NEW DELHI // Not very long ago B Raja could find only sporadic employment in his village in the Theni district in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
He worked odd jobs, usually herding livestock for farmers. Life was hard, especially for a family of four. Then, a month ago, his fortunes changed. He learnt to climb coconut trees and harvest their crop.
"Now I climb 40 trees a day, and there's so much work to be had," he says. "For the first time in my life, I have a steady stream of cash. It's a blessing."
The initiative that changed B Raja's life began 18 months ago with a coconut crisis in Kerala. Only 10,000 tree-climbers practised the traditional craft, and at least another 40,000 were needed to harvest all the state's coconuts.
Production had dipped, and farmers were harvesting crops only once every three months, instead of the usual 45 to 60 days.
"Climbers used to be of a particular caste, and their children were not willing to take up their father's profession, because it wasn't very remunerative," says Sugata Ghose of the Coconut Development Board in Kochi, which works under the Indian government's agriculture ministry. "And people from other castes were unwilling to take up these jobs."
The solution was a government-funded training scheme called Friends of Coconut Tree, which has grown from its Kerala roots and has been operating since late last year in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
The board was careful to avoid the word "climbers" in its promotion of its training programme, thus steering clear of caste connotations.
"This is why we called it 'Friends of Coconut Tree'," Mr Ghose said. "Now even higher-caste and educated people are coming into the programme, because there is the promise of a good income, and because they are getting trained by a government organisation."
The training was initially slow to take off but between August 2011 and March 2012 more than 5,600 people completed the six-day course across every district in Kerala. Since then about another 4,400 trainees in the five states have been certified.
The Coconut Development Board ties up with NGOs and district-level agricultural research centres to hold the training programmes. Each group of about 20 trainees cost the government 68,500 rupees (Dh4,600).
Each student is paid 150 rupees a day and receives a coconut-harvesting kit worth 2,500 rupees after completing the programme.
Trainees are taught to work with automated tree-climbing devices, which are now becoming popular throughout south India. They are also instructed in methods of pest control and tree maintenance.
The course includes other general but valuable lessons: first aid, the rudiments of managing savings and social security funds, and communication skills.
The board now prescribes a minimum wage for tree climbers, said Mini Mathew, the programme's publicity officer. "Earlier, if he was lucky, a coconut-tree climber might have been paid 10 rupees to scale a tree," she said. "More probably, he would have been paid in coconuts."
India is the third-largest coconut growing country in the world, producing 15 billion nuts annually. Tamil Nadu and Kerala are India's most productive coconut producing states.
Today, Ms Mathew said, a climber might get up to 25 rupees a tree in rural areas, and even 50 rupees a tree in towns and cities. An experienced climber can tackle up to 40 trees a day. Monthly incomes now range from 15,000 to 30,000 rupees a month.
The board connect climbers with tree owners, via an extensive directory on its website. "We also help them get bank loans to buy two-wheelers, so that they are more mobile," Mr Ghose said.
Even with all these benefits, though, it is a struggle to retain the new recruits.
R Mathavan, a 23-year-old graduate in computer science, went through the programme in the district of Thanjavur, in Tamil Nadu, last October. He had gone, he said, "primarily because my father was in this line of work, and because a few of the other boys in my village wanted to go".
After Mr Mathavan completed the course, he and nine other trainees had planned to take out a bank loan and set up a coconut harvesting business, leasing their services to tree owners across the district. They had even planned a side venture in selling coconut water.
But the coconut harvests were too sporadic for Mr Mathavan.
"We all went back to our respective lines of work," he said. He moved to Chennai and worked in a photographic studio for a few months before returning home.
But Mr Mathavan insists that he found the course useful. "It's always a worthwhile skill to have," he said. "And if five or six of us can get together and revive our plans, I think we can still set up a good business out of it."
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
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Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
SPECS
Engine: Two-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
On sale: Now
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
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UAE tour of the Netherlands
UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures and results:
Monday, UAE won by three wickets
Wednesday, 2nd 50-over match
Thursday, 3rd 50-over match
No Shame
Lily Allen
(Parlophone)
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