Snippets of Information
Location - Geographical areas / Infrastructure
in Assam
in Delhi
in Goa
in Karnataka
in Hampi, Karnataka
in Kerala
in Madhya Pradesh
in Maharashtra
in Manipur
in Meghalaya
in Sikkim
in Tamilnadu
in Uttarakhand
in Uttara Pradesh
Forts
Memorials
Stepwells
Temples
* 16 Nov 2024
India is home to a remarkable range of wetlands, shaped by its diverse
climate, terrain and rainfall patterns. India became a member of the
Ramsar Convention, a global treaty focused on wetland conservation, on
February 1, 1982. Since then, 85 wetlands, covering over 13,600 square
kilometres have been designated as Ramsar sites. This places India at the top in South Asia and third in Asia for the number of designated wetland sites.
Source: Today on Bing, Nov 16, 2024
RAMSAR SITES OF INDIA (as on 24.01.2024) (moef.gov.in)
* 16 Nov 2024
The Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty signed in
1971 in Ramsar, Iran. It encourages the protection and conservation of
wetlands worldwide by designating them as such.
Organisations like the International Union for Conservation of Nature,
the World Wide Fund for Nature, and other environmental agencies are
associated with the treaty.
It also has 172 signatory countries. They are obligated to create
wetland reserves and promote the wise use of wetland habitats. India
joined it in 1982.
According to the Ramsar convention, wetlands are defined as “areas of
marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent
or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or
salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide
does not exceed six metres”.
Wetlands help regulate climate conditions through carbon sequestration,
that is, carbon storage from the atmosphere. The plant communities and
soil in wetlands capture carbon instead of releasing it to the
atmosphere as carbon dioxide, one of the major drivers of global
warming.
Source: India adds 3 new Ramsar sites: What are wetlands, why do
they matter for the environment? by Manasvi Kalra, indianexpress.com,
August 29, 2024
* Jul 2021
World
Heritage sites in India
1983 Ajanta
Caves
1983 Ellora
Caves
1983 Agra
Fort
1983 Taj
Mahal
1984 Sun Temple,
Konarak
1984 Group
of Monuments at Mahabalipuram
1985 Kaziranga
National Park
1985 Manas
Wildlife Sanctuary
1985 Keoladeo
National Park
1986 Churches
and Convents of Goa
1986 Khajuraho
Group of Monuments
1986 Group
of Monuments at Hampi
1986 Fatehpur
Sikri
1987 Group
of Monuments at Pattadakal
1987 Elephanta
Caves
1987 Brihadisvara
Temple, Thanjavur
1987 Sundarbans
National Park
1988 Nanda
Devi National Park
1989 Buddhist
Monuments at Sanchi
1993 Humayun's
Tomb, Delhi
1993 Qutb
Minar and its Monuments, Delhi
1999 Darjeeling
Himalayan Railway
2002 Mahabodhi
Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya
2003 Rock
Shelters of Bhimbetka
Reference: whc.unesco.org
* Jul 2021
National Institute of Animal Welfare (NIAW)
at Ballabhgarh, Faridabad, Haryana has been established to impart
training and education in animal welfare and veterinary science. The
institute aims at creating an enabling environment for the fulfillment
of statutory requirements under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Act, 1960.
Reference: india.gov.in/sectors/
* Jul 2021
National Parks
Andaman Nicobar Islands
Wandur National Park - Estuarine Crocodiles, Coconut Crab
Arunachal Pradesh
Namdapha National Park - Leopard, Gaur, Himalayan Black Bear
Assam
Kaziranga National Park - Rhinos, Elephants, Tigers
Manas National Park - Assam Roofed Turtle, Golden Langur
Chhattisgarh
Indravati National Park - Tiger, Leopard, Blue Bull,
Gujarat
Gir National Park - Asiatic Lion
Marine National Park
Himachal Pradesh
Great Himalayan National Park
Pin Valley National Park - Himalayan Snowcock, Chukar
Jammu And Kashmir
Dachigam National Park - Himalayan Black Bears, Leopard
Hemis National Park - Snow Leopard
Kishtwar National Park - Himalayan Jungle Crow
Jharkhand
Hazaribagh National Park - Tigers, Wild Boar, Nilgai
Palamu National Park - Tigers, Dhole, Elephants
Karnataka
Bandipur National Park - Asian Elephants, Tiger
Bannerghatta National Park - Tiger, Lion
Nagarhole National Park - Elephant, Jackal, Tiger
Kerala
Eravikulam National Park - Nilgiri Tahr, Atlas Moth, Elephant
Periyar National Park - Nilgiri Langur, Flying Squirrel
Silent Valley National Park - Nilgiri Tahr, Niligiri Langur,Tiger
Madhya Pradesh
Bandhavgarh National Park - Tigers, Leopards, Bears
Kanha National Park - Tigers, Leopards, Elephant
Madhav National Park - Indian Gazelle, Nilgai, Sambar
Panna National Park - Tiger, Wolf, Chital, Sloth Bear
Pench National Park - Tiger, Leopard, Sloth Bear
Maharashtra
Navegaon National Park - Tiger, Panther, Bisons
Tadoba National Park - Tiger, Leopards, Sloth Bears
Meghalaya
Balphakram National Park - Barking Deer, Golden Cat
Nokrek National Park - Fishing Cat, Serow, Tiger.
