Ipomoea hederifolia
Native to Mexico and naturalised in India, Red Star Glory is an annual twiner with its bright scarlet flowers and appears towards the end of monsoon. These plants are commonly seen between 500 meters and 1000 meters. Flowering season is from October to January, the most likely time to see them within Cardamom County and the surrounding hill station ecosystem. Continue reading
Courtesy of Karnataka Mahila Yakshagana. A scene from Yakshagana performed by female artists in Bangalore, Karnataka, in January.
Thanks to India Ink for bringing to our attention this article by Kavitha Rao:
BANGALORE — In a quiet Bangalore home, a group of middle-aged women are learning to walk, talk and dance like men. Continue reading
If you are a fan of big welding projects that appear to result from an artisan ethos, and a fan of Bob Dylan, and find yourself in London in the coming weeks, this show called Mood Swings may be for you:
“I’ve been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country – where you could breathe it and smell it every day. And I’ve always worked with it in one form or another. Continue reading
Pawan Kumar/Reuters
Those of us living in India, who are not from India, are on a quest to understand our new home. We share these stories from time to time, taken from mainstream publications in India and elsewhere, about what we are learning. With a photo like this, we could not resist such an explanatory story, in the form of an editorial from this week’s Sunday Review section of the New York Times: Continue reading
Mysore, Karnataka
As of this week, the latest Celebrate Urban Birds challenge is up and running! Called Fascinating Feathers, this multi-media competition is designed to get you thinking about the most defining feature of birds — their plumage.
Whether you’re out shooting video of a Herring Gull at the beach getting disheveled by a buffeting wind, taking a photo of puffed-up chickadees at the bird-feeder from your porch, writing/recording a poem or story about the down that keeps you warm in the winter, or painting plumes floating in the ether, we want to see what you can say about feathers from the world around you!
With categories for Best Camouflaged, Best Dressed, Most Bizarre, and Most Functional, you’ll have different ways to frame your work and share it with us and other participants; on January 15, 2014 we’ll close the contest and begin reviewing submissions to select award-winners. Prizes include Opticron binoculars, Pennington bird feeders, bird sound CDs, waterproof bird foldout guides, and more!
Check out the challenge homepage
or
Read the Lab of Ornithology’s press release on the challenge
Photo credits: Binu Kumar
Gangaikondacholapuram temple is situated near the city of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. Dedicated to Lord Shiva, King Rajendra Chozlan built the temple 1020 -29 AD. The main Mandapa is two storied structure and dotted with pillars with exquisite carvings. There are many beautiful sculptures on the walls of the temple and its enclosures. A huge Nandhi (Shiva’s bull) made of brick and mortar presides in front of the main edifice. Continue reading
Oil, coal and gas companies are contributing to most carbon emissions, causing climate change and some are also funding denial campaigns. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
It bears repeating:
The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.
The companies range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP – to state-owned and government-run firms.
The analysis, which was welcomed by the former vice-president Al Gore as a “crucial step forward” found that the vast majority of the firms were in the business of producing oil, gas or coal, found the analysis, which has been published in the journal Climatic Change. Continue reading
Photo credit: Ramesh Kidangoor
Revered by both Hindus and Muslims, the town of Erumely is famous for the Vavar Mosque as well as the Sastha Temple. The Ritual of Petta Thullal during the annual Sabarimala pilgrimage is a unique feature of this place. Pilgrims who visit the temple consider it their sacred duty to offer donation to a representative of the Vavar Mosque. The reason for this devotion is that Vavar was considered to be a contemporary and friend of Lord Ayyappa, the presiding deity of Sabarimala Temple. Continue reading
The University of Washington’s magazine, Conservation, has a set of provocative new articles in the food-focused current issue, including this one:
The cultural—and agricultural—quest to reclaim and reform the food system appeals primarily to relatively privileged, mostly white urbanites. Committed to the pulse of city life, these advocates generally view the countryside as a place for weekend getaways. Still, they want to be close to the point of food production and in turn are bringing agriculture into the city, one vacant lot at a time, to close the gap between farm and fork. Continue reading
Pipeline Road, Gamboa, Panama
Rice Soup
Rice is one of the staples of Kerala cuisine and a rice soup called Kanji is one of the classic dishes. The soup is a simple preparation of serving the rice in the water it was cooked in. Kanji is usually eaten for as the evening meal as the dish is light, rich in nutrients and easily digested. This dish is usually enjoyed with condiments like pickle or chutney, as well as Kerala’s favorite dry fish and pappadam. Continue reading
How Jhumpa Lahiri wrote “The Lowland.”
All contributors to this site can appreciate the concerns of a professional writer and her daily routines related to writing. Our writing is always brief, and by definition for the format meant to be more casual, but it still requires discipline and effort. Writers should write, yes, even when it is “just” a weblog like this one. But how? Routines matter. It is worth hearing in her own words one great writer’s comments on this:
…During a visit to Lahiri’s house in Brooklyn (she currently lives full-time in Rome), we asked how she went about writing the book. Continue reading
Image Credit: Pradnyesh Sawant
This may be the first national park where tigers aren’t at the center of attention! Located in the Golaghat and Nagaon districts of Assam, Kaziranga is home to two thirds of the world’s Great One-Horned Rhinoceroses. Large breeding populations of elephants, buffalos, swamp deer, and tigers reside here as well. Furthermore, this park is recognized by Birdlife International for its diversity and conservation of various species of birds. Kaziranga was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its unique environment and wildlife in 1985. Continue reading
Returning with the days catch
We’ve written previously about Keralalites’ love for fish. However, eating it is only half the story; how it enters into people’s lives is another part of it. Here we’ll share how daily life starts for many locals in a fishing town.
Fishermen usually leave their nets in the water overnight and come back in the morning with prayers in their heart for a good catch. Often luck is with them and their prayers are answered, primarily due to the healthy waters along Kerala’s coastline. Continue reading
One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten, according to a report from the government’s waste advisory group, Wrap. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
The Guardian carried a story recently about how in the UK food producers, sellers and consumers are being urged to support a ban on food waste going to landfills by 2020 to which we add our hurrah:
…Compulsory collections of food waste from all homes and businesses by local councils are among a series of measures recommended in a new report to enable food waste to be harnessed as a valuable resource to provide energy, heat and benefits for agriculture.
The ambition is to save the UK economy over £17bn a year through the reduction of food wasted by households, businesses and the public sector, preventing 27m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from entering into the atmosphere.
The new study, Vision 2020: UK Roadmap to Zero Food Waste to Landfill is the culmination of more than two years’ work and has the backing and input of local authority and industry experts. It sets the framework for a food waste-free UK by 2020. Continue reading
Organikos 