cheetah Gamini was translocated to India from South Africa as part of the ambitious project to revive the population of the world's fastest land animal in India, which had gone extinct decades ago.
The cheetah reintroduction project in India made significant progress in 2025, with the birth of 12 cubs at Kuno National Park. Despite some deaths, the cheetah population in India has reached 30, and further expansion of the project is planned.
A delegation from Botswana visited Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh to review preparations for the translocation of cheetahs from Botswana. The team expressed satisfaction with the quarantine facilities and other arrangements.
The development follows a joint operation by Madhya Pradesh's State Tiger Strike Force, Rajasthan forest department, and Sawai Madhopur-based NGO Tiger Watch last month that led to the arrest of six poachers, including three from Rajasthan.
India is set to bring eight cheetahs from Botswana in two phases, with four arriving by May 2025. This follows the successful reintroduction of cheetahs to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, with the population now at 26, including 14 cubs born in India. The initiative aims to boost cheetah conservation efforts and create inter-state collaboration for their protection. The project has already seen significant investment, with over Rs 112 crore spent on cheetah rehabilitation.
A 26-year-old groom, identified as Pradeep Jat, collapsed and died on a horse during his wedding procession in Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district. The incident occurred on Friday night and a video capturing the man's last moments surfaced on social media. The groom, a former district president of the National Student Union of India (NSUI), possibly died due to a heart attack.
The Supreme Court of India has directed its registry to call for a report from IIT Kharagpur and Kota, Rajasthan, after the suicides of a student and a NEET aspirant came to light. The court is seeking to ascertain whether FIRs were registered in both cases, highlighting the disturbing pattern of student suicides in educational institutions. The court has also previously ordered the formation of a national task force to address mental health concerns and prevent suicides in higher educational institutions.
In the clip of about 40 seconds, a man is seen pouring water from a can into a pan, following which five cheetahs sitting under the shadow in the vicinity walk up to the utensil and start drinking the water.
According to the police, the Congress leaders, including the party candidate Mukesh Malhotra, organised a public meeting on the Morena-Shivpuri highway instead of the Mandi campus for which they were granted permission.
Two cheetah cubs born to African cheetah Neerva were found dead and their mutilated carcasses were recovered at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh. The carcasses of the two newborns will be cremated on Thursday as per norms. Samples from the dead cubs were collected and sent for examination and the exact cause of their death will be known only after getting the lab report. All adult cheetahs, including Neerva, and the rest of the 12 cubs at the Kuno park are healthy, the official said. With 12 of those cubs surviving, the count of cheetahs at KNP was last reported to be 24.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ramniwas Rawat on Monday took oath as a cabinet minister in Madhya Pradesh, as Chief Minister Mohan Yadav expanded his ministry nearly seven months after assuming office.
A controversy has erupted after Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's son, Kartikey, said during a public meeting in bypoll-bound Budhni that 'not even a brick will be laid in any village' in case a Congress candidate wins the by-election.
Sari-clad women ride their Bullet bikes across the streets of Nagpur.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
The Madhya Pradesh forest department has refused to provide information under the Right to Information Act on management of cheetahs brought from Africa and their cubs born in India.
This is the fourth cheetah litter on Indian soil and the first litter of cheetahs brought from South Africa, Yadav informed.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday, September 7, 2023.
Oban, one of the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia in September last year, strayed into the field near Baroda village, some 15-20 kilometres from KNP, from the free range area of the park into which he was released last month, Sheopur divisional forest officer (DFO) P K Verma told PTI.
One more African cheetah died in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park (KNP) on Tuesday due to suspected infighting, a senior forest department official said, the seventh feline fatality in four months.
Notably, five adult cheetahs and three cubs have died at KNP in Sheopur district of the state since March this year.
Shaurya was found not walking properly by the tracking team around 11 am after which the wild animal was tranquilised and efforts were made to revive the feline, but they failed, said the statement.
Yadav's comments came amid concern expressed by some experts on the cheetah project and that some recent deaths could possibly be due to infection caused by radio collars though that is highly unusual and collars have been used in wildlife conservation in India for over two decades.
A cheetah translocated from Namibia to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh has given birth to four healthy cubs, officials said on Wednesday.
A Namibian cheetah has given birth to three cubs at the Kuno National Park (KNP) in Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district, a Union minister said on Wednesday.
All forest officials and veterinarians are working very hard at the KNP, he said.
There are now 10 male cheetahs and as many females at MP's Kuno National Park.
Eight cheetahs, five female and three male, will be brought to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday released its second list for the upcoming assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, fielding three Union ministers.
These include Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary and Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh and Shahgarh Bulge, Bhainsrorgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and enclosure of Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan.
In a statement, the ministry also said several steps have been planned to support the cheetah project, including the establishment of a Cheetah Research Center with facilities for rescue, rehabilitation, capacity building, and interpretation.
Amid the excitement over the arrival of Cheetahs in the Kuno National Park, villagers in the surrounding areas of Madhya Pradesh's Sheopur district have a variety of concerns including the fear of land acquisition and the fear of the big cat itself.
With this, six cheetahs have been released into the wild at the KNP so far. Now, 11 translocated felines and four cubs are left in the enclosures, he said.
How did the South African cheetahs make their way to India?
Three of the cheetahs have been born in June 2020, comprising two female and one male, while the second oldest of the lot is seven years and ten months old, they added.
Cheetah Jwala, earlier known as Siyaya, was brought from Namibia to KNP in Sheopur district in September 2022. She gave birth to four cubs in the last week of March this year.
Eight cheetahs from Namibia were released into the park in September last year as part of an ambitious project to revive the extinct cheetah population in the country.
Experts are monitoring them from a hole in a loft near their quarantine enclosures to ensure least human intervention
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release cheetahs being brought from Namibia in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on Saturday morning, an official said on Friday.
Suraj was found lying still in Palpur East Forest Range's Masavani beat by a monitoring team on Friday morning.
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