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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Bird-flu outbreak rattles Nandurbar

Around 2.40 lakh hens culled, Nine-lakh eggs destroyed Mumbai: For the third time in 20 years, Avian Influenza has hit Navapur, in Nandurbar district, with over 2.40 lakhs birds culled in the past few days as worried farmers await compensation and effective vaccines. In some areas, all the infected birds in big and small farms have been eliminated by specialist teams, as per World Health Organisation (WHO) and central government’s guidelines. This is the third time after 2006 and 2021...

Bird-flu outbreak rattles Nandurbar

Around 2.40 lakh hens culled, Nine-lakh eggs destroyed Mumbai: For the third time in 20 years, Avian Influenza has hit Navapur, in Nandurbar district, with over 2.40 lakhs birds culled in the past few days as worried farmers await compensation and effective vaccines. In some areas, all the infected birds in big and small farms have been eliminated by specialist teams, as per World Health Organisation (WHO) and central government’s guidelines. This is the third time after 2006 and 2021 that the town – which produces 10-lakh eggs daily – has come under the attack of Avian Influenza, commonly known as ‘bird flu’, said Navapur Poultry Association (NPA) President Arief Balesaria. “We rank the biggest in production of eggs by Layer Chicken after Pune and Baramati. There are other egg producing centres in the state. The Layer Chicken are among the best laying hens. But in the past fortnight or so, our production has come to a complete stop,” a concerned Balesaria told The Perfect Voice. The 10-lakh eggs are sent to markets in Mumbai, Nashik, Jalgaon and even Surat, which will now be fed by other smaller suppliers from Maharashtra or other states, he said. The outbreak in Navapur started mysteriously on April 12, when a local farmer discovered five dead chickens in his farm. Initially it was suspected to be heatstroke and a local Veterinary prescribed medicines, but by afternoon more than four dozen birds were snuffed out. By next morning, the farmer lost more than 300 chickens even as other alarmed farmers in a three-km vicinity reported similar tragedies as the birds simply dropped dead without apparent symptoms, said Balesaria. In Balesaria’s own Wasim Poultry Farm, the situation was ditto – five days after the first incident, he found 55 birds dead and by that evening, over 130 were no more, though the chickens were eating normally and not appearing sick. After the local authorities were informed, samples were collected from three of the worst-hit farms and tested at the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal. They tested positive for the dreaded ‘Avian Influenza’, shocking the poultry farmers in Navapur. Swift Action Nandurbar Collector Dr. Mittali Sethi swung into action and declared large parts of Navapur as an ‘infected and surveillance’, spread over nearly 10 kms radius, banned all sale of poultry, bird-feed, and other related materials for three months, and local police were deployed to enforce the restrictions. Meanwhile, by Monday, the infection figures zoomed up dramatically and till May 6, over 2.40 lakhs birds have been culled, nearly 9-lakh eggs destroyed plus 210 tonnes of bird feed disposed off, said Balesaria of the sudden calamity. State and district officials have expressed apprehensions that the toll could climb much higher and have enforced strict monitoring in Navapur and also other egg-producing centres in north Maharashtra region. Culling continues with the help of 18 officers daily while over 125 veterinarians and support staff have fanned out in the affected zone. His son and third-generation independent farmer Tausif B. is grappling with his first bird-flu calamity and is worried about the future with his entire stock of 6 lakh eggs, 62,000 birds and 72-tons of feed destroyed. “This time, my farm was not affected. But according to official protocols, my 30,000 chickens were culled and over 60,000 eggs destroyed. The government has banned us from restarting or restocking for at least three months, or till July 31, when the crisis is expected to be over. Presently, we are sitting idle and helpless as the losses pile up for all the 27 NPA member-farms,” rued Balesaria. Farmers cry for better vaccines As death stalks egg farms in Navapur, distressed farmers urged the Centre to urgently permit more effective vaccines to contain the spread of Avian Influenza, as existing measures are proving inadequate. The NPA leaders claimed that the currently approved vaccines target the relatively milder H9N2 strain, while farms in the region are being devastated by the far more lethal H5N1 virus. “The government has allowed vaccines for H9N2 strain. But the Layer chickens are hit by the deadlier H5N1 strain. Vaccines for H5N1 are already in use in several countries, including China, the United States and parts of Europe. Why are we being denied access to the same protection?” asked the NPA leaders. India currently does not allow use of H5N1 vaccines, citing various concerns and relies on the traditional culling, movement restrictions and biosecurity measures in such outbreaks, though NPA alleges that Indian vaccine manufacturers are creating obstacles for getting better vaccines.

‘Shabda Shala’, a new Sanskrit dictionary is in the making

Shreesh Deopujari is national communications head of Samskrit Bharati, an organisation devoted to preservation, popularisation and propagation of Sanskrit language. In an exclusive interaction with Abhijit Mulye, the Political Editor of ‘The Perfect Voice’, he puts forth a broad canvas of various activities the organisation has taken up to make Sanskrit - the ancient language of knowledge - Jnana Bhasha, which also is the carrier of our culture, a common people's language - Jana Bhasha. Excerpts…


Q. What is the practical use of learning Sanskrit?

Learning to speak Sanskrit has several benefits on different levels. There are general benefits like development in skills with speech and memory etc. But one of the new found benefits is very peculiar. Having Sanskrit as one of the major subjects and being able to converse in Sanskrit helps students crack UPSC exams easily. This is the reason why we get several UPSC aspirants as students in our conversational Sanskrit courses. Also, since these courses are being conducted for a long time we now have many Sanskrit babies - who have been learning to converse in Sanskrit from their parents since childhood. I recently met such an engineering graduate girl at Bengaluru. Such babies reinforce the feeling that Sanskrit would soon be the people's language.


