GK update ~ change what the World believed since 1954 - associated with Andrew Scott Waugh ??

 

In Australia, Cricketer  Austin has decided to take a sabbatical from the game… .. Austin is only 21, and  has reportedly informed Sydney grade club Sutherland, where former Test great Glenn McGrath also played, that he intends to take a break from cricket to rediscover his passion for the game.  The news  assumes significance for his family name – he is Austin Waugh, son of legendary Steve Waugh.  Stephen Rodger Waugh AO   and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh represented Australia with great honours. .   Steve as captain from 1997 to 2004, led Australia to fifteen of their record sixteen consecutive Test wins, and to victory in the 1999 Cricket World Cup.  

Do you know the contribution of  Major General Sir Andrew Scott Waugh (1810 -1878) and the reason, he is in news now too !!

On Tuesday, the joint certification made by  Foreign Ministers of Nepal and China became a hot news as it changed what has commonly being spoken of, [a regular Quiz Q] since 1954.   The common declaration meant that the two countries have shed their long-standing difference in opinion.  Though it was announced jointly, China worked on it individually.  Nepal, in fact, had completed its mission early last year. The team of 120 (field workers and data analysts) was processing the data and computing results, which took four months, when the pandemic disrupted its work. The two sides subsequently signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly make public their results.  .. .. it is the new height of Mt. Everest

 

The world’s highest mountain peak Mount Everest is called Chomolungma in Tibetan and Sagarmāthā  in Nepali.  Mount Everest, located on the top of the world, attracts people.  Sagarmāthā is Earth's highest mountain. All along we have read that it’s  peak is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft).  Although more than 4,000 people have scaled the summit since Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953, hundreds have also perished.   Now the joint announcements puts the height of the Mountain peak to be  8848.86 meters (about 29,032 feet) ,  less than a meter higher than the previously recognized height.  Interesting to read that a Chinese measurement in 2005 had determined that the rock height of the summit – known as Chomolungmu and Sagarmartha in local languages - was 8,844.43 metres (29,017 feet), about 3.7 metres (11 feet) less than the 1954 estimate.

Everest is named after the colonial-era British surveyor George Everest, who never actually saw it. The new measurement will have little practical impact. K2, the world’s second highest mountain, is 237 metres lower. The reason why the newly agreed figure may be temporary is because the 2,900km-long Himalayan chain is located on, and was formed by, the uplift caused by the colliding Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are continuing to push up the Himalaya at an average of 1cm every year.

Nepal, which is home to another seven of the world’s 14 highest peaks, sent its first team of surveyors in May last year to measure Everest. Government officials stated that  eight years ago that they felt under pressure from China to accept the Chinese height and therefore they had decided to go for a fresh measurement to “set the record straight once and for all”. Chinese surveyors then climbed the peak in spring this year, when the mountain was closed by both countries for other climbers due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the new figures, the tip of the world's tallest peak is now 29,031.7 feet above sea level. This new official figure is slightly higher than Nepal's previous measurement, and about 13 feet higher than China's earlier stand.

Foreign ministers of China and Nepal - Wang Yi and Pradeep Gyawali, respectively - had simultaneously pressed buttons during a virtual conference, post which the new measurement was displayed on the screens. After a major earthquake hit Nepal in 2015, there had been debates regarding the height of the mountain. The natural calamity that had destroyed about a million structures in Nepal and caused 9,000 fatalities, was also believed to have shrunk Mt. Everest owing to an avalanche on the mountain, which also took 19 lives.

There was no doubt that Everest would remain the highest peak because the second-highest, Mount K2, is "only" 28,244 feet high. Mt Everest's height was first determined by a team of British surveyors around 1856 as 29,002 feet. The most accepted figure however, has been 29,028 feet, which was determined by the Survey of India conducted in 1954.  

