India milks a profit in quest to bump camel numbers

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A farmer holds up fresh camel milk at a camel research farm in Bikaner in India's western state of Rajasthan. (AFP)
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A farmer milks a camel at a camel research farm in Bikaner in India's western state of Rajasthan. (AFP)
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Once dubbed the “ships of the desert” and indispensable to life in India’s arid west, camel numbers have steadily declined as they have been usurped by technological upheaval. (AFP)
Updated 05 February 2019
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India milks a profit in quest to bump camel numbers

  • Once dubbed the “ships of the desert” and indispensable to life in India’s arid west, camel numbers have steadily declined as they have been usurped by technological upheaval
  • Roads now stretch deeper into the desert cutting days off the same journey by camel, while the increasing mechanization in agriculture means the animals are increasingly unnecessary on farms

RANI, India: On the edge of the Indian desert, Lakshman Raika boils tea with fresh milk from one of his camels, gently stirring the brew his tribal herdsman have consumed for generations.
Far away in city supermarkets demand for chocolates, soaps and skin creams made from such milk is growing — a boon for nomads like Raika and India’s fast disappearing camels.
Once dubbed the “ships of the desert” and indispensable to life in India’s arid west, camel numbers have steadily declined as they have been usurped by technological upheaval.
Roads now stretch deeper into the desert cutting days off the same journey by camel, while the increasing mechanization in agriculture means the animals are increasingly unnecessary on farms.
The days of Raika and his kin leading grand caravans — some hundreds of camels long — over the sands with passengers, cargo and precious stores of water are all but over.
“Not long ago, village hierarchies in our communities were determined by the size of each family’s herd. Not anymore,” lamented Raika, as he smoked a pipe and sipped his tea on the outskirts of Rani, a remote village in Rajasthan state.
“These days, just like old men, no one is really interested in them,” he added.
Raika has more than halved his herd in the past year. Unable to afford their upkeep, many were given to relatives at bargain-basement prices, he said.
Sales have been flat at Rajasthan’s famous camel fairs too, where herdsman in red turbans converge on cities like Pushkar and Bikaner with tens of thousands of beasts to trade.
The National Research Center on Camel, a state-run institution in Bikaner, says India’s camel population has shrunk by around 30 percent in just a few years.
“The situation is indeed worrying,” N.V Patil, the center’s director, told AFP in the city some 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of India’s capital New Delhi.
Researchers hope to halt this decline by partnering herdsman with entrepreneurs needing fresh milk for an emerging line of boutique products made from the milk including chocolates, cheeses, ice creams, and skin creams.

Even the bones salvaged from dead camels are being utilized — they are transformed into trinkets and souvenirs for tourists.
Camel milk is being touted by some as the latest superfood with supermarkets in the US and the UK, as well as online retailers such as Amazon, also tapping into growing consumer interest.
Hitesh Rathi, an earlier investor in the market, said his three-year-old business purchased up to 7000 liters of camel milk a month.
“This market and demand for camel milk and associated products is definitely growing. But it’s a challenge having to both create awareness around these products, while also marketing our line of goods,” he told AFP.
Camel milk can be a tough sell in a majority-Hindu country where cows are worshipped as mother figures and their milk closely linked to food and faith.
It also has a fatty, saltier flavour profile — something that could prove a challenge in India, where people have grown used to the taste of traditional dairy options.
But there are positive signs.
Amul, one of India’s biggest dairy companies whose mascot is a national treasure, starting selling bottled camel milk in January for city supermarkets in Gujarat, extolling its health benefits. It already sells a boutique chocolate line that includes a camel milk variety.
Ensuring supply and quality control are challenges when dealing with semi-nomadic tribespeople and a new, emerging industry, businesses say.
But PK Sawal, a senior official at the government-owned camel research center, insisted there was a viable future for the sector.
“These traditional communities will have an economic incentive to keep their herds, as demand for the milk and other camel products increases and the sector matures,” he said.
Raika’s son Rakesh, a ninth-generation camel tribesman, has been collecting and selling milk from the family herd, making a small profit while keeping traditions alive.
“If not for him, we would have already sold the herd,” Rakesh said, gesturing to his father seated nearby enjoying the desert sun.
He explained: “We do really hope this market for camel milk flourishes. It will be really helpful for communities like ours.”


