Cashewnut in Garo Hillls Meghalaya India

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale), a native of Brazil, was introduced in India during the latter half of the 16th Century for the purpose of forestation and soil conservation. Cashew has now emerged as a major foreign exchange earner next only to tea and coffee. Among various nuts such as hazelnuts, almonds, etc., cashew nut enjoys a significant position and it is an unavoidable snack in all important social functions especially in the western countries.

The cashew nutshell liquid (CNSL) is mostly composed of anacardic acids. These acids have been used effectively against tooth abscesses due to their lethality to a wide range of Gram-positive bacteria. Anacardic acid is also used in the chemical industry for the production of cardinal, which is used for resins, coatings, and frictional materials. Many parts of the plant are used medicinally. The bark is scraped and soaked overnight or boiled as an antidiarrheal; it also yields a gum used in varnish. Seeds are ground into powders for antivenom for snake bites. The nut oil is used topically as an antifungal and for healing cracked heels. The nuts contain 45 percent fat and 26 percent carbohydrates.

National scene: Commercial cultivation of cashew in India is taken up in eight states in India. It is also cultivated on small areas in other states of the country. India has an area of about 7.30 lakh hectare under cashew with an estimated annual production of about 4.60 lakh tonnes of raw cashew nut. India is the largest producer, processor, consumer and exporter of cashew in the world. The current production accounts for 45 percent of the global production. A large number of small and marginal farmers, especially living on the coastal belts of India, depend on cashew for their livelihood. Nearly 2.00 lakh workers, more than 90 percent of whom are women, are directly employed in cashew processing factories which are concentrated mostly in Kerala. It is estimated that nearly two million people are involved, directly and indirectly in cashew cultivation, processing and marketing. The important cashew growing states of India are Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya.

Meghalaya scene: The latest data available on cashew in Meghalaya in 2006-07 records the area under cashew plantation as 8623 hectare, production as 11300 metric tonnes and yield per hectare as 1656 kg. While in West Garo Hills district during the same period the area under cashew cultivation was 3216 hectare, production was 7770 metric tonnes and yield per hectare was 2416 kg.

What is Social Audit or Accounting?

Social accounting or auditing is a way of measuring and reporting social and ethical performance of an organization, or a programme or scheme. Social audit is a planning and evaluation method which makes it possible to obtain an overview of internal and external factors that are not included in financial audit of an organization or an activity. It attempts to structure the organization of work in order to achieve the designated goals. In other words, social audit is a systematic and objective procedure by engaging the members in identifying needs and solutions, plan activities, monitor progress and measure its social performance in a comprehensive and participatory manner. The existence of formal mechanisms of accountability does not guarantee actual accountability on the ground. Social audit provides the venue to demand transparency and accountability in all the initiatives from the public system which was otherwise closed to the citizens.

According to Wikipedia, social accounting (also known as social and environmental accounting, corporate social reporting, corporate social responsibility reporting, non-financial reporting, or sustainability accounting) is the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of organizations' economic actions to particular interest groups within society and to society at large. Social accounting is commonly used in the context of business, or corporate social responsibility (CSR), although any organization, including NGOs, charities, and government agencies may engage in social accounting. Social accounting emphasizes the notion of corporate accountability. D. Crowther defines social accounting in this sense as "an approach to reporting a firm’s activities which stresses the need for the identification of socially relevant behaviour, the determination of those to whom the company is accountable for its social performance and the development of appropriate measures and reporting techniques".

As a part of social accountability in MGNREGA, social audit has been made mandatory, since its introduction in 2005. There is no literature showing solid definition of ‘social audit’, the terms ‘social audit’ and ‘social accountability’ or ‘social accounting’ are interchangeably used. However, social audit can be understood as a means of continuous public vigilance. The basic objective of which is to ensure public accountability in the implementation of projects, laws and policies. One simple form of social audit is a public assembly where all the details of a project are scrutinized. It is a process in which details of the financial and non-financial resources used by public agencies for development initiatives, how effectively the target population benefit from the scheme and how the benefits are shared with the people are evaluated, often through a public platform like social audit forum. Social Accountability allows people to enforce downward accountability and transparency, providing the ultimate users an opportunity to scrutinize development initiatives. To avoid confusion, the term ‘Social Audit Forum’ will be used in this study to refer to the periodic assemblies convened by the Gram Sabha or any other grassroots level institutions as part of the process of social audit. In this perspective, a social audit is an ongoing process through which the potential beneficiaries and other stakeholders of an activity or project are involved at every stage: from the planning to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This process helps in ensuring that the activity or project is designed and implemented in a manner that is most suited to the prevailing (local) conditions, appropriately reflects the priorities and preferences of those affected by it, and most effectively serves public interest.