"This is a milestone in mountaineering history which will finally end the debate over the height, and now the world will have one number," said Santa Bir Lama, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, welcoming the end of confusion over the mountain's height. China's Xinhua New Agency quoted President Xi as saying that the two countries were also committed to jointly protecting the natural environment around Everest, while also furthering and cooperating in scientific research.

No other mountain has perhaps been the subject of as much debate. Over the years, there have been debates on issues like whether it should be “rock height”, or whether the snow cladding it, too, should be accounted for.  The  earlier measurement of 8,848 m  was determined by the Survey of India in 1954, using instruments like theodolites and chains, with GPS still decades away. The elevation of 8,848 m came to be accepted in all references worldwide — except by China.  

New Zealand, which shares a bond with Nepal over the mountain, provided technical assistance. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first climber on the peak along with Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay in May 1953, worked as the mountain’s undeclared brand ambassador to the world. In May 2019, the New Zealand government provided Nepal’s Survey Department (Napi Bibhag) with a Global Navigation Satellite, and trained technicians. Christopher Pearson, a scientist from University of Otago, travelled to Nepal on a special assignment.  

To conclude by answering the Q on Waugh - Major General Sir Andrew Scott Waugh (1810 –  1878) was a British army officer and Surveyor General of India who worked in the Great Trigonometrical Survey. He served under Sir George Everest and succeeded him in 1843. Waugh established a gridiron system of traverses for covering northern India. Waugh is credited with naming the peak of Mount Everest after his predecessor George Everest who never actually saw it. 

Colonial vestige !  ~  interesting !!

 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

8.12.2020

naked aggression of China - Indian soldiers killed at Galwan

Sad ! ~ lives of Indian soldiers lost by brazen aggression of a Nation always looking bloody.  To them war is an act of senseless passion coupled with political objective.  This Nation lost 14 million people of their Nation in WW 2, yet continues to be blood thirsty. Covid 19 emanated from its place, WHO was careful enough to name it in such a fashion that it does not reflect the place, the Nation or anything else and continued issuing false statements on Corona virus.

In civilized World too, there are ‘Rogue states’ – the ones that are to be outlawed for threatening global peace. In WW II, the scale of China’s involvement was massive. Chiang, for example, fielded four million troops, while China as a whole lost an estimated 14 million in the war. Had China folded, Japan’s capacity to fight the U.S. or even the Soviets would have been vastly amplified.  On the Chinese side, after 1949 when the civil war was over, the Nationalists had been exiled to Taiwan, and Mao was victorious on the mainland, it rewrote  a virgin history in the mainland of China—that the only people who had made a contribution to fighting and defeating the Japanese were the Chinese communists.

It is never a peaceful State nor the one that wants peace.  Now Xinfadi food market puts China’s capital city in a “wartime” contingency mode. Over 100 cases have now been traced back to the sprawling wholesale market since Thursday after the city had previously gone 55 days without a locally transmitted case. But rather than taking care of their own people, leave alone trying to contain it within the country, the rogue Nation is trying to get involved in another skirmish.

The Galwan River flows from the Aksai Chin region to Ladakh of India. It originates in the area of Samzungling on the eastern side of the Karakoram range and flows west to join the Shyok River.  It is named after a Ladakhi explorer from Leh, who first explored the course of the river. In 1899, he was part of a British expedition team that was exploring the areas to the north of the Chang Chenmo valley, when he ran into this previously unknown river valley.

A very sad day for the Nation.  Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off" with Chinese troops at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, the army said on Tuesday, in the most serious escalation between the two countries along the border in five decades. News agency ANI claimed that sources had confirmed 43 Chinese soldiers have been killed or seriously injured because of intercepts, though the army's statement did not refer to this. A statement in the morning that confirmed the death of a Colonel and two jawans spoke of "casualties on both sides". India blamed the clashes on "an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there", rebutting China's claims that Indian soldiers crossed the border.

Colonel B Santosh Babu of the Bihar regiment, Havildar Palani and Sepoy Ojha laid down their lives for India, the army confirmed earlier on Tuesday. "17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty at the stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries. Indian Army is firmly committed to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation," the army's fresh statement said.