A 98-year-old in Ukraine walked miles to safety from Russians, with slippers and a cane

Updated 01 May 2024
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A 98-year-old in Ukraine walked miles to safety from Russians, with slippers and a cane

  • Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she had fallen twice and was forced to stop to rest at some points, even sleeping along the way before waking up and continuing her journey

KYIV, Ukraine: A 98-year-old woman in Ukraine who escaped Russian-occupied territory by walking almost 10 kilometers (6 miles) alone, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane has been reunited with her family days after they were separated while fleeing to safety.
Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne, in the eastern Donetsk region, last week after Russian troops entered it and fighting intensified.
Russians have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs.
“I woke up surrounded by shooting all around — so scary,” Lomikovska said in a video interview posted by the National Police of Donetsk region.
In the chaos of the departure, Lomikovska became separated from her son and two daughters-in-law, including one, Olha Lomikovska, injured by shrapnel days earlier. The younger family members took to back routes, but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.
With a cane in one hand and steadying herself using a splintered piece of wood in the other, the pensioner walked all day without food and water to reach Ukrainian lines.
Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she had fallen twice and was forced to stop to rest at some points, even sleeping along the way before waking up and continuing her journey.
“Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little, and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself: “I need to keep walking, bit by bit,’” Lomikovska said.
Pavlo Diachenko, acting spokesman for the National Police of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, said Lomikovska was saved when Ukrainian soldiers spotted her walking along the road in the evening. They handed her over to the “White Angels,” a police group that evacuates citizens living on the front line, who then took her to a shelter for evacuees and contacted her relatives.
“I survived that war,’ she said referring to World War II. “I had to go through this war too, and in the end, I am left with nothing.
“That war wasn’t like this one. I saw that war. Not a single house burned down. But now – everything is on fire,” she said to her rescuer.
In the latest twist to the story, the chief executive of one of Ukraine’s largest banks announced on his Telegram channel Tuesday that the bank would purchase a house for the pensioner.
“Monobank will buy Lydia Stepanivna a house and she will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land,” Oleh Horokhovskyi said.
 

 


Amazon Purr-rime: Cat accidentally shipped to online retailer

Updated 30 April 2024
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Amazon Purr-rime: Cat accidentally shipped to online retailer

  • Galena was found safe by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center after vanishing from her home in Utah

LOS ANGELES: A curious cat that sneaked into an open box was shipped across the United States to an Amazon warehouse after its unknowing owners sealed it inside.
Carrie Clark’s pet, Galena, vanished from her Utah home on April 10, sparking a furious search that involved plastering “missing” posters around the neighborhood.
But a week later, a vet hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Los Angeles got in touch to say the cat had been discovered in a box — alongside several pairs of boots — by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center.
“I ran to tell my husband that Galena was found and we broke down upon realizing that she must have jumped into an oversized box that we shipped out the previous Wednesday,” Clark told KSL TV in Salt Lake City.
“The box was a ‘try before you buy,’ and filled with steel-toed work boots.”
Clark and her husband jetted to Los Angeles, where they discovered Amazon employee Brandy Hunter had rescued Galena — a little hungry and thirsty after six days in a cardboard box, but otherwise unharmed.
“I could tell she belonged to someone by the way she was behaving,” said Hunter, according to Amazon.
“I took her home that night and went to the vet the next day to have her checked for a microchip, and the rest is history.”


What did people eat before agriculture? New study offers insight

A human tooth discovered at Taforalt Cave in Morocco in an undated photograph. (REUTERS)
Updated 30 April 2024
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What did people eat before agriculture? New study offers insight

  • Analysis of forms — or isotopes — of elements including carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur and strontium in these remains indicated the type and amount of plants and meat they ate

