New Delhi: Residents of Saipum, a border village in Mizoram, recently got together to forage for vegetables and other forest produce to aid people in Covid-hit Aizawl.
Earlier this week, three light weight trucks full of vegetables and other provisions were dispatched to Aizawl and distributed to residents of two localities — Electric Veng and Saron Veng — that are among the worst-hit areas by Covid-19.
Residents of Saipum, with a population of about 3,000, had gathered under the aegis of the village-level Covid task force and the Young Mizo Association (YMA), an NGO.
“People gathered for the good cause for two days on Monday and Tuesday foraging vegetables and other forest products to be donated to the needy in the state capital Aizawl, which is worst affected by Covid-19,” Lalbiaktluanga, Saipum village council president, told EastMojo.
Saipum YMA secretary Robert Lalramhuala has also been quoted as saying that people who could not forage during the community work donated what was left in their homes.
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Young folk artiste from Assam sings over phone to help patients beat Covid blues
Bikramjit Kar, a popular folk singer from Assam’s Cachar district, has offered to sing songs for Covid-19 patients over the phone to help them beat stress and boost mental health.
Kar, popularly called ‘Baulia’ for his folk songs, has shared his number on social media platforms for people to call him.
“I have always been driven by the will to work for people and being blessed with the capacity to sing I am happy to involve myself in the battle fought by not just the patients but by the society at large against this virus…I was touched when a woman who had called me with a request to sing for her during her days fighting against Covid-19 called me again to inform that she has been tested negative,” Kar told The Assam Tribune.
According to Kar, he has attended to over 217 calls, so far, from people across the Barak Valley and other parts of the state, as well as from outside Assam
Botanists discover endangered species of African Violet plant in Mizoram
Botanists from the Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) have discovered a new species of plant belonging to the ‘African Violet’ family in Mizoram.
Named Didymocarpus vickifunkiae, the new species has been categorised as endangered. It is an epiphyte – growing on other trees – and produces pink-coloured flowers during monsoons.
The species has been named after renowned botanist Vicki Ann Funk.
The findings have been published in the journal Systematic Botany and co-authored by research scholar Prasanna N.S. and Vinita Gowda, associate professor of Biological Sciences at IISER.
Native to Tanzania and Kenya, African violets are often kept indoors in European nations. The newly described species is currently found in only three locations of Mizoram.
Manipur man rescues rare ‘albino’ kite from near a fish farm
A rare, albino kite was recently rescued near a fish farm in Manipur’s Khordak Mayai Leikai area by a man named Ningthoujam Nabachandra. The bird, with injuries in its feathers, has been kept at a shelter managed by the People for Animals (PFA), Manipur.
The white colour of the bird is due to a skin condition known as Leucistic that causes an imbalance in melanin, resulting in an animal or bird being white in colour.
Suresh (goes by his first name), a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, has been quoted as saying that the bird probably belongs to the Brahminy Kite family. He also said that it was an extremely “rare occurrence since there is no earlier record of a white coloured Brahminy Kite due to it being Leucistic”.
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