Word: delhi
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Most big cities in the world face the same kinds of problems: traffic, pollution, crime. Then there is New Delhi, which has a challenge rarely encountered elsewhere - monkeys. Hungry Rhesus macaques roam the streets and even the subway, leap through treetops outside grand government buildings and scale fences of companies and private homes in search of open windows and tempting food. Even Delhi's police headquarters has been raided by a monkey gang...
...deal with such a rare urban problem, Delhi has come up with an unusual response: it's launched a monkey arms race. Companies and city officials have started employing langurs - large, black-faced apes - to protect buildings and scare off the smaller rhesus monkeys. "Any langur will do the business," says Zahid Khan, 20, who has been handling langurs since he was eight and most days chains one or two outside the Press Trust of India building, which houses TIME's Delhi bureau. "The monkeys are petrified of them...
...better idea of how big the monkey problem is I spoke with Iqbal Malik, one of India's leading primatologists. Malik has studied monkeys for more than two decades and estimates there are now 5,000 monkeys in Delhi. Seven years ago she came up with a plan to create a reserve for the city's monkeys and begin a program of sterilization for selected male monkeys. But she says the city fumbled those plans and instead started trapping monkeys and caging them to create the impression they were doing something. (You can read her story at primatesinperil.blogspot.com). Malik says...
...Monkeys and humans have long coexisted in India, where Hindus consider the primates sacred. In the ancient Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, the monkey god Hanuman symbolizes wisdom, devotion, righteousness and strength. Most days, but especially every Tuesday, devout Hindus feed Delhi's monkeys a feast of bananas and peanuts...
...DIED. Kanshi Ram, 72, activist member of India's caste of Dalits-or untouchables-who in 1984 helped organize millions of the country's disenfranchised by founding the Bahujan Samaj Party, which became the most powerful lower-caste political party in India; in New Delhi. Credited with spurring a radical shift in the perception of lower castes, Ram battled the upper-caste Brahmins and even criticized modern India's founding father, Mahatma Gandhi-revered for his advocacy of civil rights-for not doing enough to challenge the rigid social system...