For more than six weeks, soldiers from both sides have been engaged in a stand-off on at least two locations along the Line of Actual Control -- the 3,488 km de-facto boundary between India and China, and rushed additional troops to the border. They have been facing each other at the Galwan River, which was one of the early triggers of the 1962 India-China war, and at the Pangong Tso -- a glacial lake at 14,000 feet in the Tibetan plateau.

Since 1975, this was the first casualties for India due to a clash with the PLA. In 1975, Indian Patrol was ambushed by the Chinese troops in Arunachal Pradesh in 1975. The he three Service Chiefs, Defence Minister Rajnath reviewed the current operational situation in Eastern Ladakh. During the meeting, the external affairs minister S Jaishankar was also present. The area where the troops of both sides are confronting is the first time since 1962. Though the LAC is clearly defined here, this is the first time that tensions are brewing in Eastern Ladakh.

In 1962, China attacked India across the eastern and northern borders. And the construction of a road between Xinjiang and Tibet was the trigger for this. Around 179 km of this highway which passes through Aksai Chin in the Indian Territory is better known as G219. The road the Chinese had built then was without India’s consent. And since the Chinese wanted to control any movement by the Indian Army from West to East, mountain passes are required to go across the mountain ranges. And the Chinese have also ensured that the LAC goes through the highest Crestline and also which is located to the west. This means that India does not control dominating heights and there is more depth which stretches between LAC and the Chinese G219 highway.

The Galwan river is the highest ridgeline and it allows the Chinese to dominate the Shyok route passes, which is close to the river. Chinese are keen on controlling this area as they fear that the Indian side could end up threatening their position on the Aksai Chin plateau by using the river valley. India is trying to construct a feeder road emanating from Darbuk-Shyok Village – Daulat Beg Oldi road (DS-DBO road). This road runs along the Shyok River and is the most critical line of communications close to LAC. It comes up Patrol Point 14 (PP14).

The Sino-Indian War, also known as the Indo-China War and Sino-Indian Border Conflict, was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. Chinese military action grew increasingly aggressive after India rejected proposed Chinese diplomatic settlements throughout 1960–1962, with China re-commencing previously-banned "forward patrols" in Ladakh. China  abandoned all attempts of peaceful resolution on 20 October 1962, invading disputed territory along the 3,225 kilometre- (2,000-mile-) long Himalayan border in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line. Much of the fighting took place in harsh mountain conditions, entailing large-scale combat at altitudes of over 4,000 metres (14,000 feet).  The Sino-Indian War was also notable for the lack of deployment of naval and aerial assets by either China or India.

37,244 square kilometres of land. That’s almost Bhutan, almost Kerala, almost Manipur and Nagaland put together. That’s Aksai Chin, the north-eastern end of India’s crown under Chinese occupation for many decades now, the first move made much before the Sino-Indian war of 1962.  Sixty one  years ago, Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had informed the nation, belatedly, about what the Chinese had been up to in Aksai Chin, “where not even a blade of grass grows”. Making a statement in Lok Sabha on August 28, 1959 (Jawaharlal Nehru: Selected Speeches, Volume 4, by Publications Division), Nehru said: “There is a large area in eastern and north-eastern Ladakh which is practically uninhabited. It is mountainous, and even the valleys are at an altitude generally exceeding 13,000 feet. To some extent, shepherds use it during the summer months for grazing… The Government of India have some police check-posts in this area but, because of the difficulties of terrain, most of these posts are at some distance from the International Border.”

Photo at the start - Rifleman Jaswant Singh Rawat's statue at the Jaswantgarh memorial in Arunachal Pradesh. He was awarded the Mahavir Chakra. (Photograph: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com)

Paying homage to Indian soldiers – Jai Jawan !

With grief and profound sadness

S. Sampathkumar

17.6.2020.

