Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 09 July 2018 | Page 8
IN & AROUND
THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU
MY CUP RUNNETH OVER
boots, socks, jerseys and the flags of
competing countries. There is also
much demand for flex boards that
show support for a team (favourites
include Brazil, Argentina, Germ
any, Spain and Portugal) and taunt
rival sides—one small printer has
reportedly printed more than 250
boards, with over 175 having been
made for Brazil supporters. But the
biggest winners are television sets,
with the sector reportedly seeing
business worth over Rs 300 crore.
T
HE World Cup has showered
its bounty upon far-flung
lands—including Kerala. Demand
for related merchandise is fuel-
ling a mini-boom in the state,
with observers predicting Rs 700
crore worth of business before the
tournament is over. Such surges
take place during every World Cup,
but this is perhaps the biggest yet
in Kerala. Fans are gobbling up
goods such as footballs, goal nets,
FISHY DISAPPEARANCES
LOOK BEHIND THE SOFA
A
NNAPRASHANA? More like
matsyaprashana. Traditionally in
Manipur, the first solid food ceremo-
nially fed to a baby would be ngahei
fish—but this and other traditions are
now under threat as native fish popu-
lations face extinction. This has been
brought on by pollution, development
and the introduction of high-yielding,
non-local species in pisciculture. The
state’s ecology has changed radica
lly over the past few decades under
human pressure and neglect, with
the all-important wetlands, of which
there were over 300 in 1947, having
mostly vanished. Thus, many native
fish species have disappeared and
several are endangered, with the
International Union for Conservation
of Nature having listed seven species
from Manipur among ‘endangered
freshwater fish species’. The crisis
is so acute that it is near-impossible
even to buy local fish in the market.
O
GO FORTH AND
MULTIPLY
S
O goeth the not-quite-
divine command of the
Young Mizo Association
(YMA), a popular civil society
group, to the Mizo people at
large. This comes amid fears
that thinly peopled Mizoram—
it has around 11 lakh people,
with a population density of
52 people per sq km, compared
to a national average of 382—
is being flooded with illegal
immigrants from Bangladesh
(via Assam), and Myanmar. “If
you have a lot of space, it gets
occupied by other people,”
YMA president Vanlalru
ata said. Reportedly, he also
lamented that annual popula-
tion growth in the state was
only about 1.5–1.7 per cent,
arguing that with a greater
population, Mizos could con-
tribute more to the workforce
and take up the thousands of
jobs currently filled by migrant
workers. Unfortunately, he
didn’t add, “Lie back and think
of England”.
LD villages never die, they
simply fade away. Or in this case,
they fall into a bureaucratic black
hole. In October 2016, a couple of
years after statehood, Telangana
reconfigured its districts, which
increased in number from 10 to 31.
The collateral damage was just small
change, really—around 450 villages
were mislaid. Some were on the
borders of two districts, others had
switched mandals, and still others
had had their names changed. While
these changes had been gazetted last
January, they were not reflected in
Census Department records. Census
officials discovered the discrepancies
recently and most have been upda
ted, but nobody knows where the 70
remaining villages have gone.
Illustrations by SAJITH KUMAR
8 OUTLOOK 9 July 2018