The K Gang and I, featured in 'The Ladies Finger' and 'The Wire'

Recently a long interview with me was published in the online magazine 'The Ladies Finger'. The same article was published in 'The Wire'. 

The main topic of the article was of course the latest discovery of our arachnology team, Eriovixia gryffindori, that caused a global media sensation thanks to the name! However, the writer, Divya Vijayakumar, also wanted to cover my other (and earlier) areas of work besides arachnology: the INDog Project and wildlife conservation. She did a wonderful job describing what the INDog Project is all about. And she asked to use a picture of Kiba, Kimaya and me on Nagaon beach; so the K Gang also got their share of glory 😀  

The photo was taken by Javed Ahmed, the brilliant lead researcher of our arachnology team, who is also part of the INDog Project.

I'm posting a few screen shots of the article, and the links to it in both magazines.

Arachnologist Rajashree Khalap on discovering the Sorting Hat Spider that excited even J K Rowling

Meet Rajashree Khalap, co-finder of the Sorting Hat Spider and other Fantastic Beasts

The K Gang!

From 'The Wire'

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Article in HT Brunch, August 2013

I forgot to post this story last year! Mitali Parekh interviewed me along with four other women for her story 'Gone to the dogs' in Hindustan Times Brunch. It was about women who do interesting work with dogs. It appeared in the August 17 issue. I'm sharing the whole article here. 

You can also read it here.

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Article in Sananda magazine

I'm very grateful to Sananda magazine for interviewing me and doing this story recently. Sananda is the largest lifestyle magazine in Eastern India so the story was widely read and I got many lovely emails!

Interview by Madhurima Sinha Roy
Sub Editor
Sananda

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INDog article in Woof mag

I meant to post this two months ago, when Woof mag published it! Well, better late than never.

Click on the images to enlarge and read.

Constructive feedback welcome.

Hindustan Times article on the INDog Project

An article on the INDog Project in Hindustan Times (htcafe) today. Click on the image to enlarge and zoom in to read. I hope that will do it but I'm not really very net-savvy even after several years of blogging!

This is the link to today's HT. If you want to read the article there, go to the sidebar, click on Supplements > htcafe > City

Thanks Lina Choudhury-Mahajan and HT for covering this topic!

Hindustan Times Cafe story on Indian dogs taken overseas

Journalist Lina Choudhury-Mahajan did this interesting story in HT Cafe about Indian street dogs that have been adopted by non-Indians and now live overseas. It appeared on Sunday (31 January). This blog is mentioned in the story so I thought I'd post it here. Click on the image to enlarge the page.

Lina uses the common term "mongrel" for these dogs, but she does mention that Indian mongrels are all descended from the aboriginal breed the Indian Pariah Dog (INDog). That's a first and I hope other writers will follow her example. This is exactly what makes Indian mongrels unique and different from a mongrel/mutt in the US, Canada or Europe. Our urban street dogs all have a large measure of Indian Pariah in their bloodline, and that's what gives them their different look and personality. Unlike the mutts/mongrels in the US, Canada or Europe, which are an indeterminate mix of Eurobreeds.

That's why I prefer to use "INDog-mix" and "Pariah-mix" for our mix-breeds. "Mongrel" leads to the misconception that our street dogs are simply a Eurobreed-hotchpotch like other mutts around the world. They are no such thing.
I've mentioned here that dogs in remote rural areas have still not been mongrelized and are usually pure aboriginal Pariah dogs. That is probably true of dogs in some smaller towns as well. Check this post about the researcher Dr Sunil K Pal. The dogs in his home town Katwa (West Bengal) are probably true INDogs unmixed with Eurobreeds. There are other towns I've visited - Angul in Orissa, Canning Town and Gosaba in West Bengal - where the dogs are probably not genetically contaminated either. There are few if any Eurobreeds in those towns and if there are, they are not left unsupervised to mix with free-ranging dogs.

Image/article: Courtesy Lina Choudhury-Mahajan
Mumbai