Recently I was served a kangaroo dish by my daughter at her home in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It so happens that the fascinating kangaroo is the national animal of Australia and finds a place of honour on the country’s coat of arms.
On seeing my raised eyebrows, my son-in-law explained: “Don’t worry dad, we are also serving a national cause by opting for a kangaroo dish. It seems that the government would soon be encouraging Australians to have more kangaroo meat instead of cattle and sheep.”
And so it seems. Professor Ross Garnaut, Australian government’s top climate change adviser, has in a major report on global warming noted that kangaroos should gradually replace farm animals for meat because the former emit negligible amounts of methane gas.
This suggestion, coming as it does from the government’s top climate change adviser, provides another excuse to make the Australian national animal a standard restaurant fare.
Professor Garnaut notes: “For most of Australia’s human history of around 60,000 years, kangaroo was the main source of meat. It could again become important.
“The researchers have modelled the potential for kangaroos to replace sheep and cattle for meat production in Australia’s rangelands, where kangaroos are already harvested.” More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.