Orissa
Chandaka Elephant Reserve - Elephant, Hital, Bear, Pea-Fowl
Nandan Kanan National Park - White Tiger, Asiatic Lion, Crocodiles
Simlipal National Park - Tiger, Leopard, Elephants
Rajasthan
Desert National Park - Great Indian Bustard, Harriers
Keoladeo National Park - Siberian Cranes, Ruddy Shelducks
Ranthambore National Park - Tigers, Leopards, Boars
Sariska National Park - Four-Horned Deer, Carecal, Leopard
Uttar Pradesh
Dudhwa National Park - Tiger, Rhinoceros
Uttaranchal
Corbett National Park - Tigers, Leopards, Elephants
Govind National Park - Black Bear, Leopard, Snow Cock
Nandadevi National Park - Tiger, Leopard
Rajaji National Park - Tigers, Leopards, Elephants,
Valley of Flowers National Park - Snow Leopard, Musk Deer, Red Fox
West Bengal
Sundarbans National Park - Royal Bengal Tiger; Fishing Cats.
List of National Parks with year of establishment
Source: indiawildliferesorts.com
* Jul 2021
Wildlife Sanctuaries in India
Andhra Pradesh
Srisailam Sanctuary, Manjira Wildlife Sanctuary, Nagarjunasagar Wildlife Sanctuary
Assam
Manas Wildlife Sanctuary-a Project Tiger reserve
Gujarat
Sasangir Wildlife Sanctuary, Wild Ass Wildlife Sanctuary
Haryana
Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary
Kerala
Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary, Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, Wayanad Wildlife
Sanctuary, Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary, Peppara
Wildlife Sanctuary, Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary
Karnataka
B R Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary, Ranganathittu Wildlife Sanctuary
Madhya Pradesh
Karera Wildlife Sanctuary, Panna Wildlife Sanctuary
Maharashtra
Sanjay Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary
Orissa
Chilka Lake Bird Santuary, Bhitarkanika Sanctuary
Rajasthan
Sambhar Wildlife Sanctuary
Tamilnadu
Mudumalai Sanctuary, Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary
Uttar Pradesh
Hastinapur Sanctuary, Kishanpur Sanctuary, National Chambal Sanctuary
Uttarakhand
Assan Barrage Bird Sanctuary
West Bengal
Satkosia Basipalli Sanctuary
Related topic: National Parks
References: indiawildliferesorts.com ; wild-india.com
* Jul 2021
International airports in India
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport - Nagpur, Maharashtra
Biju Patnaik International Airport - Bhubaneswar, Odisha
Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport - Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport - Mumbai, Maharashtra
Chennai International Airport - Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Cochin International Airport - Nedumbassery, Kerala
Coimbatore International Airport - Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Indira Gandhi International Airport - New Delhi
Jaipur International Airport - Jaipur, Rajasthan
Karipur Airport, Calicut International Airport - Kozhikode, Kerala
Kempegowda International Airport - Bengaluru, Karnataka
Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport - Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport - Guwahati, Assam
Mangalore International Airport (formerly known as Bajpe Airport) - Mangalore, Karnataka
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport - Kolkata, West Bengal
Rajiv Gandhi International Airport - Hyderabad, Telangana
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport - Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport - Amritsar, Punjab
Tiruchirapalli International Airport - Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu
Trivandrum International Airport - Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Tulihal Airport - Imphal, Manipur
Vasco-da-Gama International Airport - Dabolim, Goa
Veer Savarkar International Airport - Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Visakhapatnam Airport - Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
* Jul 2021
Jharkhand was a part of Bihar. Jharkhand became a state under the Republic of India on November 15, 2000.
