Flora at MG University, Kottayam.

The Mahatma Gandhi University is located in the forests of the Priyadarshini Hills that surround the Kottayam Medical College & Carithas, the cancer wing. People have built homes & commercial establishments within the precincts & collection of firewood/grass is a frequent sight. Yet for the most part the area is left undisturbed.

As the university has also tried to keep its surroundings as unchanged as possible most of the area within & around it are still densely forested. 

Below are a few plants I found growing extensively in the outgrowths. Also are included a few others that the university has tried to grow painstakingly.

  

  

  

  

The Indian Laburnum

    

                 

      

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 The University has in the long run striven hard to preserve the indigenous flora of the forests. Its recent endeavor has been to  name and label the taxonomic classification of plants within the university campus. 

Visitors to the campus have appreciated the idea but it's hoped that these in addition to educating the students & visitors, it will help preserve these forests.

How energy efficient are we really???

Most often I have come upon certain unfortunate sights. Road side lamps & lights in the verandas of houses left on the entire day! One may advocate for these slips by saying that people tend to forget in the morning rush to schools & offices. Others may take an empathetic note that lights in daylight are easily missed.
I have tried taking that outlook. But what makes these careless acts unacceptable is that they recur on a regular basis. I have seen them repeated with infuriating nonchalance.
And the buildings that bear witness to such discrepancies most are government run institutions, public roads & even private homes.
                                        

The common attitude that dictates such outrageous acts is that the wallet belongs to the government. But where does the money in the government treasury come from? Oh! No, No No! If you are thinking that the treasury gets filled because the mint is 'owned' by the government you have your bears grossly miscalculated. They are filled by the taxes that the common man -you-paid for turning his blood into sweat. And NO ONE, not even the head of the state has got the right to throw it down the drain.
 I have seen offices in Kottayam a district in Kerala, and even teachers cabins in my own university show such indifference. Kottayam famous as 'the district of letters' is known for its high literacy & number of colleges offering higher education. If, with all the education & awareness even such places of learning exhibit such non-holistic behavior how is one to blame the ignorant layman?
And if that isn't reason enough think about all the new interiors you could have bought with that money you saved on the electricity bill! Or for those lovers of gardening, the new vases you wanted at the nursery last Christmas!
But like it or not everyone is bound to do his part in saving up all that electricity that we generated midst the Uttarakhand & Idukki floods, the hullabaloo surrounding near-parturition dams, electricity shortage and the global climate change concerns that for ever hangs above us like the sword of Damocles.