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Vice-President to lay foundation of natural history museum

JAIPUR: Vice-President Hamid Ansari will lay the foundation stone of the proposed regional centre of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) at Ranthambhore in Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur district this Sunday.

The regional centre is coming up at Ramsinghpura village in the vicinity of the world famous Ranthambhore National Park after a promise made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to the park in April 2005 to discuss the country’s tiger crisis.

This is going to be Dr. Ansari’s first visit to Rajasthan after taking over as the country’s Vice-President. He is scheduled to visit the National Park the morning after laying the foundation stone on Sunday evening in the presence of Union Minister of State for Forest and Environment Namonarain Meena and Rajasthan Minister for Environment, Forests and Mines Laxminarain Dave.

The park is presently witnessing good tiger sightings and Dr. Ansari is expected to have a “darshan” of at least one tiger in the wild if not many. In fact, it is the presence of tigers and the good offices of Mr. Meena, who is the Member of Parliament from Sawai Madhopur, which made the regional centre of NMNH a possibility. From the announcement by the Prime Minister to the location hunting and the sanctions, Mr. Meena has been taking a personal interest in the project.

The Delhi-based NMNH has regional centres presently in Mysore, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar. The Ranthambhore centre too is being styled more or less in the fashion of the existing regional centres, which have exhibits depicting flora and fauna of the region and those on the ecological relationship between plants and animals, including man. The centre is also expected to cater to the biology curriculum in schools in the region.

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