* July 2021
Rivers
The rivers of India can be classified into four groups viz.,
Himalayan rivers,
Deccan rivers,
Coastal rivers, and
Rivers of the inland drainage basin.
The Himalayan Rivers are formed by melting snow and glaciers and
therefore, continuously flow throughout the year. During the monsoon
months, Himalayas receive very heavy rainfall and rivers swell, causing
frequent floods. The Deccan Rivers on the other hand are rain fed and
therefore fluctuate in volume. Many of these are non-perennial. The
Coastal streams, especially on the west coast are short in length and
have limited catchment's areas. Most of them are non-perennial. The
streams of inland drainage basin of western Rajasthan are few. Most of
them are of an ephemeral character.
The main Himalayan river systems are those of the Indus and the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna system.
The Indus, which is one of the great rivers of the world, rises near
Mansarovar in Tibet and flows through India, and thereafter through
Pakistan, and finally falls in the Arabian Sea near Karachi. Its
important tributaries flowing in Indian Territory are the Sutlej
(originating in Tibet), the Beas, the Ravi, the Chenab, and the Jhelum.
The Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna is another important system of which the
principal sub-basins are those of Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda, which
join at Dev Prayag to form the Ganga. It traverses through Uttarakhand,
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal. Below Rajmahal hills, the
Bhagirathi, which used to be the main course in the past, takes off,
while the Padma continues eastward and enters Bangladesh. The Yamuna,
the Ramganga, the Ghaghra, the Gandak, the Kosi, the Mahananda and the
Sone are the important tributaries of the Ganga. Rivers Chambal and
Betwa are the important sub-tributaries, which join Yamuna before it
meets the Ganga. The Padma and the Brahmaputra join inside Bangladesh,
and continue to flow as the Padma or Ganga.
The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet, where it is known as Tsangpo and runs a
long distance till it crosses over into India in Arunachal Pradesh under
the name of Dihang. Near Passighat, the Debang and Lohit join the river
Brahmaputra and the combined river runs all along the Assam in a narrow
valley. It crosses into Bangladesh downstream of Dhubri.
The principal tributaries of Brahmaputra in India are the Subansiri, Jia
Bhareli, Dhansiri, Puthimari, Pagladiya and the Manas. The Brahmaputra
in Bangladesh receives the flow of Tista, etc., and finally falls into
Ganga. The Barak River, the Head stream of Meghna, rises in the hills in
Manipur. The important tributaries of the river are Makku, Trang,
Tuivai, Jiri, Sonai, Rukni, Katakhal, Dhaleswari, Langachini, Maduva and
Jatinga. Barak continues in Bangladesh till the combined
Ganga—Brahmaputra join it near Bhairab Bazar.
In the Deccan region, most of the major river systems flowing generally
in east direction fall into Bay of Bengal. The major east flowing rivers
are Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Mahanadi, etc. Narmada and Tapti are
major West flowing rivers.
The Godavari in the southern Peninsula has the second largest river
basin covering 10 per cent of the area of India. Next to it is the
Krishna basin in the region, while the Mahanadi has the third largest
basin. The basin of the Narmada in the uplands of the Deccan, flowing to
the Arabian Sea, and of the Kaveri in the south, falling into the Bay
of Bengal are about the same size, though with different character and
shape.
There are numerous coastal rivers, which are comparatively small. While
only handful of such rivers drain into the sea near the delta of east
cost, there are as many as 600 such rivers on the west coast.
A few rivers in Rajasthan do not drain into the sea. They drain into
salt lakes and get lost in sand with no outlet to sea. Besides these,
there are the Desert Rivers which flow for some distance and are lost in
the desert. These are Luni and others such as, Machhu, Rupen,
Saraswati, Banas and Ghaggar.
Source: india.gov.in/knowindia
* Jul 2021
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions,
covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is
bounded by Asia- including India (after which the ocean is named) on the
north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the
south by the Southern Ocean.
Among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the
Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy
River.
