On August 15, 2020, the first ever Kerala State Dragonfly Festival 2020 aka “Thumbimahotsavam 2020” was launched by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India State unit in collaboration with Society for Odonate Studies (SOS) and Thumbipuranam through a virtual ceremony from Kerala. Dr. Subramanian K.A., scientist at Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Southern Regional Center, Chennai (Tamil Nadu) addressed the inaugural session. The festival will culminate with the State dragonfly summit, most probably in January 2021.
- The official mascot of the festival is “Pantalu” which is the genus of dragonfly in the family Libellulidae commonly known as rainpool gliders.
- Thumbimahotsavam 2020 is part of a 3rd edition of national dragonfly festival 2020 being organised by the WWF India, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) & Indian Dragonfly Society (IDS) in association with the National Biodiversity Board, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) – Centre for Environment Conservation.
Key Points:
-As a part of fest, initially a training of trainers will be organised to get more people trained on dragonflies so that they can act as resource persons for various upcoming events.
-This will be followed by a series of webinars commencing from September targeting the public, especially children and youth.
-A ‘dragonfly backyard watch’ has been announced to enhance the participation of people and improve their observation skills.
-A digital odonate knowledge hub will also be established under the SOS/Thumbipuranamfacebookpage.
-Various competitions will also be organised.
Recent Related News:
On July 28, 2020, Kerala government announced a new scheme namely “Chief Minister’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme” to address the issues of shortage of working capital and availability of credit faced by startups and small entrepreneurs amid COVID-19 pandemic. The programme will be implemented through the Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC).
About World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India:
President– Jamshyd Naoroji Godrej
Secretariat– New Delhi
