“Brahmaputra on one way sacred, one way trouble maker,” this was the observation made by the 14thDalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso in Dibrugarh during his recent tour of Assam. During an interaction programme with students of the Dibrugarh University in the University auditorium on April 3, the Tibetan spiritual leader said that due to global warming there are more glacial melt in the Himalayan ranges. “In today’s world we face increasing natural disasters, including earthquakes, due to the effects of climate change. Yesterday in Guwahati I attended the Namami BrahmaputraFestival celebrating the sacredness of that great river, but we know it also has a tendency to flood.”
“Because of global warming the Himalayan glaciers are melting and less snow is falling. In Dharamsala, where I live, there is much less snow than when I arrived more than 50 years ago,” he said and also expressed his concern that water level in major rivers including the Brahmaputra would reduce in coming decades.
The Peace Nobel Laureate spoke on the significance of climate change brought on due to our materialistic greed which led to a depletion and destruction of our natural resources and laid stress on the importance of sharing scarce resources and harnessing them in a sustainable manner in order to ensure a secure and peaceful future. “The human population continues to increase and we must find ways to raise the living standards of the poor. We must also find ways to make better use of scarce resources,” he said.
Delivering a talk on ‘Ethics in Modern Education,’ the 81-year-old spiritual leader, who is touring the Northeast, reiterated his three main commitments: promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline; promotion of religious harmony and understanding among the world’s major religious traditions and third, preservation Tibet’s pristine environment and Buddhist culture of peace and non-violence. “Differences of religion, colour, profession, family background, whether we are rich or poor, people of faith or non-believers, belonging to this nationality or that nationality are secondary in the context that we are all human beings.”
“I never tried to promote Buddhism. We cannot say a particular religion is the best”, the Dalai Lama said and added “whenever I speak in public I greet my audience as brothers and sisters. As of different religion, all the world major religious traditions convey a message of love and compassion, just as here in the land of ahimsa we talk of maitri and karuna. Despite their different philosophical views all these traditions are dedicated to encouraging a sense of love and compassion.” Emphasizing on inner peace for positive change around the world, His Holiness congratulated the Dibrugarh University for its decision to introduce a course on secular ethics and invited the Vice Chancellor of Dibrugarh University to attend further deliberations on the curriculum with Buddhist scholars.
29 Aug 2017 - 9:24pm | AT Kokrajhar Bureau
The BTC Legislative Assembly has begun its summer session from Tuesday at Bodoland Assembly House in Kokrajhar. The session was chaired by Tridiv Daimary, speaker of the BTC...
7 Oct 2012 - 5:50am | editor
Animal experts are camping at Rani Chapri in the outskirt of Guwahati to monitor a rhinoceros strayed out of Pabitora wildlife sanctuary last week. According to the 17 member team, the rhinoceros...
7 Jun 2015 - 4:16pm | AT News
A long march to Dispur by the agitating special police officers is believed to have forced the authorities to cut short the journey of two Guwahati-bound passenger trains on Sunday. The Lumding-...
19 Dec 2015 - 4:00pm | AT News
Even after being slammed, Arunachal Pradesh Governor JP Rajkhowa is unprepared to go with the Gauhati High Court judgment. Rajkhowa who is arriving in New Delhi on Saturday, is busy in...
OFT, in the stilly night,Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the lightOf other days around me:The smiles, the tearsOf boyhood's years… (The Light of Other Days- Thomas Moore) As I sit down to reminisce my days in school when it completes a monumental journey of fifty years of existence—these lines come back to me bringing along a collage of pictures of different hues strewn across time. I had the privilege to have studied in a Montessori School that in course of time metamorphosed into a full fledged high school and earned the rare recognition of being the first provincialised English medium school in Assam. Kushal Konwar Balya Bhawan, as the school is presently...
Forest guards shot dead a charging adult male rhino in the Agaratoli Range of Kaziranga National Park on September 20. Earlier this year on February 14, a forest guard Gautam Barua, had to meet a terrible fate when he was on duty in the Bagori range of the National Park. He was killed by a charging rhino. In other words, the protector became the victim. Another guard, Podu Rajbongshi survived a similar attack in the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park in the last week of January. The year 2016 also saw similar incidents. Francis Horo, working with the forest department, died in an attack by wild buffalo on January 16 in the Bagori range of Kaziranga National Park while Sariful Islam, a forest...
