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“Do not believe what your teacher tells youmerely out of respect for the teacher.”
Gautama Buddha02ONE WORLD, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Explore diversity in vision and figure out how the same topic may be vieweddifferently by different folks. This is a mirror to society and life
Last year, two ministershad got into a spat re-garding the culling ofNilgai in Bihar. Envi-ronment minister
Prakash Javadekar defended themove and Women and Child Devel-opment minister Maneka Gandhicried foul over the “lust for killinganimals”. Indians have a consensuson co-existing with animals, saidprimatologist Anindya Sinha.
“That’s a baseline in our society. So-cioeconomic conditions also decidethe level of tolerance towards non-humans. At Delhi’s Hanumanmandir, beggars share their almswith monkeys, and try telling a pil-grim not to feed monkeys,” the Na-tional Institute of Advanced Stud-ies (NIAS) professor added.
Why are monkeys a menace That said, for the average person,monkeys have become a bother, asource of destruction. India’s Rhe-sus macaque— behind activities
that have earned all monkey speciesa poor reputation — has fascinatedprimatologists with its superbadaptability to habitats and foods.
“Loss of habitat is there but theproblem is people ensure monkeyshave access to food,”said Sindhu Rad-hakrishna, primatologist at NIAS.This familiarity with humans eatsup the distance between the twospecies, making monkeys less in-hibited.
The Rhesus has displayed ex-tremely innovative behaviour — itlearnt to barter, returning snatchedspectacles and bags for food; to re-taliate fiercely to aggressive hu-man behaviour; to live as family inslums. And it learnt to steal — dis-playing super raiding skills, zip-ping into houses and making offwith food.
The other common species,the langur is a shy creature evenin the city, keeping its distancefrom humans. Similarly, the Bon-net monkey, mostly prevalent inTamil Nadu and Karnataka, isreticent. The access to humanfood has also meant bodilychanges, resulting in longer re-productive life spans. “Inter-birth(the time between two birth cy-cles) has reduced and so the num-ber of offspring in a short termhas shot up,” said Radhakrishna.Sterilisation, contraception, re-location and culling, nothing hassucceeded in keeping monkeynumbers down.
Possible solutions On the decision to cull, QamarQureshi of Wildlife Institute of In-dia said it’s not the answer to popu-lation management. “Culling mon-keys, nilgai and wild pig was allowedby several states in the past, too, butwithout any result as there is no or-ganised process to implement anyprogramme. There are ethical rea-sons also it’ll not be appropriate,” hesaid. Uttarakhand forest departmentis planning a 100-hectare sanctuarynear Haldwani for simians. The so-lution, Qureshi said, is in a multi-pronged approach of temporarytranslocation, surgical interventionand immuno-contraception.
The lasting solution is stoppingtheir food source. “Ours is among thefew states which penalises people forfeeding monkeys.We’re trying a state-of-the-art ‘monkey-keeping zone’where people can come and feed themonkeys,” said forester-in-chief JaiRaj in Uttarakhand.
Where the money is made
The exciting part of asteroid min-ing is the asteroid belt itself, whichlies between Mars and Jupiter. It isthere that over 1 million asteroidsexist, including about 200 that areover 60 miles (100 km) in diameter.
Nasa estimates this belt to hold$700 quintillion of bounty. That’sabout $100 billion for each personon Earth. There are obviously many
technical challenges that must beovercome to make mining these pos-sible. As it stands, Nasa aims tobring back a grab sample from thesurface of asteroid Bennu that is 2and 70 ounces (about 60 to 2,000grams) in size. The cost of the mis-sion? Approximately $1 billion.
To do anything like that on alarge scale will require robots, space-
craft, and other technologies thatsimply do not exist yet. Further, mis-sions like this could cost trillions ofdollars – a huge risk and burden inthe case that a mission is unsuc-cessful. Until then, the near-Earth as-teroids are the fertile testing groundfor aspirational asteroid miners.
Near-earth mining targetsAsteroid mining companies suchas Planetary Resources and DeepSpace Industries are the first-movers in the sector, and they’vealready started to identify prospec-tive targets to boldly mine whereno man has mined before.
Water, the oil of the 21st century?Companies hope to develop tech-nology that can harvest metals likegold and platinum and water fromasteroids. Nasa has said that thematerials frozen in asteroids could“be used in developing the spacestructures and in generating therocket fuel that will be required toexplore and colonise our solar sys-tem in the twenty-first century.”
Today’s space economy current-ly spends billions of dollars on rock-et fuel to get and keep spacecraft intheir final orbits. Because of its highvalue for space exploration, water
will likely be the first resource to bemined. Once it’s mined, water can bebroken down into hydrogen- and oxy-gen-based rocket fuels. Water alsoplays a critical role in helping to keepastronauts hydrated in space.
Finding a loopholeBut the future of asteroid mininghinges on interpretations of theOuter Space Treaty of 1967, whichdeclares that no country, and by ex-tension no company, can own evenpart of a planetary body.
There is one potential loopholein the treaty though: It states that“outer space shall be free for ex-ploration and use by all States.” Ifmining asteroids for resourcesqualifies as “use,” the companiescould get the green light to go aheadwith their plans.
Feeding monkeys invitespenalties in Hong Kong,which since 2007 hasmanaged to curb themacaque numbers. Flou-ting the feeding restric-tion invites fines of aboutHK$10,000 (`88,000)upon conviction.