Google Doodle celebrates first woman climber of Mount Everest

The obvious reference is today’s Google doodle. 

Is it really a Sport – certainly one of a physical pursuit demanding an affinity for suffering. Where it is cerebral is in its requirement of good judgment, most importantly in extreme situations when the mind is most clouded and consequences of bad decision-making tend to multiply.  Considering the level of  risks of what the participants call the objective level, it  involves assessing dangers one may encounter – weather, avalanches, poor rock, and many unthought of ! – really very tough challenges experienced and willfully pursued  by mankind.  .. .. it is conquering Mount Everest called ‘mountaineering’ !

The world’s highest mountain peak Mount Everest is called Chomolungma in Tibetan and Sagarmāthā  in Nepali.  Mount Everest, located on the top of the world, attracts people.  Sagarmāthā is Earth's highest mountain. Its peak is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft)  ~ although more than 4,000 people have scaled the summit since Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953, hundreds have also perished.  Statistics reveal that scaling Everest is much easier than it used to be. In 1990 just 18 per cent of summit attempts were successful, but in 2012 that figure was 56 per cent.

Turning the annals of History, in  1856, the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 29,002 ft (8,840 m). In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon recommendation of Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India at the time, who named it after his predecessor in the post, and former chief, Sir George Everest. It is stated that Waugh was unable to propose an established local name !  but why he chose not to name the Tibetan or Nepali name ? – remember the others Kangchenjunga, Dhaulagiri etc.,  the name Chomolungma,  reportedly appears on a 1733 map published in Paris.  It had been the practice to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation but the highest peak was given a British name, despite the fact it could not be written in native languages.

The highest mountain in the world  has challenged climbers – it is stated that technically climbing  K2 or Nanga Parbat are more difficult. Yet, Hundreds have perished unable to complete the expedition.  The last days of Mount Everest’s spring window for 2019 witnessed the deaths of 11 climbers. Images of hundreds of mountaineers queuing to reach the summit and reports of climbers stepping over dead bodies dismayed people around the world, many wondering how human beings had got it so wrong.  After the conquest of Annapurna and Everest in the 1950s, mountaineering became popular among the more privileged. But in the past two decades, mountaineering has taken on a increasingly commercial angle with disastrous results.

New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese guide, Tenzing Norgay, were the first people confirmed to have reached the top of Everest, in 1953. In the decades that followed, only the most experienced climbers set out for the summit, often after years of training. But the 1990s brought the commercial era to the mountain—with catastrophic results at times. Hundreds of people have died over the years.  Some recent climbers have stated that climbing Everest is climbing over dead bodies.  It’s not hard to see why. As the expedition company Seven Summit Treks advertises: “If you want to experience what it feels like to be on the highest point on the planet and have strong economic background to compensate for your old age and your fear of risks you can sign up for the VVIP Mount Everest Expedition Service.” You need the “strong economic background” because it will cost you $130,000. There are less expensive ways to climb Everest, but they all start with the $11,000 fee that the Nepalese government charges for a permit.  There cannot be any objection to Nepal Govt seeking revenue   from wealthy foreign climbers. But even with the best support money can buy, in the thin air above 8,000 meters, people die  ~ there are at least 200 bodies still on the mountain, some in crevasses, others buried by avalanches.

The photograph of a traffic jam of climbers leading to the summit of Mount Everest in May went viral, evidence of the mountain’s surging appeal among thrill-seekers and the overcrowding that has caused deaths and pollution. The photographer — Nirmal Purja, known as Nims — is a Nepali mountaineer who has been on a journey to climb the world’s tallest peaks in rapid succession, showcasing local climbers as central actors in the history of Himalayan feats. He and his all-star Sherpa team call the mission Project Possible, with a goal of summiting all 14 of the world’s peaks higher than 8,000 meters (a little more than 26,000 feet) in seven months. So far, since beginning in April, he has climbed 11 of them, sometimes reaching the top of mighty peaks like K2 and Broad Peak in the span of a weekend, something that took previous generations of mountaineers months, if not years, to accomplish.  Sadly, this year overcrowding on the mountain caused human traffic jams along the narrow ridge leading to the top, contributing to the high death toll.

