Leopard safari launched at Bannerghatta Biological Park
Bengaluru, Jun 26: Karnataka Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment Eshwar Khandre on Wednesday launched the leopard safari at the Bannerghatta Biological Park here and asked officials to provide saplings to visitors at discounted rates.
He said that zoos are known to care for wildlife but apart from entertainment, zoos should also become centres of knowledge.
While inaugurating various development works including leopard safari at the Biological Park in Bannerghatta, which is touted as South India's first and largest in the country, he said people who come to the biological park are happy to see the wildlife but they should also be made aware of at least 10 types of trees by providing them information so that they can recognise the trees here.
Khandre said visitors will get to see the big cats in their natural environment spread across 20 hectares (49.5 acres) of deciduous forest in which eight leopards have been released.
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The area is protected by a railway barricade and a chain link fence of 4.5 metre height.
In addition, metal sheets of 1.5 metres have been erected with a 30 degree slant, to ensure that the animals do not escape. The guidelines issued by the Central Zoo Authority have been adopted, he said.
The Minister noted that the hilly terrain of Bannerghatta covered with greenery hosts many leopards, whose cubs have been rescued by the officials often from agricultural fields. At present, the Biological Park rescue centre has 14 leopards.
As the department seeks to combine eco-tourism with afforestation, he asked officials to create awareness among the visitors at the zoo about biodiversity, the importance of oxygen-giving trees, role of forests and ecology in everyday life and sell saplings at discounted rates.
He urged officials to encourage them to buy a sapling on their way back home and plant it in front of their house and nurture it. In the same way that farmers are given saplings at a discounted rate, they also instructed that the visitors to the zoo should also be supplied with saplings at a discounted rate.
Khandre also inaugurated an elephant feeding centre built at a cost of Rs 10 lakh. The centre is aimed at creating a strong bond between mahuts and elephant calves, which are separated from their mothers at the age of three.
Presently, there are 26 elephants in Bannerghatta Biological Park and on an average, about two to three elephants are born every year. The centre will help mahuts and it will help to give round-the-clock care to the new-borns, the minister added.
Bhoomi Puja was also performed on Wednesday to begin work on a skywalk and five new animal enclosures at Bannerghatta Biological Park. The skywalk will connect the zoo with the butterfly park and provide a closer view of the canopy and birds.
He said the Biological Park will have a centre to support breastfeeding mothers and facilities will be provided to care for babies. Two more such centres will constructed by December next year.
ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಹೊರವಲಯದ ಬನ್ನೇರುಘಟ್ಟದ ಜೈವಿಕ ಉದ್ಯಾನದಲ್ಲಿಂದು ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಭಾರತದ ಮೊದಲ ಹಾಗೂ ದೇಶದ ಅತಿ ದೊಡ್ಡ ಚಿರತೆ ಸಫಾರಿ ಸೇರಿದಂತೆ ವಿವಿಧ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿ ಕಾಮಗಾರಿಗಳನ್ನು ಉದ್ಘಾಟಿಸಿ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದೆ. @aranya_kfd pic.twitter.com/2f2jcFTs4h
— Eshwar Khandre (@eshwar_khandre) June 26, 2024
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