If humans were ever able to gettheir hands on just one asteroid, itwould be a game-changer
TWO STATES WANTMONKEYSCULLED.BUT WILLIT WORK?
Following Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand hasrecently allowed culling, after declaring the primates‘vermin’, but killing the animals has seldom worked...
IS ASTEROIDMININGPOSSIBLE?
Water-richasteroids wouldhelp make spaceexplorationcheaper becauseit would elimi-nate the need toferry water fromEarth into space.
It is possible that ourplanet will run out ofkey elements that areneeded for modernindustry within thenext 50 to 60 years.
Early evidence suggeststhat there are trillions ofdollars’ worth of miner-als and metals buried inasteroids that comeclose to the Earth.
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Angry? No way!Anger is a weakness but it’s mostly thoughtof as a strength. Initially, I too faced this is-sue but, thankfully realised that it hurts youmore than it hurts others. In my school, wemake it a point to smile at each other. Thereare no ‘Keep Quiet’ type of screaming teach-ers who bang their dusters on the table. Infact, as a principal, I look forward to cheerfulgreetings, endearing smiles and intelligentconversations from students. I feel I should be
a role model as whatever I display as an indi-vidual, trickles down to all levels – teachers,students and the staff. In my staff meetings,emotion is a compulsory point of discussion.Our school recently organised an ‘EQ Festival’,which highlighted the different emotions andhow to deal with them. It put the students,teachers and parents on a common platform.The solution to anger is actually very simple:first, identify the causes of your anger, thenstart dealing with them one by one; second,learn to forgive as it goes a long way. RANA KHAN, Principal, Span InternationalAcademy, Pune
Be a warrior, not a worrier! All of us are destined for exceptional things.Exams are just one of the challenges andopportunities in store for us. Overcome allchallenges and shine! For tomorrow be-longs to you! Ironically, the most commonfear is the fear of unknown. It is natural tobe mildly concerned before exams. How-ever, worrying will not help. Trying to beserious all the time may win you sympa-thy but not success. Be cheerful; there areno marks for looking worried! Why shouldthe exam be characterised by grim-look-ing students, strict parents and anxious
teachers? Learning should be fun, not rotelearning, it should be practical not alwaystheory- based. The aim of learning is togain knowledge, and marks will automati-cally follow. The journey of acquiring knowl-edge is itself a rewarding experience. Itleads you to joy and doesn’t burden youwith pressure. Enjoy learning for what it isand not with any limitations.POORVI SANU, class IX, New Horizon Public
School, Airoli, Navi Mumbai
We can solve the issue ofclimate changeThe world has risen and has now united againstthe very thing that divided it in the first place- hazardously polluting industries. It needsto realise the opportunities in a newer fu-ture, and what's the way to get a cleaner andsafer future? To start, make a change your-self to motivate others to make a change to-day. The conditions worldwide have not yetgone out of hand because if the human brainhas enough potential to start global warm-ing, it also has enough potential to reverseit. Whenever we strive for success, it is nec-essary that we take others along with us -we cannot do this ourselves. NAVYA MEHROTRA, class VIII,
Suncity School Gurgaon
It’s important to make yourvoice heard.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Accept the changeMan cannot discover new oceans unless hehas the courage to lose the sight of shore.Changes in human life are like different spicesin a dish. Different delicacies in the plate ofour lives makes life enjoyable. I am not toowelcoming to changes or risks. I fear I will losesomething precious and never get it back. Iwant to be in my comfort zone. But changesbring very special experiences. We find newpeople who inspire, new locations to explore,learn and discover things we never knew, learnto adjust among people that are unknown. Westart finding solutions for our own problemsto blend into the atmosphere. And then westart loving new situations, gather new expe-riences and build memories to cherish in lives.Change is the only constant. We need to over-come our fears and embrace changes to gath-er varied experiences in our lives.AARNA MALOT, class VIII, Lake Montfort
School, Bengaluru
Road trips are funIndia encompasses numerous tourist spotsacross the country. So there is always anoption of planning a short road trip. Mostpeople prefer road trips of around six-sevenhours. However, some even go for longerones spread across days. They halt at dif-ferent places during the journey to takerest and explore the place. I had been onmany road trips with my family. My fatherloves driving and is also fond of travelling.So we always travel by car. We have plannedroad trips to several places including Jaipur,Nainital, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Shimla and
Vrindavan. My favourite was our trip toNanital. My uncle, aunt and cousins accom-panied us on this trip. My uncle, aunt andparents travelled in one car while I and mycousins were in another. We had a lot of fun.We stopped at two places to have food. Aswe drove by, we saw the beautiful moun-tains and green valleys. The view was spec-tacular. We saw various lakes, enjoyed boat-ing and indulged in a lot of shopping. Ibelieve road journeys are the best and Isimply love them. VADAGA NIYATI, class X, Delhi School ofExcellence, Manikonda
Teenage angerAnger is a major issue with students thesedays, mostly with students who are underpressure from studies. Immaturity is also amajor reason. The teen age is consideredas ‘confusion years’ in every person’s life,but if anger is not taken seriously as anissue then, it can become a lifelong behav-ioural problem for high school students. Ifthey get angry due to awkwardness insocial situations then they should be coun-selled. Don’t force them to be part ofsocial gatherings as this can have theopposite effect. I hope students managetheir anger by meditating or practisecalming themselves down. This will helpthem in a great way.ASHA JYOTHI, class X, KV No. 1, Tirupati, Hyd
Photo: Reuters
Photo: Getty Images
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