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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park



Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park (IGWLS&NP) is a protected area named after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who visited the park on October 7, 1961. It is often called Topslip, a village in the northeast corner of the park which is the main visitor center. This name is derived from the local 19th century practice of sliding Teak timber logs down from the hills. It is located in the Anaimalai Hills of Pollachi, Valparai and Udumalpet taluks of Coimbatore District, Tamilnadu state, South India. The 108 km² National Park is the core area of the 958 km² Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary, formerly called Anaimalai Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Park and the Sanctuary is under consideration by UNESCO as part of The Western Ghats World Heritage site. The Sanctuary and the Palni Hills in Dindigul District form the Anaimalai Conservation Area. 

Geography
The sanctuary has six administrative ranges, Pollachi: Range Head Quarters at Anaimalai Farm: 109.72 km², Vaalpaarai: Water Falls: 171.50 km², Ulandy: Top Slip: 75.93 km², Amaravathi: Amaravathi Nagar: 172.50 km², Udumalpet: 290.18 km². IGWLS is adjacent to Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary to the west. Manjampatti Valley is a 110± km² drainage basin at the eastern end of the park.
Altitude ranges between 340m to 2513 m above sea level. There are 12 major peaks in this area, including.
Mean annual rainfall is between 500mm in the south western fringes to 5000mm on the north east. 



Tribal Communities
The IGWS has significant anthropological diversity with more than 4600 Adivasi people from six tribes of indigenous people living in 34 settlements. The tribes are the Kadars, Malasars, Malaimalasars, Pulaiyars, Muduvars and the Eravalars. 

Flora and Fauna
The park is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna typical of the South Western Ghats. There are over 2000 species plants of which about 400 species are of prime medicinal value.
Mammals in the Park include tiger, leopard, sloth bear, dhole or the Asiatic wild dog, golden jackal, leopard cat, jungle cat, rusty-spotted cat, elephant, gaur, sambar, spotted deer, barking deer, mouse deer, wild pig, nilgiri langur, common langur, bonnet macaque, lion-tailed macaque, common palm civet, Small Indian Civet, Common Mongoose, Striped-necked Mongoose, Ruddy Mongoose, Smooth Indian Otter, Slender Loris, Indian Giant Squirrel, Spiny Dormouse, Porcupine, Indian Pangolin, Giant Flying Squirrel and Three-striped Palm Squirrel.
IGWS is a Project Elephant sanctuary.
The Steering Committee of Project Tiger granted approval in principle to inclusion of Indira Gandhi WLS and NP and nine additional protected areas under Project Tiger.
Over 250 species of birds have been identified in the Park . Some of the most important groups include, cormorants, ducks, teal, darter, partridge, quail, jungle fowl, spurfowl, Indian peafowl, parakeets, hornbills, barbets, drongos, orioles, shrikes, warblers, flycatchers, woodpeckers, chloropsis, trogons, kingfishers, storks, egrets, fish eagle, hawk eagles, harriers, falcons, kites, owls and nightjars.
It is home to 15 of 16 species of birds endemic to the Western Ghats.
Reptiles include toads, leaping frogs, torrent frogs, tree frogs, pythons, cobras, kraits, vipers, grass snakes, forest cane turtles, travancore tortoises, flapshells, star tortoises, flying lizards, chameleons and forest calotes.
315 species of butterflies belonging to five families have been identified in the Anaimalais. 44 are endemic to the Western Ghats. 


Visitor Information
The IGWLS is managed by the Wildlife Warden (Wildlife Warden Office, 178 Meenkarai Road, Pollachi, Ph: 04259-225356) and falls within the administrative control of the Coimbatore Forest Circle headed by the Conservator of Forests, Coimbatore.
Travel by road from Coimbatore to Pollachi (40 km) to the Wildlife Warden's Office for visitor permit and then by road to Top Slip (35 km), or to Udumalpet (40 km - Amaravathi and Udumalpet range), or to Vaalparai (65 km - Vaalparai and Manamboly range)
The ideal months to visit the Park are May to January. Entry time is between 6 am and 6 pm. The Park has a large tourist complex at Top Slip that houses many cottages, rooms, and dormitories for visitors. Visitors can get around the park by trekking and a safari van.
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EID MUBARAK

Bhuvan mapping

DOWN LOAD Bhuvan mapping A review of ISRO Bhuvan Features and Performance

Here is a frank review of the features and performance of ISRO Bhuvan (the much anticipated satellite-based 3D mapping application from ISRO) BETA Release and comparing it to supposed arch rival Google Earth. Bhuvan from the begining is claiming that it is not competing with Google Earth in any way, but there was much hype and propaganda in the media saying that ISRO Bhuvan will be a Google Earth killer atleast in India. But it looks like that can nit be the case anytime soon. Here is why..

  • While Google Earth works on a downloadable client, Bhuvan works within the browser (only supports Windows and IE 6 and above).
  • The ISRO Bhuvan currently has serious performance issues. The site currently very unstable. It gives up or hangs the browser every once in a while. When a layer (state, district, taluk, etc.) is turned on, it renders unevenly and sometimes fails to render at all. The navigation panel failed to load routinely and it felt like a rare sighting when we could actually use the panel.
  • The promise of high resolution images has not been kept. While the service promises zoom up to 10 metres from the ground level as against 200 metres for Google Earth, we didn’t encounter a single image with nearly as much detailing. In fact, comparative results for a marquee location such as New Delhi’s Connaught Place or Red Fort make its clear as to the inferior performance of ISRO Earth as of now.
  • The navigation tools are similar to Google Earth (GE).
  • The search doesn’t work if a query returns multiple results. A pop up window is supposed to give the multiple results from which the user is supposed to be able to choose. During two days of sporadic testing, we found the result only once. The rest of the time, the window would pop up, but nothing would be displayed. When the search is accurate, the software ‘flies in’ to the exact location, the same way as GE.
  • Users need to create an account and download a plug-in.
  • Bhuvan packs a lot of data on weather, waterbodies and population details of various administrative units. We were unable to access weather data. Clicking on icons of administrative units show basic information such as the population. For specialist users, Bhuvan might hold some attraction. For instance, there is a drought map which cab be used to compare drought situation across years and there is a flood map that shows Bihar during the Kosi flood and after. With Isro backing, Bhuvan would be able to provide such relevant data from time to time, but the application needs major improvements in terms of usability before it will be of interest to the ordinary user.
  • Users can also not edit any data or tag locations.
  • We hope Bhuvan is able to fix the bugs soon. But even then, to be a credible alternative to existing mapping services, and even to get new users to try it, it much provide much higher resolution images. User interest will be piqued only when they can see their house or school or local street in high resolution. With Isro data, this is easily doable.

Having said all this, ISRO Bhuvan is still a very good step forward for ISRO in the right direction we feel. We wish all the best for ISRO and hopefully Bhuvan will mature very fast to become a good service and can really compete with Google Earth.

download bhuvan mapping.............. here