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Night vision cameras to track tigers
- The Forest Department will employ night-vision cameras, supported by a new software called M-stripes, to track tigers in the Nallamala forest, which is hub of the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve.
- According to the new procedure, the tigers would be identified by their individual stripe pattern with the help of cameras. Identification of a tiger by its stripes is the most accurate method since the pattern of any two animals is never the same. Also, pressure impression pads would be laid in the tiger trails to collect imprints and infer information about the species, age and sex.
Himachal national park to get Unesco stamp
- Great Himalayan National Park would soon get UNESCO World Heritage Status and its evaluation process would take place early next year.
- Himalayan Snow Leopard Research Centre would soon be developed near Kibbar village of Spiti valley
- Eco-Tourism in Pong Dam Wetland would also be executed with the help of Tourism and Civil Aviation Department to create infrastructure to meet requirements of visitors.
- Himachal Pradesh had emerged the first State in the world where successful breeding of Western Tragopan had taken place
Global health funding slows as deadline for MDGs nears
- Developed countries and funding agencies are putting the brakes on growth in development assistance for health, raising the possibility that developing countries will have an even harder time meeting the Millennium Development Goals deadline — 2015
- the global financial crisis has led to a slowdown in growth of funding for health schemes in many developing countries.
- Most of the growth in such assistance over the past two years came from the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which greatly expanded its loans to middle-income countries as the economic crisis worsened in 2009.
- Health funding through United Nations agencies plateaued in 2011, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced in November that it would make no new grants until 2014 due to funding shortfalls.
- Preliminary estimates indicate that health assistance channelled through the Global Fund declined by $529 million, or 16 per cent, between 2010 and 2011.
- Generally the countries with the most significant disease burdens receive the most aid, but 12 with the highest disease burdens, including Russia, Sudan, Myanmar, and Egypt, were not among those that received the most assistance.
