A new “republic” has been established in India and it goes by the interesting name of Junglistan. Already 1.35 lakh people have become citizens of it and another one lakh have signed a petition to support the efforts of Brikesh Singh to ensure the India’s last remaining dense forest in central India does not get destroyed.
Mr Brikesh Singh, a Greenepace campaigner, who has been living on a tree in Chandrapur forest for the last 23 days to focus attention on how the allocation of 13 coal fields will result in the destruction of 1.4 lakh acre dense forest.
The petitions that Mr Singh is putting together will be presented at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Hyderabad on October 1.
The tree is located on the top of a currently untouched coal reserve but overlooks an operational coal mine. As Mr Brikesh Singh said in his blog, “The coal mine serves to highlight the devastation that await these beautiful forest if urgent measures are not taken to protect them. They are the face of India’s bio-diversity.”
During the day time, Mr Singh is visited by large numbers of local villagers, including young kids, many of whom have warned him that leopards and tigers are on the prowl in this neighbourhood.
But Mr Singh admits to being more worried about being visited by a snake. He had come down on Friday to collect some drinking water when he heard a hissing sound and managed to take some photographs of a snake swallowing a frog.
With Brikesh’s popularity on the rise amongst the local people, Saturday saw him being visited by Hanraj Ahir, the local member of parliament from Chandrapur.