Thus, social audits can be seen as a means of promoting some basic norms in public matters:

1. Transparency: Complete transparency in the process of administration and decision making, with an obligation on the government to suo moto give people full access to all relevant information. The information about works should be displayed in the local language at the worksite and in at a prominent place in Gram Panchayat.

2. Participation: An entitlement for all the affected persons (and not just their representatives) to participate in the process of decision making and validation.

3. Consultation and Consent: In cases where options are predetermined out of necessity, the right of the affected persons to give informed consent, as a group or as individuals, as appropriate.

4. Accountability: The responsibility of elected representatives and government functionaries to answer questions and provide explanations about relevant action and inaction to concerned and affected people.

5. Redressal: A set of norms through which the findings of social audits and other public investigations receive official sanction, have necessary outcomes, and are reported back to the people, along with information on action taken in response to complaints.

India’s ‘Frogman’ terms region a hotspot of amphibian life

Meghalaya in general and Garo Hills region in particular has been known for many known and unknown species like the Shillong Buggle-nest frog, named after the Meghalaya capital, with some of them already extinct and new ones being discovered or ‘resurfacing’ including an entirely new family of amphibians – called Chikilidae – endemic to the region but with ancient links to Africa.

The Chikilidae (commonly named Tailless burrowing caecilians) which has existed from before the Jurassic Age, remained beneath the monsoon-soaked soils of the Garo Hills and other parts of North East India – unknown to Science and mistaken by villagers as a deadly, miniature snake. But this legless amphibian’s time in obscurity has ended, thanks to an intrepid team of biologists led by India’s ‘Frogman’ Professor Sathyabhama Das Biju of the University of Delhi. The scientific name Chikilidae is derived from the Garo language.

This discovery, published on Wednesday in a journal of the Royal Society of London, gives yet more evidence that Garo Hills and other parts of the North East is a hotbed of amphibian life with habitats worth protecting against the country’s industry-heavy development agenda.

It also gives exciting new evidence in the study of prehistoric species migration, as well as evolutionary paths influenced by the Continental Shift.

Prof Biju’s first effort in conserving the Chikilidae was to give it a scientific name mirroring what the locals use in their Garo language. The Chikilidae is a caecilian, the most primitive of the three amphibian groups that also include frogs and salamanders.

“We hope when the locals see the name and their language being used across the world, they will understand this animal’s importance and join in trying to save it,” Prof Biju said, while adding, “India’s biodiversity is fast depleting. We are destroying these habitats without mercy.”

Prof Biju – a botanist-turned-herpetologist (one who studies amphibians), now celebrated as India’s ‘Frogman’ – has made it his life work to find and catalog new species. There are too many cases of ‘nameless extinction’, with animals disappearing before they are ever known, he said. “We don’t even know what we’re losing,” he added.

Prof Biju has discovered 76 new species of plants, caecilians and frogs – vastly more than any other scientist in India – and estimates that 30-40 per cent of the country’s amphibians are yet to be found. Within the Chikilidae family, his team has already identified three species, and is on its way to classing three more, he said.

The Chikilidae’s discovery, made along with co-researchers from London’s Natural History Museum and Vrije University in Brussels, brings the number of known caecilian families in the world to 10. Three are in India while the others are spread across the Tropics in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America.

Because they live hidden underground, and race off at the slightest vibration, much less is known about them than their more famous, and more vocal amphibious cousins, the frogs.

Only 186 of the world’s known amphibious species are caecilians, compared with more than 6,000 frog species – a third of which are considered endangered or threatened.

People living in Northeast mostly misunderstand the caecilians, and rare sightings can inspire terror and revulsion, with farmers and villagers chopping them in half out of the mistaken belief that they are poisonous snakes. “But the Chikilidae is harmless, and may even be the farmer’s best friend – feasting on worms and insects that might harm crops and churning the soil as it moves underground,” Prof Biju said.

Much remains to be discovered in further study, as many questions remain about how the creatures live, the Frogman said.

So far, Prof Biju’s team has determined that an adult Chikilidae will remain with its eggs until they hatch, forgoing food for some 50 days. When the eggs hatch, the youngs emerge as tiny adults and squirm away.

They grow to about 4 inches (10 centimeters), and can ram their hard skulls through some of the region’s tougher soils, shooting off quickly at the slightest vibration. “It’s like a rocket,” Biju said. “If you miss it the first try, you’ll never catch it again.”

A possibly superfluous set of eyes is shielded under a layer of skin, and may help the chikilidae gauge light from dark as in other caecilian species.

DNA testing suggests the chikilidae’s closest relative is in Africa – with the two evolutionary paths splitting some 140 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed what was then a southern supercontinent called Gondwana, since separated into today’s continents of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, South America and the Indian Subcontinent.