Sandeshkhali video vindicates stand: TMC; BJP claims footage doctored
Kolkata, May 4: Trinamool Congress leader Abhisekh Banerjee on Saturday accused the BJP of orchestrating the Sandeshkhali episode and claimed a video vindicated the TMC’s stand that the saffron party was behind the incidents.
Allegations of sexual abuse and land grab against TMC leaders have surfaced in Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district.
“I never thought the politics of Bengal would stoop so low to get votes… We have been saying from day one that a shameless attempt was made to malign Bengal ahead of the elections,” Banerjee told a press conference here.
The TMC earlier in the day released a video on social media, in which a man, claimed to be Gangadhar Kayl who is a BJP mandal president in Sandeshkhali, was heard saying that leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly "Suvendu Adhikari is behind the whole conspiracy".
PTI did not verify the authenticity of the video posted by the TMC.
While Adhikari said the video is doctored, Kayl lodged a complaint to the CBI alleging that it was a morphed and edited video.
In the press conference, Banerjee who is considered number two in the TMC, alleged that for creating grounds for imposition of Article 355 in Bengal, he orchestrated the entire incident in Sandeshkhali.
Banerjee asserted that the honour of Bengali women were compromised by such allegations in Sandeshkhali, which he believes are aimed at maligning the state.
He demanded that the BJP top leadership apologize for “maligning” Bengal about Sandeshkhali within 48 hours.
The TMC national general secretary also wondered what Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had mentioned Sandeshkhali incidents several times during his election rallies will say now.
Responding to the TMC’s allegations, Adhikari said, “It is a fake and doctored video. It seems that the TMC sensed defeat (in the election) and is trying to divert attention. There have been hundreds of complaints by women of Sandeshkhali."
In his written complaint to the CBI, Kayl said, the video in question was uploaded from an unverified YouTube channel owned by someone named ‘Williams’.
“It can be seen that the same (footage) has been made using my face and the voice has been moduled using Artificial Intelligence (AI) so that it can mislead the public at large,” the BJP mandal president said.
In his complaint, Kayl also provided the link to the YouTube video.
Seeing is believing so hear it straight from the horse's mouth.
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) May 4, 2024
Here's the entire sting operation video of how Suvendu Gaddar Adhikari went out of his way to hatch the Sandeshkhali conspiracy with the sole motive to tarnish Bengal's image.
Courtesy: Williams-xy8yo (YouTube)… pic.twitter.com/iY4kyuDVd0
The shocking Sandeshkhali sting shows how deep the rot is within the BJP. In their hatred for Bengal's progressive thought & culture, the Bangla-Birodhis orchestrated a conspiracy to defame our state on every possible level.
— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) May 4, 2024
Never before in the history of India has a ruling… https://t.co/50QUParP16
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More than 50 lakh large farmland trees vanished between 2018 and 2022 in India: Study
New Delhi (PTI): More than 50 lakh large farmland trees vanished between 2018 and 2022 in India, partly due to altered cultivation practices, revealing a "concerning trajectory," new research published in the journal Nature Sustainability has found.
Researchers said that "an observable trend was emerging" wherein agroforestry systems are being replaced with paddy rice fields, even as a certain loss rate could be found to be natural.
Large and mature trees within these agroforestry fields are removed, and trees are now being cultivated within separate block plantations typically with lower ecological value, they said.
Block plantations, usually involving fewer species of trees, were found to have increased in numbers which some villagers from Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and other states confirmed via interviews.
The team, including researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, explained that the decision to remove trees is often driven by perceived low benefits of the trees, coupled with concerns that their shading effect, including that of Neem trees, may adversely affect crop yields.
Boosting crop yields also contributed to the expansion of paddy rice fields, further facilitated by water supply which was augmented by the establishment of new boreholes, the authors said.
"This finding is particularly unsettling given the current emphasis on agroforestry as an essential natural climate solution, playing a crucial role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, as well as for livelihoods and biodiversity," the authors wrote.
Agroforestry trees are a vital part of India's landscapes as they generate socio-ecological benefits, along with being a natural climate solution owing to their ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the air.
However, despite their importance, the lack of robust monitoring mechanisms has contributed to an insufficient grasp of their distribution in relation to management practices, as well as their vulnerability to climate change and diseases, the researchers said.
For the study, the team used AI-based deep learning models for detecting individual non-forest trees for each year. By tracking the tree crown over the years, they then analysed the changes. Crowns of multiple trees together form a canopy.
The researchers mapped about 60 crore farmland trees, excluding block plantations, and tracked them over the past decade.
They found that around 11 percent of the large trees, each having a crown size of 96 square metres and mapped in 2010/2011, had disappeared by 2018.
"Moreover, during the period 2018–2022, more than 5 million large farmland trees (about 67 square metres crown size) have vanished, due partly to altered cultivation practices, where trees within fields are perceived as detrimental to crop yields," the authors wrote.
The researchers clarified that while the findings may appear to contradict official reports and studies showing that tree cover has increased in recent years, they reported only gross losses and did not look at tree gains as a separate class.
