Dear Panditji
Every edition of GT is very informative and interesting. This is the best way to educate school children. I would like to congratulate the team of GT. GT-GSP is spreading in every part of India. Offices, residential colonies as well as homes follow this Green Auditing pattern. This is little difficult in comparison to school.

I would like to know as to how we can participate in GT-GSP.

Vaibhav K Shukla
Sarai Rohilla,
Delhi

Dear Panditji,
The feature on Jhum is extremely well-written. You have covered almost all the scientific issues to place in the right perspective the ecological relevance of Jhum. The steep slopes and high rainfall indicate Climatomorphogenetic significance of this practice. The steep slopes in high rainfall regions are extremely unstable and are prone to mass movement (land slide). The mass movement causes loss of topsoil along with the biotic land cover. In evergreen forests this loss of wood along with the soil exposes the rocks of the hill slope to the forces of weathering and denudation thereby impeding the pedological (soil forming) process. In Jhum, essentially the topsoil is retained and used for agronomical use replacing the Silvicultural use intermittently along with temporary fallow. This helps in causing a balance between soil, slope and biotic cover. If Jhum is not practiced the loss of the top soil, gentle slope and biomass cover would be far greater than the loss of biomass being burnt. As rightly said burning of biomass also provides valuable micronutrients to the soil.

It may be pertinent to mention that especially in soft rock (sedimentary) terrain land forming processes cause peneplanation (lowering of altitude) by vertical retreat of slope. Steeper slopes dominate and gentler slopes being extremely unstable are available for short duration before being wasted by the agents of denudation. Jhum is a unique anthropogenic innovation to utilise the peculiar landcover-landsystem in a high rainfall and erosion sensitive region.

Goutam Bhattacharya
Udaipur

Dear Panditji
I’m Rksinht, MA B.Ed. trained CBSE schoolteacher in Lucknow. I’ve made an Eco-awareness club in my school. Gobar Times is edited well. I would like it to be more popular among school children. I would suggest making Gobar Times multi-lingual, so that the magazine can reach more and more students. Can I get the magazine via e-mail?

Rksinht,
Lucknow
Via e-mail

Dear Rksinht Ji,
Thank you for your valuable suggestions. You can access Gobar Times on our website (www.gobartimes.org). And you may check out the CSE environment education section at (http://www.cseindia.org/programme/eeu/eeu-index.htm).

Dear Panditji,
The information provided by you about the Environmental Refugees is very good and you reminded the people about them yet again. Everything is being done in the name of development, without caring about the natural balance. Recently, I travelled to Himachal Pradesh and found numerous and huge concrete buildings coming up on a large scale. Even if we travel to plains, wherever we used to see green fields, buildings are being built extensively.

We have incompetent officers and hopeless politicians (mostly) who permit these constructions without considering their merits and demerits. Why isn’t the total exercise studied at the inception or launching stage? My point is that competent people, who can understand developmental processes in very precise details, should decide the future of India.

HS Rose
Via e-mail