News

The election manifesto of the BJP that has formed Rajasthan’s new government contains plenty of good intentions. Most exciting of them is the idea to turn camel and peacock into Rajasthan’s state animals! LPPS had suggested that this special status be given to the camel quite a few years back and we are delighted that the idea has fallen on fertile ground.

Other encouraging plansoutlined  in the election manifesto are support for pastureland development and constitution of a pastureland development board, as well as inclusion of camel, sheep, and goats in the Famine Code. This has been a long-standing demand by the Raika and other pastoralist groups. Support is to be given to cooperative societies for camel, sheep and goat rearers, as well as to organic agriculture.

Well done, Vasundhraji, and LPPS is ready to help transform these ideas into action! We noted your commitment to save the camel during your previous turn as Chief Minister!

We are very pleased that many of the issues that LPPS is working on have been highlighted on the website of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. Please see the article Champion of a Camel Culture  and a short film at http://www.rolexawards.com/profiles/associate_laureates/ilse_khler-rollefson

The problems of camel herders finding buyers for their animals at the Pushkar fair have been highlighted by a story and video produced by the Agence France-Press. This is the link for the video and this one for the story which was picked up widely by other news agencies.

The town of Pushkar is as vibrant, busy and colourful as ever during its annual Mela. But this year it seems that there are more cameras than camels and that the turbaned camel breeders are outnumbered by stalking photographers. The official data about the number of livestock brought to the fair by Tuesday evening were published today in the newspaper and confirm the observation:

                    2011      2012      2013
Camels     8238      6953      4739
Horses     4403      3639      2779
Cattle       4256      4270      1092

Total     17604     15510     9237

The Pushkar Camel Fair is the annual highlight for many of Rajasthan’s camel herders – in the short span of a few days, they realise their entire income for the whole year by selling off their young camels. But in the last few years, the demand has been slack and they have been forced to take home many unsold animals. This year, the situation may be especially bad and few camels changed ownership on the first day of sales yesterday. We will report more details here in the coming days.