Patience and perseverance has been handsomely rewarded in Haryana's Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre at Pinjore. It has been able to successfully facilitate the breeding of a white-backed vulture nestled in captivity at the Centre. The 55-day-old vulture chick is perhaps the world's first to survive this long after being born in captivity. According to Haryana's Minister of State for Forest and Environment, Kiran Choudhary, doubts about breeding these vultures, which are on the verge of extinction, have been laid to rest with the hatching of the nestling, which is showing good growth and is expected to fledge in another 45 days. This year two species of vultures, the white backed and the long-billed, nestled at the Pinjore. The Centre is a joint project of Haryana's Forest Department and Bombay Natural History Society and is leading vulture conservation efforts in India.

Parched Gurgaon

Gurgaon, the modern and high-tech city of Haryana hit the headlines on Monday last for the wrong reasons. Taps in thousands of homes dried up for a week and people had to be at the mercy of water tanker' suppliers. The water crisis was caused by a breach in a canal that supplies water to nearly 70 per cent of Gurgaon. Caught in a calamity, the city administration sought help from neighbouring cities such as Faridabad, Mahendragarh and Jhajjar and even had to approach the Army to bail it out with supply of groundwater through tankers. The private water tanker suppliers made a killing and charged anything between Rs 500-700 for 5,000 litres to the hapless residents. The breach in the canal was repaired and water supply was restored on Wednesday last. The crisis may be a blessing in disguise as it has forced the civic body to sit up and start extolling the virtues of water-harvesting and rain water management. With the water table declining over the years in this city, which mostly houses high-rise buildings and offices, the administration would need to ensure that the builders and colonizers adhere to the rules. Of course, a lot depends on how strict the authorities are-whether they will insist on adherence of regulations or let another water catastrophe play havoc with Gurgaon.

Congress-SP Cosying Up?

Politics is known the world over to make for strange bed-fellows. But anything, yes anything is possible in India where politics is increasingly being run on the feudal basis of personalities, not principles. Latest happenings in UP and in New Delhi point to a cosying up between the Congress and its bete noire Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party. The UPA Government has decided against a central investigation into some of the cases that the UP government wanted the CBI to take over, including the police recruitment scam, which led the Mayawati Government to sack 18,000 cops. UP Chief Minister and BSP Chief Mayawati had sent a series of cases to North Block to seek a CBI probe into allegations against the former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh. A CBI probe would have pitted the Central Government against Mulayam, something which would have suited Mayawati and her politics greatly, especially in the run-up to the Lok Sabha poll.