WASHINGTON: The advent of agriculture roughly 11,500 years ago in the Middle East was a milestone for humankind — a revolution in diet and lifestyle that moved beyond the way hunter-gatherers had existed since Homo sapiens arose more than 300,000 years ago in Africa.
While the scarcity of well-preserved human remains from the period preceding this turning point has made the diet of pre-agricultural people a bit of a mystery, new research is now providing insight into this question. Scientists reconstructed the dietary practices of one such culture from North Africa, surprisingly documenting a heavily plant-based diet.
The researchers examined chemical signatures in bones and teeth from the remains of seven people, as well as various isolated teeth, from about 15,000 years ago found in a cave outside the village of Taforalt in northeastern Morocco. The people were part of what is called the Iberomaurusian culture.
Analysis of forms — or isotopes — of elements including carbon, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur and strontium in these remains indicated the type and amount of plants and meat they ate. Found at the site were remains from different edible wild plants including sweet acorns, pine nuts, pistachio, oats and legumes called pulses. The main prey, based on bones discovered at the cave, was a species called Barbary sheep.
“The prevailing notion has been that hunter-gatherers’ diets were primarily composed of animal proteins. However, the evidence from Taforalt demonstrates that plants constituted a big part of the hunter-gatherers’ menu,” said Zineb Moubtahij, a doctoral student in archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“It is important as it suggests that possibly several populations in the world already started to include substantial amount of plants in their diet” in the period before agriculture was developed, added archeogeochemist and study co-author Klervia Jaouen of the French research agency CNRS.
The Iberomaurusians were hunter-gatherers who inhabited parts of Morocco and Libya from around 25,000 to 11,000 years ago. Evidence indicates the cave served as a living space and burial site.
These people used the cave for significant portions of each year, suggesting a lifestyle more sedentary than simply roaming the landscape searching for resources, the researchers said. They exploited wild plants that ripened at different seasons of the year, while their dental cavities illustrated a reliance on starchy botanical species.
Edible plants may have been stored by the hunter-gatherers year-round to guard against seasonal shortages of prey and ensure a regular food supply, the researchers said.
These people ate only wild plants, the researchers found. The Iberomaurusians never developed agriculture, which came relatively late to North Africa.
“Interestingly, our findings showed minimal evidence of seafood or freshwater food consumption among these ancient groups. Additionally, it seems that these humans may have introduced wild plants into the diets of their infants at an earlier stage than previously believed,” Moubtahij said.
“Specifically, we focused on the transition from breastfeeding to solid foods in infants. Breast milk has a unique isotopic signature, distinct from the isotopic composition of solid foods typically consumed by adults.”
Two infants were among the seven people whose remains were studied. By comparing the chemical composition of an infant’s tooth, formed during the breastfeeding period, with the composition of bone tissue, which reflects the diet shortly before death, the researchers discerned changes in the baby’s diet over time. The evidence indicated the introduction of solid foods at around the age of 12 months, with babies weaned earlier than expected for a pre-agricultural society.
North Africa is a key region for studying Homo sapiens evolution and dispersal out of Africa.
“Understanding why some hunter-gatherer groups transitioned to agriculture while others did not can provide valuable insights into the drivers of agricultural innovation and the factors that influenced human societies’ decisions to adopt new subsistence strategies,” Moubtahij said.

 


Palestinian prisoner in Israel wins top fiction prize

Basim Khandaqji’s book was chosen from 133 works submitted to the competition. (Photo/Social media)
Updated 29 April 2024
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Palestinian prisoner in Israel wins top fiction prize

  • The mask in the novel’s title refers to the blue identity card that Nur, an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah, finds in the pocket of an old coat belonging to an Israeli

ABU DHABI: Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji, jailed 20 years ago in Israel, won a prestigious prize for Arabic fiction on Sunday for his novel “A Mask, the Color of the Sky.”
The award of the 2024 International Prize for Arabic Fiction was announced at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
The prize was accepted on Khandaqji’s behalf by Rana Idriss, owner of Dar Al-Adab, the book’s Lebanon-based publisher.
Khandaqji was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus in 1983, and wrote short stories until his arrest in 2004 at the age of 21.
He was convicted and jailed on charges relating to a deadly bombing in Tel Aviv, and completed his university education from inside jail via the Internet.
The mask in the novel’s title refers to the blue identity card that Nur, an archaeologist living in a refugee camp in Ramallah, finds in the pocket of an old coat belonging to an Israeli.
Khandaqji’s book was chosen from 133 works submitted to the competition.
Nabil Suleiman, who chaired the jury, said the novel “dissects a complex, bitter reality of family fragmentation, displacement, genocide, and racism.”
Since being jailed Khandaqji has written poetry collections including “Rituals of the First Time” and “The Breath of a Nocturnal Poem.”
He has also written three earlier novels.
 

 


Mexican doctor claims victory in $28 Cartier earrings battle

Updated 28 April 2024
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Mexican doctor claims victory in $28 Cartier earrings battle

MEXICO CITY: A Mexican man has claimed a victory over French luxury brand Cartier, saying an error allowed him to buy two pairs of earrings for $28 that were supposed to cost nearly $28,000.
After a four-month struggle, doctor Rogelio Villarreal said he had finally received the jewelry, which he accused the company of refusing to deliver after his online purchase in December.
According to Villarreal, he came across the low-priced earrings while browsing Instagram.
“I swear I broke out in a cold sweat,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Cartier declined to recognize the purchase and offered Villarreal a refund, as well as a bottle of champagne and a passport holder as compensation, according to a company letter shared by the doctor.
But Villarreal refused and decided to take the case to Mexico’s consumer protection agency, which ruled in favor of the doctor.
Cartier accepted the decision, Villarreal announced.
“War is over. Cartier is complying,” he wrote.