The recent wave of flood in Assam left a trail of devastation affecting a total population of 33, 45,442 people and taking a toll of more than 150 lives. However, unofficial sources claim the death of more than 200 people in the recent deluge. Incessant rains since the first week of July coupled by dam-induced flood claimed 84 lives. The second bout of flood proved a disaster to the state; humans, animals including wildlife being washed away; millions of people displaced; thousands of hectares of standing crops destructed. Embankments were breached in 26 places in 15 districts. The Assam State Disaster Management Authority put the number of flood-hit people taking shelter in 923 relief...
The shrieking crescendo calls of the Koel and the flowering of ‘Kopou’ are harbingers of spring signaling the dawn of a new year in the Brahmaputra valley. The season sees the ubiquitous orchids with bright and heavy blossoms, varying in colors, bejewel the wilderness of the Northeast. ‘Kopou Phul’ is the most sought after orchid in Assam during New Year festivities in April. Assamese women adorn the pink flowers with deep pink spot as ornamentation on their head during celebration of ‘Rongali Bihu’. Found in North East as well as South India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Java and Philippines--‘Kopou Phul’ or ‘Seeta Pushpa’ in Sanskrit, Ryncostylists retusa is...
The Northeast forms a complex geomorphology with vast flood plains, valleys, hills and ridges of varying elevations, beels (wetlands) and swamp areas with presence of large number of avifaunal diversity. The mighty Brahmaputra and its tributaries serve as the winter visiting ground to many migratory birds. From the marshes of Kaziranga to the forests of Eaglenest in western Arunachal and further up to the alpine areas of Arunachal -- one come across more than 750 species of birds that includes most of the winter visitors. Assam, along with the other six northeastern states, shares a common migration route for many of the avifauna that flies over Bhutan, Tibet, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh...
The Northeast forms a complex geomorphology with vast flood plains, valleys, hills and ridges of varying elevations, beels (wetlands) and swamp areas with presence of large number of avifaunal diversity. The mighty Brahmaputra and its tributaries serve as the winter visiting ground to many migratory birds. From the marshes of Kaziranga to the forests of Eaglenest in western Arunachal and further up to the alpine areas of Arunachal -- one come across more than 750 species of birds that includes most of the winter visitors. Assam, along with the other six northeastern states, shares a common migration route for many of the avifauna that flies over Bhutan, Tibet, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh...
An ideal habitat for the breeding of rhinos, Kaziranga has seen a rise in the number of the species. The animal shrugged off its ‘endangered’ tag as soon as its population crossed the 2000 mark. This fuelled an overweening strategy--the much hyped Indian Rhino Vision -- that targeted 3,000 rhinos by the year 2020 in the rhino-bearing sanctuaries of Assam. However, with the number of this pre-historic pachyderm crossing the 2,500 mark, a host of challenges also came to the fore, poaching being only one of the concerns. Kaziranga has been plagued by other challenges like-- shrinking of the habitat, encroachment of the corridors around the Park, siltation of the water bodies and a complete...
The Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve suffered huge loss as flood waters of river Beki inundated 60 per cent of the Park since the last four days. Floodwaters entered the Park breaching the embankment at Panchmile under the Bansbari Range and submerged large areas of National Park on Wednesday night. The release of waters from the Kurichu dam by Bhutan has been attributed to the untimely disaster. “The waters have receded now but have left a trail of devastation. The flood breached the embankment at three sites making the Park all the more vulnerable, besides damaging most of the roads making movement almost impossible,” Dharanidhar Boro, deputy director of the Park said. “The bridge at...
At the prestigious India Today PSU Awards 2014, the Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) was awarded the ‘Most Eco-Friendly Public Sector Unit (PSU) in the Miniratna category. It was stated that the award assumes a great deal of significance since the selection process included all the 229 PSUs nationwide in the fray and is, therefore, a befitting recognition of the innovative, sincere and dedicated efforts of the company towards preservation and conservation of the ecology and the environment.A year later NRL was once again in news—this time for sending rare and Scheduled I species to death throes! The anti-conservation strategy and gross violation of environmental norms by the company drew...
That the Brahmaputra is drying up is no more a hype. The water line of the river is fast receding throughout its course in the entire Brahmaputra valley. According to information available from the Central Water Commission (CWC), the water level of the mighty river, known to be the lifeline of Assam, has reduced in an unprecedented manner this winter. “The water level of the Brahmaputra has reduced to 101.78 metres in the last week of December (2014), which is the lowest water level of the river so far. This decreasing trend is likely to continue till March,” an official of the commission said. As per information available from the commission, the water level of Brahmaputra in...
Add new comment