanks to the security guards of the on-site Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, who patrol the experimental salt farms. They call us so we can reach the site to see if any flamingoes can be saved.” Otherwise, the high-tension wires continue to hang over the feeding birds like a noose.

Says Gadhvi, “Looking at the human population and its demand for electricity and other basic requirements, some development is unavoidable and needs to be done. But it should be done after consulting subject experts, and all the suggested mitigation  measures should be implemented to reduce the ecological disturbance as much as possible.”

Even if Khadir set a positive example in 2014 after taking over 9 km of cables underground, there continues to be a gap between what has been put down on paper and what is executed. One can only hope that it won’t take another flamingo massacre to jolt lawmakers out of their reverie.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 28 March, 2017

Link: How Much Longer Before India’s Flamingo Hub Will Cease to be a Flamingo Graveyard?

Image by Jürgen Bierlein from Pixabay

The deaths of tigers and other wildlife have brought to the forefront a situation where the ‘management’ of one animal leads to the accidental deaths of another.

A hundred and twenty-one snares were dismantled in a single day by the Karnataka forest department in a massive combing operation around the Nagarhole National Park boundary on January 31. Where once there were only four or five snares, now the forests are brimming with these quick fix killing contraptions – or so it seems. This rise in snares was noticed after the Karnataka government’s order last year that legally allowed culling of wild boars that were entering farms and damaging crops. The order, initially restricted to Ramnagara district, is now statewide.

Opinions differ on whether it was the order that was misinterpreted by the locals to increase the use of snares under the guise of legally protecting their farms from wild boars – or that the noticeable deaths of apex predators like the tiger brought back the focus on these silent killers that were omnipresent but overlooked by the guardians of the forest overtime.

Using snares to catch any wild animal always was and is still illegal in Karnataka. The latest order allows shooting after seeking permission but not snaring. Unfortunately, it is also a practice that is as much a part of traditional wisdom to protect one’s crops as any other method like fencing. Snares have been put around farms, coffee estates and wildlife corridors for defending produce or for other ulterior motives for ages.

G. Veeresh, who has been actively collecting evidence of snares and snare-related wildlife deaths in the Chikmagalur forest range, says, “The order is giving them free will to hunt and though it is illegal to put snares, they are doing it in the name of protecting farms from wild boars.”

The wildlife activist adds, “Farmers and organised hunters will put snares because it’s easy and a silent killer. Those who have weapons will go on hunt but snares are easy. Villagers know that this is illegal but they are still doing it for the meat and skin. Even local tribes are involved in snaring. They use Bajaj scooter cables that are flexible and easily trap the animals. They keep a daily watch of which animal has been snared.”

It is not only wild boars that are caught this way. There are deer, blackbucks, hares, muntjacs and the occasional tiger.

Joseph Hoover, wildlife expert and former member of the state wildlife board, elaborates, “When a wild boar enters any farm or estate, especially in areas like Kodagu, Chikmagalur, it is a common thing to put snares to stop them. Even for deer. But it is not that they want to protect their farm. Basically they want the meat. Nagarhole, Bhadra, Dandeli, Anshi dandeli (Kali), BRT tiger reserve everywhere we have snares.”

It seems the use of snares that began as a sly measure by locals to defend land and capture a boar or two for the meat, has now blown out of proportion owing to the order that treats the boar as “vermin”– or animals that create nuisance. But wild boars are not the only animals under threat. Protected animals such as the tigers, leopards and bears too are becoming the victims of the callousness.

Accidental deaths

The tiger, leopard and sloth bear are all listed in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the highest level of protection given to wild animals in the country. This prohibits their killing and deems it as a punishable offence. The wild boar is listed in Schedule III of the Wildlife Act, which still makes it illegal to hunt though the punishment is less severe. However, under special circumstances if an animal is found to threaten human life or damage property, as in this case, the government might declare it as vermin for a specific period and thus allow its hunting. The order is a first for Karnataka but in 2015, under severe criticism from conservationists, the centre approved culling of nilgai and wild boar in Bihar and rhesus monkey in Himachal Pradesh by declaring them vermin in similar fashion.

Since the implementation of the order, Karnataka has officially lost two tigers, three leopards and two sloth bears among its big mammals because of the snares. This includes a one and a half year old tiger cub that injured its forelimbs after being caught in a snare in Ponnampet forest of Kodagu district on January 18th. Another tigress was found dead at Srimangala near Ponnampet when she too found herself accidentally stepping into the snares left to catch wild boar.

Two leopards were snared and found dead last year in the same location in and around Thangebailu, says Veeresh. The snares were in a banana cultivator’s farm in a land adjacent to the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and a known wildlife corridor. He adds that as recently as on 8th February, a sambhar deer and a barking deer were killed in the Chikmagalur range after they got caught in the snares put up by farmers to catch wild boars.

Order to kill

The revised order specifies that the person who has a wild boar raiding problem in his farm has to take prior permission. There is no provision of using snares. The boar must be shot by a person who has obtained a license from the forest department to kill the animal. He cannot kill a mother boar or her babies, and the injured boar or its carcass must be handed over to the forest department for post-mortem analysis and cannot be consumed for its meat. According to a state forest official, till date no such permissions have been taken.