Today Google celebrates 80^th birthday of a woman who was the first to scale Mount Everest. Her group  used the same route to ascend the mountain that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had taken in 1953. In early May, the group was camping at 6,300 meters when an avalanche struck their camp. The women and their guides were buried under the snow. Tabei lost consciousness for approximately six minutes until her sherpa guide dug her out. Twelve days after the avalanche, on 16 May 1975, with her sherpa guide, Ang Tsering, Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest.

Even though Junko Tabei was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, the Japanese mountaineer was never comfortable with that distinction. "I was the 36th person to climb Everest," she told Sports Illustrated in 1996. She was also the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, reaching the highest peaks on each of the seven continents in 1992. Although she was the first to summit Everest, it's apparently for the latter achievement that Google is honoring Tabei on this  Sunday with an animated Doodle on her 80th birthday. For almost as long as Google has been around, it's livened up its bare-bones search page with artwork that draws attention to notable people, events, holidays and anniversaries. It typically embellished the letters in its Doodle with other objects that resemble the letters, but this time the six letters in Google have been replaced with seven peaks being conquered by a cartoon version of Tabei.

Born on this day in Miharu, Fukushima, in 1939, Tabei began climbing at the age of 10, even though she was considered a frail child. In 1969, she founded a women's climbing club after being treated poorly by male mountaineers, some of whom refused to climb with her. The club's slogan was "Let's go on an overseas expedition by ourselves."  In 1975, she defied Japanese societal norms again when she left her young daughter with her husband while she traveled to Nepal to lead a group climbing Everest. "Back in 1970s Japan, it was still widely considered that men were the ones to work outside and women would stay at home," Tabei told the Japan Times in 2012. "Even women who had jobs -- they were asked just to serve tea. So it was unthinkable for them to be promoted in their workplaces.

But her greatest hurdle on the journey came when she was pinned under four climbing companions by an avalanche at their camp more than 20,000 feet up the mountain. She lost consciousness for about six minutes before her Sherpa guides dragged her out of the snow by her ankles. "As soon as I knew everyone was alive, I was determined to continue," she told SI. Her injuries prevented her from being able to stand until two days after the avalanche, but 12 days after the disaster, Tabei would become the first woman to stand on the Earth's highest peak.

She stayed active in the climbing community for the rest of her life, focusing her energies on the environmental damage Everest suffers from waste left behind by climbers and participating in many climbs designed to clean up that litter. In all, Tabei climbed 69 major mountains in more than 60 countries and continued to climb after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. She died four years later, on Oct. 20, 2016, at the age of 77.

Salute her spirit of adventure .. and her accomplishment of conquering Mount Everest

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

22^nd Sept. 2019

Kathmandu does well ~ to pay bonus !!

The Licchavis were the most famous clan amongst the ruling confederate clans of the VajjiMahajanapada of ancient India. Vaishali (a city in modern-day northern Bihar) the capital and homeland of the Licchavis, was the capital of the Vajjimahajanapada also. It was later occupied by Ajatashatru, who annexed the Vajji territory into his kingdom.  Kautilya in his Arthaśāstra, describes the Licchavis as a tribal confederation (gaṇasangha), whose leader uses the title of rājā(rājaśabdopajīvinah). The beautiful land of Nepal, the gateway to Himalayas (Mount Everest !)

Their website reads :  -  when we opened our first store in 1987, Kathmandu was a small specialist outdoor retailer, manufacturing many of our own products. We drew inspiration from our customers: people who saw themselves as travellers, not tourists; people who saw the outdoors as an invitation, rather than something to fear or conquer. We wanted to encourage our customers to get out and explore what the world has to offer – to Live the Dream – and designed products to give people the confidence to go anywhere in the world, whether they are intrepid explorers or backyard enthusiasts. During the 1990s, our focus on design intensified: we became a leader in designing products that are original, sustainable, engineered and adaptive.

