Archives: Trade

Don't Buy Trouble — is the latest word of caution to globetrotters expected to descend on the national capital during the 12-day Commonwealth Games. TRAFFIC India has released four brand new public service announcements (PSAs ) as part of its ongoing “Don’t Buy Trouble” campaign that advises tourists to be careful of what they buy as souvenirs during their travels to India. The message comes in the form of four eye-catching posters.

Notorious wildlife trader Sansar Chand was Wednesday sentenced to six years’ imprisonment - the maximum prison term mandated by the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act when Sansar was caught red-handed with a leopard skin in 1995. Apprehended by a Delhi Police team from Sadar Bazar on July 17, 1995, Sansar Chand was also fined Rs 50,000 by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Special Acts) Dig Vinay Singh announcing the sentence at the Indian capital.

In a major embarrassment for Panchkula wildlife department, Panchkula police and People for Animal (PFA), two major seizures of wildlife articles in the month of May from Panchkula and Kalka, including 40 panther skins, lion nails, teeth, claws along with conches, shells and corals claimed to be worth crores of rupees, have been found to be fake, says a Times of India report. A report regarding tests on these wildlife articles to check the authenticity from Laboratory of Forest Research Institute of Dehradun, received by Panchkula wildlife department states that these articles were not original. A senior wildlife official said the three accused arrested for possessing these articles may now be acquitted by the environment court in Kurukshetra.

In a late night operation, the anti-poaching cell of the Uttarakhand Forest Department, assisted by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), seized three leopard (Panthera pardus) skins and leopard bones at Vikasnagar and Kalsi area of Dehradun district, Uttarakhand.

Assam’s Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport is now one of the main transit points for smugglers to transport wildlife products to China and Far East Asia. In less than a week, customs seized tiger skeletons and pangolin scales worth more than Rs.5 crore (over a million dollars) from the airport, says an Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) report. “From the frequent seizures, Guwahati has become the main hub for smugglers to tranship endangered wildlife products to China and the Far East via Myanmar,” North East Customs Commissioner S.R. Baruah told IANS. India shares a 1,600-km unfenced border with Myanmar. The modus operandi used by the smugglers has made the customs authorities rethink their strategy afresh.

Customs officers have seized two shipments of tiger bones and other animal parts worth $500,000 destined for use in traditional medicine in China, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). The rare success against the smugglers yielded a tiger skeleton along with 320kg of scales from pangolins, rare scaly mammals that are distant relatives of the anteater and a protected species in India. Customs officials, acting on a tip-off, seized two shipments at the international airport in Guwahati on Wednesday and on Thursday, a customs official said. "They were meant to be air transported to Imphal in the state capital of Manipur by an Air India flight,'' he said, adding that from Manipur they were destined for neighbouring Burma and then China.

Skins of 20 wild animals were seized in Uttarakhand’s Uttar Kashi district Friday, an NGO said. One person has been arrested. Bullet marks were found on all the 14 skins of gorals, five skins of barking deer, and one of Eurasian otter, the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said in a statement. The NGO helped the forest department in seizure at Singoni village. A poaching gang is currently operating in the region and is suspected to have been involved in the killings. “One person has been arrested in this connection,” the statement added. The grey goral, a goat-antelope, is found in the Western Himalayas, and the barking deer or Indian muntjac is found across India except Jammu and Kashmir, the desert areas of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the high Himalayas.

Tthe Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has for the first time been given Rs10 lakhs under the head of "secret service fund" to focus on intelligence gathering, says a Press trust of India (PTI) report. The sanction of this long-awaited fund has brought the WCCB on par with other premier investigative agencies such as CBI and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) which has been regularly receiving the money under the head to execute functions such as collecting intelligence inputs. The details: [Link]