Govind Gujar: entomologist's journey to understand the Society we live in

  22 July 2022 Ordinary people are amazing आम लोग अदभुत हैं Photo 1: Women standing with loads of old clothes in front and on her back Photo 2: Rafi with bags loaded in to autorickshaw behind him Photo 3: Old clothes being loaded from the market behind car and auto lane Me: माँ , बर्तनवाली आई है (Mom, woman offering steel utensils in exchange has come) Ma: उसे आने दे (let her come). काफी पुराने कपड़े जमा है (lot of old clothes are now with us) And then begins hassles of bargaining between two. Mom tries to get more steel utensils for old clothes, and bartanwali (traditionally Boharin kalhaiwali or waghari community) aiming for best bargain. And in the end, the deal invariably is done, smiles on both faces, no matter how much time is spent. The above incident occurred many decades ago and remains fresh whenever I see women dealing in old clothes. And the same was repeated with mine too, last to remember some years before I retired from IARI in 2015. Only diffe...

  1 2 I am not a fan or follower of Sadguru, Jaggi Vasudev that he is in formal sense. He is a spiritual leader and founder of Isha Foundation in Coimbatore. I did visit his ashram at Coimbatore. It is not his hut, but a vast expanse of forest land which he has acquired and developed into a kind of spiritual resort that his followers visit to fix up inner engineering software inside their external hardware bodies. Although I heard about negative aspects of Sadguru, I am drawn towards his ideas, missions that he has undertaken. Last time, it was RALLY FOR RIVER that attracted me. Visits to my town after I left it for graduation showed as to how river that we called Dnyanganga has nearly vanished over past five decades. Embankment in the upper reach called check dam nearly dried it for most times of the year. And then slowly, human encroachment took it over. Riverine ecosystem that ensured survival of humanity around it is now taken over by the piped water ecosystem. Loss of rive...

  Experts inspecting flowering of Sugar beet                               Sugar beet showing a root bulb, a source of sugar   10 July 2022 Most of us know that sugar comes from sugarcane, but few know that it also comes from sugar beet. I heard about sugar beet in early 1970s when I was told that Dr B A Lakhdive, retired agronomist of Dr Punjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola did his DAAD post-doctorate work on sugar beet at Goettingen in Germany. And that was the end of what I knew of sugar beet. It is only in last month that I got to see what sugar beet plants look like at Mukteshwar (Uttarakhand) where the ICAR’s Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research at Lucknow has an outpost to breed and develop seeds. Sugar beet cultivation is in infancy, despite best efforts of some farm scientists in the past few decades. Even our neighbour Pakistan grows it on about 1,014 hectares and p...

    May 2022 Just some years ago, I visited the seed company in Aurangabad and was surprised to know that they are developing GM crops. I felt a bit odd that there were hardly any visible signs on revival of this technology by the Government. Yet, I popped up to sound optimistic of their move and hoped that the Government will play all along. Later, I learnt that many state Governments did not give no-objection certificate to carry out open field trials as per regulatory needs. And hence, field testing of the GM crops had come to standstill. Biotech activities have come to standstill after a moratorium on the development of GM crops by the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Mr Jairam Ramesh in 2010. And these have been sparingly and half-heartedly done for the last more than 10 years. This May, Asia Pacific Seed Association (APSA) organised the Asian Solanaceous Crops Roundtable conference from 11 th to 13 th and had many sessions ranging from breeding to biot...

   13 June 2022 U Pesticide myths explained Some time back, I wrote about myths about pesticides. The pesticide industry has done exceptionally well in this country and has contributed to the food security significantly. It ranks 4 th or 5 th in the world in terms of its turnover. Often, pesticides are criticised for their harmful effects and are often in news. I am further elucidating myths about the pesticides and to some extent pesticide industry. These were discussed by CCFI vide ICN Bureau 13 April 2022. I have answered them in my own style. Please refer to the above article for comparison. Myth: Indian farmers use excessive Pesticides Me: It is not true that Indian farmers use excessive pesticide per unit area of crop or per unit of produce on the basis of average of all. But what kind of pesticides do they use quantitatively and how much on different crops in different localities is the important point. Myth: Agriculture commodities in India carry high level...

 2 June 2022   Some time back, I wrote about Mrs Savitribai Phule, a pioneer in girls’ education in the 19 th century ably supported by her husband Mahatma Jyotiba Phule who contributed to the social cause in the Indian society, especially in Maharashtra. Since then, education has been a power engine in every family that propelled socio-economic as well as cultural conditions of the society. Girls’ education is no longer a taboo in every religion, every caste and every strata of the society. The Government too encouraged a lot with free education as well as other facilities. It is said that if you educate a son, you educate an individual. If you educate a daughter, you educate the whole family. So, it was a matter of pride as our daughters passed with flying colours every course they aspired. And this has helped in their employment in every sector including military. Of the services, the Civil Services are the considered top echelon in the Indian society as the success...

  photo credit: freelancer.com 2 June 2022 After exciting air travel, the first to confront in the new country is custom officer who decides your entry. Most custom officers are gentlemen and ladies doing their jobs sincerely and with patience and hard work. And over the years, they have improved a lot in terms of interacting with the visitors. But a lot needs to be done. Often, they or their Governments act like the bosses in the Bollywood films to decide what is right or wrong. And in these days of Covid-19 pandemic, they are the ones who decide as how to check the Covid carriers. So, after some weeks of planning and preparation for travel to Egypt, we finally left for Cairo via Abu Dhabi in October 2021. The emigration was just fine, but a night flight meant remaining awake with little scope of refreshing sleep. On arrival at noon at Cairo airport, we were detained by the custom officials for Covid testing, as they collected our passports. At the same time, those joining our...