Q. What is the timeline for achieving this goal?

Efforts to take teaching and learning Sanskrit to the mass scale are going on. But, that in itself won't achieve the goal. The real goal will be achieved when speaking Sanskrit would lead people to learning Shastras and leading one's life as expected by the Shastras. For example, one who has learnt Sanskrit scripts and understood or imbibed how women are revered in our culture, would not dare cause any crimes against women. So, the ultimate aim is 'Vishva Kalyan' and the instrument for that is Sanskrit. Currently, if we consider taking Sanskrit to all as the first step, we hope to achieve it by the centenary of India's independence i.e. by 2047.


Q. What is the tool to achieve this goal?

We firmly believe that languages can be best learnt by speaking. Emphasis on grammar drives people away from learning languages. Our tool for teaching people to speak Sanskrit is Samvada Shala. In April 2025 we conducted 1008 Samvada Shalas or Sanskrit Speaking camps in Delhi alone. Over 25,000 people participate in it. That was a special drive. But otherwise it is a very regular activity. It's a fortnightly camp where one can learn to speak Sanskrit fluently, naturally and correctly. It's an activity-based learning process. Extensive practice is key to the success of this program.


At Samvada Shala Sanskrit is learnt through Sanskrit without using any other language as medium of instruction. A Russian student had once attended the course. He knew neither English nor Hindi, which are generally the communication languages among the students. But this didn't prevent him from learning Sanskrit. He learnt quickly.


Similar 10-day Sambhashana Shibirs (conversational Sanskrit camp) are organised at various places. Between March 2025 and February 2025 a total number of 107 such camps were organised across India.


Q. What are the other activities of Samskrit Bharati?

Apart from converational Sanskrit classes Samskrit Bharati runs Sanskrit Vidyalayas where advanced knowledge of the language is imparted typically over a span of 4-5 years. Correspondence courses to learn Sanskrit too are being run. They are available in 11 Indian languages and have courses that run for four semesters. Shlokas and Subhashitas are the beauty of Sanskrit language. Hence, we also run Shloka Pathan Kendras, where people are taught how to recite various shlokas. Shloka recitation helps build memory and do away with defects in speech. We also train Sanskrit teachers. Our teachers are more effective as they get to learn teaching methods in an atmosphere charged with Sanskrit based lifestyle.


We have trained over 10 million people to speak Sanskrit through 1,20,000 Sambhashan shibirs till date. Over 1,35,000 Sanskrit teachers trained to teach in medium of Sanskrit and over 6000 homes have identified themselves as Samskrit-Homes with our inspiration.


Apart from these we run Geeta Kendras and Bala Kendras where we teach recitation of Bhagawat geeta to all and various shlokas, songs, prayers etc. to school students respectively. We actively reach out to over 25,000 new persons every year through all these activities.


Sanskrit Bharati currently has presence in almost 80 per cent districts in India except Mizoram and 17 countries of the world other than Bharat like the USA, Canada, UK, Kenya and Mauritius, all Gulf countries except Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.


Q. But, Sanskrit had been known as a Jnana Bhasha - language of knowledge since ages. What are the efforts in that direction?

Process of becoming a language of knowledge begins with formation of glossary of words that have the ability of expressing knowledge across various words across the variety of domains of knowledge. The Samskrit Bharati is currently working on one such project. Next comes the application of these words. for that work is being carried out in 17 Universities across India. The central government had put forth a goal to make available all the professional courses in all the Indian languages. Sanskrit is one of these languages and books are being written in Sanskrit.


The union government has developed a software titled Anuvadini for making translations across all the Indian languages easy. Samskrit Bharati is one of the partners in this endeavour also. While previously the software for translations used words from the pair languages, the new approach brought in by Samskrit Bharati uses readymade sentences. This will help reduce time in machine translation. Books in Sanskrit made using this technique are expected to be ready within three years.


Similarly Sanskrit Bharati had been involved in NCERT's project to write books on Indian history of Science. Most of the work has been completed and the books are also out in the market. While working on this project an idea came forth to teach science in Sanskrit. A project is currently being developed at Varanasi where such an activity would be undertaken. Finding scientists who also know Sanskrit is a challenge, but we are sure we will overcome it.


Q. NEP lays a great deal of thrust on Indian languages. What role Samskrit Bharati had in that?

Samskrit Bharati had been involved in policy discussions on NEP since its draft level and integration of workbooks in textbooks is one of the major suggestions that we insisted on. The NEP also warrants making available all the text books in all Indian languages. That practically means Sanskrit becoming a medium of instruction. Hence, we are running a project named Shabda Shala. A new dictionary will come soon having such words. We all know that Sanskrit language has got the tremendous capability to coin new words. Therefore, there is no need to accept the current English terminology within Sanskrit or any Bharatiya language.


Q. Tell us about how Samskrit Bharati is embracing new technology.

Majority of the Sanskrit learning students are from the mainstream of education. They learn English and Computer Science as a subject as well as Sanskrit. Few students learn in traditional schools called Pathshalas or Gurukuls. Those are also learning computer and English. For example, Ved Vijnan Gurukul at Chennanhalli near Bengaluru has students who can give a presentation in English as well as Sanskrit with the help of PPT.


Samskrit Bharati has its website and several of our programs have independent mobile applications. So, new technology is not alien to Sanskrit Bharati. We have published more than 300 books, CD's, DVDs. The language used in those books and teaching material is very simple and hence easy to understand. The books are attractive and are cheaper as compared to any other language books. We even organised a World Sanskrit Book Fair in 2011 at Bengaluru. It was a grand success. Inspired from that we also organised a Sahityotsava at Ujjain in 2013.

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