'Pranab's visit helped increase RSS membership'
Kolkata, June 25: Former President Pranab Mukherjee's presence at a recent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) event has worked as a catalyst in boosting the organisation's membership that is already on the rise across the country, a senior RSS leader said here on Monday.
"Pranab Mukherjee is the former Indian President and a veteran politician. So his presence at the RSS event on June 7 certainly evoked a lot of interest among people.
"The membership in RSS is already on the rise in the country for the good work it has been doing. Mukherjee's visit has also worked as one of the reasons for the increase in membership applications," RSS General Secretary (South Bengal), Jishnu Basu told reporters here.
He said the organisation had been receiving 378 membership applications on an average per day from all over India till early June, but got 1,779 applications on June 7, the day Mukherjee attended the event at the RSS' Nagpur headquarters. There has been a significant spike in membership since then.
However, he refused to accept that Mukherjee's speech from a RSS platform was the only reason for more people joining the organisation.
Basu said the growth of the RSS in West Bengal is significantly higher compared to other states in recent months as it has been the only platform that is consistently fighting against the rising fundamentalism and atrocities against political opponents in the state.
"The RSS membership in Bengal is among one of the highest in the country. Bengal has consistently been in the first or second position in the Join RSS portal in recent months," he said.
RSS south Bengal Prachar Pramukh Biplob Roy said: "People across India want to join RSS as it has been working for the last 92 years to strengthen the country and keep its people together.
"It is the same in Bengal. That's why nearly 40 per cent of the membership applications we receive from across the country are from Bengal."
He also said the number of RSS 'shakhas' has increased from 300 to over 400 in north Bengal over the last one year. In south Bengal the number has gone up from 850 to more than 1,200.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Rare polar bear showed up on shores of Iceland. Police shot it
A rare polar bear that was spotted outside a cottage in a remote village in Iceland was shot by police after being considered a threat, authorities said Friday.
The bear was killed Thursday afternoon in the northwest of Iceland after police consulted the Environment Agency, which declined to have the animal relocated, Westfjords Police Chief Helgi Jensson told The Associated Press.
“It's not something we like to do,” Jensson said. “In this case, as you can see in the picture, the bear was very close to a summer house. There was an old woman in there.”
The owner, who was alone, was frightened and locked herself upstairs as the bear rummaged through her garbage, Jensson said. She contacted her daughter in Reykjavik, the nation's capital, by satellite link, and called for help.
“She stayed there,” Jensson said, adding that other summer residents in the area had gone home. “She knew the danger.”
Polar bears are not native to Iceland but occasionally come ashore after traveling on ice floes from Greenland, according to Anna Sveinsdóttir, director of scientific collections at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Many icebergs have been spotted off the north coast in the last few weeks.
Although attacks by polar bears on humans are extremely rare, a study in Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2017 said that the loss of sea ice from global warming has led more hungry bears to land, putting them in greater chance of conflicts with humans and leading to a greater risk to both.
Of 73 documented attacks by polar bears from 1870 to 2014 in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and United States — which killed 20 people and injured 63 — 15 occurred in the final five years of that period.
The bear shot on Thursday was the first one seen in the country since 2016. Sightings are relatively rare with only 600 recorded in Iceland since the ninth century.
While the bears are a protected species in Iceland and it's forbidden to kill one at sea, they can be killed if they pose a threat to humans or livestock.
After two bears arrived in 2008, a debate over killing the threatened species led the environment minister to appoint a task force to study the issue, the institute said. The task force concluded that killing vagrant bears was the most appropriate response.
The group said the nonnative species posed a threat to people and animals, and the cost of returning them to Greenland, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) away, was exorbitant. It also found there was a healthy bear population in east Greenland where any bear was likely to have come from.
The young bear, which weighed between 150 and 200 kilograms (300 to 400 pounds), will be taken to the institute to study. Scientists took samples from the bear Friday.
They will be checking for parasites and infections and evaluating its physical condition, such as the health of its organs and percentage of body fat, Sveinsdóttir said. The pelt and skull may be preserved for the institute's collection.
A Coast Guard helicopter surveyed the area where the bear was found to look for others but didn't find any, police said.
After the shot bear was taken away, the woman who reported it decided to stay longer in the village, Jensson said.
