New Delhi: A small company nestled in the hills of Ukhrul, Manipur, has featured among top Indian startups selling chocolates in The New York Times earlier this week.
Called Hill Wild, the firm was started in 2017 by Zeinorin Stephen and her husband Leiyolan Vashum. They make chocolate bars with locally-harvested nuts, sesame and perilla seeds, plums, wild apples, pumpkin seeds, king chillies and even black rice, a highly-nutritious delicacy of the Northeast.
The NYT report noted: “The wide consumption of dried fruits and nuts in India — as well as the cult popularity of Cadbury’s fruit-and-nut bar — informs Zeinorin Stephen’s offerings at Hill Wild…”
Along with chocolates, Hill Wild now also sells spices and dried fruits. The firm currently works with 200 farmers.
The company’s website also states: “There have been a lot of challenges being located in somehow a remote corner of Northeast Manipur but we have been pushing relentlessly while we are sustaining together with people involved in this transformative chain.”
‘Jumbo kheti’ in Assam helping reduce human-elephant conflict
Residents of a cluster of villages in Ronghang-Hatikhuli area in Assam’s Nagaon district have managed to reduce human-elephant conflict for the past several months by growing crops in a separate patch of land for the jumbos.
Called ‘jumbo kheti’, villagers have grown rice crops in around 200 bighas, and jackfruits, banana plants, elephant apple, etc in another 400 bighas. This meal zone acts as a friendly barrier against wild elephants that would otherwise venture toward human habitation in search of food.
Behind this unique initiative is an NGO called Hatibondhu started by Binod Dulu Borah and Meghna Mayur Hazarika.
“Elephants have been coming to the fields at night but we could not capture their videos. But for the past couple of days, elephants have been coming during the daytime too, and we have been able to feed them and capture videos at the same time. It feels good that the mission that we took up has been successful to a certain extent. Now, villagers have been able to cultivate 70 per cent of their harvest,” Hazarika has reportedly said.
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Thriving frog species found deep inside Meghalaya cave
Researchers from the North Eastern Regional Centre of the Zoological Survey of India in Shillong have, for the first time, spotted a thriving population of trickle stream dwelling frogs (Ingerana borealis) deep inside a cave at Nongjri Elaka of the East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya.
The tiny frog species, generally found in moving water bodies, was discovered by scientists Bhaskar Saikia and Uttar Saikia at Krem Lymput, a limestone cave.
The report prepared by the scientists has noted the frog species was found about 200 to 1,000 metres deep inside the cave, signifying its “cave adaptability”. The Ingerana borealis has until now been known to occur only along hill streams.
“Occurrence of frogs near the cave entrance is not uncommon, especially of frogs belonging to genera Minervarya and Amolops. However, finding this frog deep inside a cave, which so far is known to be associated with forest streams, is interesting,” the report noted.
18-year-old cycles over 30 km with both hands tied
Tanveer Firdous Hussain, an 18-year-old youth from Assam’s Goalpara district, recently cycled for a distance of 34.92 km in one hour and 55 minutes with both his hands tied. For this feat, Hussain has entered the Assam Book of Records.
A student of SR Academy School in Goalpara, Hussain started his ride recently at 5 am from the district’s Al Salam Hospital and finished at the Solace Hospital by 6.55 am.
Hussain has been quoted as saying that he usually practises after 10 pm and covers a distance of 11 km daily without holding onto the handlebar. He has been riding bicycles in this manner from the age of seven. He now aims to enter the Guinness World Records.
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