It is that of Kathmandu Holdings Limited is a transnational chain of retail stores, selling travel and adventure outdoor apparel and equipment. Kathmandu is a leading retailer of clothing and equipment for travel and adventure in New Zealand, Australia and the UK.   Not sure of the reasoning of the name - Kathmandu was founded by John Pawson and Jan Cameron in 1987 following their sale of the ALP Sports Clothing label. The company set up its first retail outlets in Australia whilst manufacturing most of its original clothing range in New Zealand.  The company was in 2006 fully acquired by an Australasian private equity company and it was listed on the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges in 2009. 

Kathmandu is the capital city of Nepal.   Kathmandu is also the largest metropolis in the Himalayan hill region. Nepali is the most spoken language in the city which  stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) above sea level in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley of central Nepal.  Kathmandu is and has been for many years the centre of Nepal's history, art, culture and economy.  Tourism is an important part of the economy. The city is the gateway to the Nepalese Himalayas, and home to seven world heritage sites; the Durbar Squares of Hanuman Dhoka, Patan and Bhaktapur, the Stupas of Swayambhunath and Baudhanath, and the temples of Pashupati and Changu Narayan. Historic areas of Kathmandu were devastated by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on 25th April 2015 and have since been reconstructed mostly.

The reason for this post is the news of bonus I read in NZ Herald.  Kathmandu Holdings is eyeing further expansion into the Northern Hemisphere following a record year in earnings and successfully acquiring Oboz Footwear. The outdoor equipment and clothing retailer posted a net profit after tax of $50.5 million for the 12 months ended July 21, up 32.9 per cent, or $12.5m, from the previous year. Sales increased by 11.7 per cent to $497m, and its gross profit increased by 14.2 per cent to $315.5m.  more importantly, Kathmandu is going to pay 1800 of its permanent staff a bonus of $1,000. The company employs 2000 staff.

Still a senior analyst  said the Christchurch-based company could have paid its staff a greater bonus. "A $2 million impact in earnings is very small," he said. "They still delivered a stellar result as well as a higher dividend with shareholders so they could have shared a little bit more of that with staff, which really is a key part of the customer experience."  It is stated that  Kathmandu's full-year earnings were a record result, offset from a turnaround in the Australian business.

~ one keeps reading such articles, day-dreaming something for their own !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

18^th Sept. 2018

Aavin ~ Swiss cows ... and cows climbing Alps

Those now in middle ages [ read closer or above 50s], would remember the olden days scramble for milk in the morning. In the mid 1970s was the paradigm shift in the city of Chennai to pasteurized milk.  Not sure whether Aavin was as modernized as it is now – the process (not of manufacture) of getting it home was arduous. Each street had a milk booth or two.  Aavin milk van would come early in the morning, the attendant at the booth would unload and nap for a few more minutes. Around 0500 am, there would a big queue lined before each booth. Each had to carry either the empty bottle as replacement for the milk in bottle or carry a utensil, into which the milk from the bottle would be poured.  Specially made milk crate would contain 20 bottles and crates would often be handled roughly resulting in breakages- domestic consumers carried specially made iron carriers which would house3 / 4/ more bottles – contraptions making lives easier.  .. .. and on those days, when the van broke down or was late, people loitered angrily – frustration of not having the morning coffee yet !!   ~  and do you know the price of 1 ltr of Aavin milk today ??

Milk is a popular dietary staple – we here take buffalo milk and sometimes that of cow.   Sources of milk and milk products include cows, sheep, camels, goats, and others. Alternative sources that do not involve animals include soy, coconut, almond, flax, rice, and hemp.  Of late, there is much talk of  “A-2 milk” !!   -  A2 milk is cow's milk that mostly lacks a form of β-casein proteins called A1 and instead has mostly the A2 form.  Its protagonists now state that  milk containing A1 proteins is harmful.  On search, it is read that thousands of years ago all milk had just the A2 protein. Even today Asian and African cows, goat, sheep, buffalo, and even human milk are A2.  A mutation led to Western cows evolving with an added A1 protein and they now dominate.