Hoover says, “They are not supposed to put a snare at all for protection of land. If they shoot a wild boar, the forest officer should be told within 24 hours, the carcass has to be burnt or buried. It’s funny, because we don’t even have enough forest officers to protect the forest, how will he go and check each wild boar killing? So now everyone is trigger happy.” He also fears that the farmers or coffee plantation owners could easily take advantage of the situation, shoot a wild boar somewhere else and claim that it was raiding their crops. The government treating the boar as vermin only makes it easier.

There is another outlook though with regard to the tiger deaths. Ullas Karanth, conservationist and director of the Wildlife Conservation Society admits that the order does not seem to have a scientific basis because of the lack of survey before or after its implementation. But he firmly believes that the passing of this order and the snare deaths are unconnected issues.

“The Karnataka order permits shooting, not snaring, and immediate subsequent reporting and also destruction of the carcass. When wild meat is on illegal sale at high prices (Rs 200-300 per kg), as evidenced in the recent Chikmagalur urban poachers case, it is questionable who will follow this order, or whether it has any impact at all,” says Karanth. “We need good independent scientific surveys to assess the situation before this order was issued and after it was issued.”

He reasons increase in number of tigers death itself in Karnataka is because of the increasing population of the animal and its limited habitats.

The state with the most big cats

Karnataka has been a conservation success story with respect to tigers. An estimated 406 tigers live in the state with 221 recorded in Nagarhole and the adjoining Bandipur forests. Tiger density here is higher than anywhere else. However, the upswing in the population also comes with the higher mortality risks. With the big cat population reaching its saturation point in core areas, the spill over to the buffer zone is obvious.

“Tigers, leopards and other animals dying in snares is nothing new – with increased number of tigers and leopards, such ‘by-catch’ of these species has also increased,” says Karanth. He insists that the foresters can and should search and remove snared inside and on the boundaries of the forests. “The good ones have been doing this for decades,” he says. “Nowadays, it is often done as a media show once in a while, with some NGOs too trying to get publicity out of it.”

After the tiger deaths, the forest department began a massive snare combing operation around the border areas of Nagarhole. Combing forests to look for looped wires that could blend in with the hundreds of wines and shrubs is like finding needle in a haystack quite literally. For the 121 snares dismantled in a single day, the department had to deploy 300 of its staff members, split into five-member teams moving around 17 km of the forest boundary from Anechowkur to Nanchi Gate.

More than 400 snares were removed during the week-long operation– a staggering number of hidden death threats for any wild animal. Whether the combing operation itself was a media stunt, an action to prevent backlash or a genuine attempt to protect the wildlife is debatable, but it is that the problem is far from resolved. Snares are still being set up, and the government order has only led locals to believe that they can kill a boar or a tiger without serious consequences.  

Forests at risk

Hoover points to the other equally risky factors that come into play this time of the year– water crisis and wildfires. 80% of water holes in Bandipur have already dried up and the water shortage makes animals like deer come out of the protected zones and approach human habitations to quench their thirst. Where herbivores tread, the carnivores will follow and this increases the risk of being caught in snares.

The other problem is the dried forest cover which becomes more vulnerable to forest fires, as witnessed in the recent wildfire in Bandipur that led to the loss of a forest officer’s life. The department that is already 30 % understaffed has to deploy foresters and guards to prevent these man-made or natural fires. “When the crisis is so big, we are losing our people to go and work on the periphery of the forest to remove snares,” Hoover says.

Karanth feels it is impossible for the forest department to go into each private land and remove snares. This initiative must come from the land owners. He advises that regular patrolling and snare removals can be done by forest staff inside all reserved forests/protected areas. Publicity campaigns targeting landowners to control snaring can be launched. NGOs can go and remove snares on private lands, with permission of owners. Veeresh who has seen how farmers keep bringing back the snares even after they are removed feels, punishing them is the best solution. If the forest department punishes the landowners rather than only removing the snares, it sets an example and can make them more responsible.  

Damage control

The problem of wild pigs raiding fields is not exclusive to India. In Europe, Africa and the US there have been dedicated efforts to stop the damage using various methods however general consensus is that hunting or snaring is not a solution.

Wild boars have a thick skull and hide which makes them a difficult target for hunting. They are also very quick learners and may change their routes if they sense a trap has been laid for them. Another argument is snaring might not be effective enough to take down the numbers that are actually needed to control the population. Farmers in the US, after two decades of legalised hunting have surprisingly also come to realise that the measure is counter-intuitive. Hunting, it is believed, becomes an incentive for the boars to reproduce more and grow in numbers.

On the other hand, there are some traditional, innovative and much safer methods already employed in India that use the animal’s basic behaviours and traits to keep it from doing damage to crops. One such practice involves the use of human hair. In a 2015 study it was found that spreading human hair (collected from barber shops) around crops controlled the damage up to 40-50% in farms as the pigs did not like the minute hairs sticking to their nostrils. Spraying fields with a domestic pig’s dung solvent also proved to ward off wild pigs, as it led them to think they were entering marked territory. Burning dried dung cake, erecting colourful saree boundaries, planting thorny bushes are other proven traditional methods for warding off these persistent crop raiders without spilling blood.

The deaths of tigers and other wildlife have brought to the forefront what experts always feared – a situation where management of one animal leads to the accidental deaths of another. The chosen method of selective slaughter is also questionable, when there is no scientific evidence to back the decision. The culling order has only given way to a self created chaos that could have been averted with a little planning and judicious approach.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 23 February, 2017

Link: When Snares Set for Wild Board Spell Trouble for Karnataka’s Tigers