Reference:en.wikipedia.org
The Indian Ocean is bounded by Iran, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh to
the north; the Malay Peninsula, the Sunda Islands of Indonesia, and
Australia to the east; Antarctica to the south; and Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula to the west. In the southwest it joins the Atlantic
Ocean south of the southern tip of Africa, and to the east and southeast
its waters mingle with those of the Pacific.
Reference: britannica.com
* Jul 2021
Mines
Gold Mines:
There are 3 gold mines working (Hutti and Uti in Karnataka and the
Hirabuddini mines in Jharkand). East Singhbhum, Jharkhand has one
operational gold mine located in Kendrugocha, which is also of medium
quality
Hatti Gold Mines - located near Lingusugur taluk, 20km from Lingusugur, Raichur district, Karnataka
Deccan Gold Mines Limited (DGML) is the first private sector gold
exploration company in India to be listed on the Mumbai Stock Exchange.
Established as a gold exploration company in 2003, DGML has a large
portfolio of exploration prospects in the states of Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan.
Gold is being mined by The Hutti Gold Mines Ltd (HGML), a Government of
Karnataka undertaking, near Hutti village in northern Karnataka. The
mine is developed on a classic Archaean lode gold deposit, similar to
those in Australia, Canada and South Africa. Gold mining activity in the
belt has been known since pre-Ashokan time, about 3000 years ago.
Modern gold mining commenced in the Hutti area around 1947.
It is owned by the Government of Karnataka and is engaged in the mining
as well as production of gold. It is the only company in India which
produces gold by mining and processing the gold ore. HGML has two plants
which are located at Hutti and Chitradurga. The main mine is located at
Hutti in Raichur district, along with the satellite branches of Uti and
Hirabuddini. Hutti is an underground mine, Uti is an open-cast mine
while Hirabuddini is an exploratory mine. The Chitradurga Gold Unit
consists of an exploratory underground mine at G. R. Halli in
Chitradurga district as well as an open-cast mine located in Ajjanahalli
in Tumkur district. Gold is mined from the main gold mine located at
Hutti and other satellite mines. The mines which are owned by Hutti are
located in the Hutti-Muski precambrian greenstone geological belt. This
area contains both extractable native gold and gold-bearing sulphides.
Kolar gold fields - a town in Bangarpet Taluk, Kolar District, Karnataka
(closed down by Bharat Gold Mines Limited, BGML in 2001) considered the
world`s second deepest gold mine.
The Kolar Gold Mines of BGML were closed down in the year 2001 as the
gold ore reserves got exhausted after 150 years of continuous and heavy
extraction. Both the exploration agencies of government viz. the
Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Mineral Exploration Corporation
Limited (MECL) declared that mining the meagre remaining reserves was
not a technically or economically viable option. At the time of its
closure BGML had run up losses of more than Rs. 900 crore. Champion
Reefs named after a British officer called Champion was one of the main
mining areas in the Kolar Gold Fields.
Diamond Mines:
Panna mines - Panna is a city and a municipality in Panna district in
the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh - diamond deposits extends North-East
on a branch of the Vindhya Range for 150 miles. The most productive
mines were in the 1860s and were found in Sakaria, around 20 miles (32
km) from Panna. Four classifications were given to the Panna diamonds:
first, Motichul, clear and brilliant; 2nd, Manik, with a faint orange
tint; 3rd, Panna, verging in tint towards green; 4th, Bunsput, sepia
coloured. Mines is situated in the interior of Panna district, Majhgawan
township is situated adjacent to mines.
The Bunder project comprises a cluster of eight lamproites (volcanic
rock), located in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, 500 km south
east of Delhi. Rio Tinto discovered the Bunder deposit in 2004 as part
of a regional exploration reconnaissance programme which commenced in
2002.
Golkonda's mines yielded few diamonds. Actually, Golkonda was the market
city of the diamond trade, and gems sold there came from a number of
mines. The famous Kohinoor diamond is beleived to be from this mine.
The Kollur Mine in Guntur district of old Golkonda kingdom, situated on
the right bank of the river Krishna, was one of the most productive
diamond mines in India and the first major diamond center. It operated
between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. In addition to the
Kollur Mine, the Paritala, Gollapally, Mallavally, Ramallakota, and
Banganapally were extremely prolific mines in India during this period.
The most celebrated Kohinoor diamond was mined in the Kollur mines.
References: en.wikipedia.org ; deccangoldmines.com ; indianetzone.com
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