Rearing cow is not all that easy ~ the no. of cows in Triplicane have dwindled, but those on streets have increased !  -  miles away, as  parched pastures force farmers across Europe to purchase expensive feed crops for their hungry herds, a Swiss dairy association may have part of the answer: smaller beasts. New Swiss Cow, a group advising about 100 farmers, is trying to reverse 50-year-old push for bigger animals in Switzerland, which it says was based on the false premise they would boost economic output by producing more milk. While it’s true the livestock long favored by Swiss farmers churn out more milk, smaller cows do it more efficiently by using proportionately less feed and space, according to the association. They also require fewer visits from the vet than their genetically-enhanced cousins, New Swiss Cow said. “Cows bred for maximum milk output are more expensive than smaller cows, as they need more space in the shed, more fodder and are more prone to diseases,” said a person from  New Swiss Cow.

Since the 1960s, Swiss cows have bulked up to as much as 800 kilograms (1,764 pounds) by using semen from American bulls, some of which originally came from central Switzerland. Almost half the nation’s 537,000-strong dairy herd are fawn-spotted Simmental, which were crossbred with U.S. Red Holstein. That crossbreeding helped to more than double the average annual output per animal to 7,400 liters (1,955 gallons), according to the producers association Swiss Milk.  Still, smaller animals of 500 to 600 kilograms can produce a proportionally greater 6,000 to 7,000 liters of milk, according to New Swiss Cow’s Martin Huber, who teaches at a farming institute in Salenstein, near Lake Constance. That rationale applies to other breeds of cow and beyond Switzerland’s borders, he said.

However, in addition to the economics, there’s another reason big isn’t always beautiful in Switzerland, according to the country’s main farmers’ union. Lighter cows can more easily reach alpine pastures, said Sandra Helfenstein, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Farmers’ Union. “The ideal cow looks different in every country,” said Helfenstein. “Every farmer tries to maximize food utilization and with three-quarters of Swiss land being grassland, having to import concentrated feed is leading to higher costs.”  Building further on that, one would be ‘udderly’ surprised to encounter a Simmental or Braunvieh running up the steps of New York’s One World Trade Center or Shanghai’s equally tall World Financial Center.  But that’s the kind of climb – albeit on dirt trails not concrete steps – a typical Swiss dairy cow makes every summer.  According to the Federal Office for Agricultureexternal link, around 270,000 cows are marched from their valley farms to mountain meadows at the start of every summer, just to come back down again in early autumn.

 On average they climb about 590 metres (1,936 ft), covering 16.3 kilometres (10.1 miles) as the crow flies – but much more down on the ground on often steep, serpentine trails. The true alpinists among them make ascents of over 2,000 metres. That’s like getting to the top of the world’s highest building, Dubai’s 830-metre Burj Khalifa, and – not satisfied with that – going back down and doing it all over again, and then some.  Dairy farmers have incentives to herd their cattle high. On the one hand, they get top dollar for the aromatic “Alp cheese” produced from the milk of their livestock. From June to early September, alpine pastures serve up a smorgasbord of hundreds of different grasses and herbs for the cows to graze on. That’s compared with only a few dozen types lower down in the valley.

The government also encourages farmers to take their cattle up the mountain by rewarding them with a subsidy of around CHF400 ($412) per cow each summer. The postcard alpine landscape of extensive pastures is an integral part of Switzerland’s heritage. The rearing of cattle became the dominant form of agriculture in the Alps as early as the 14th century. It’s probably not a coincidence that the process to make cheese hard was discovered in this period, which meant for the first time that cheese could be transported over long distances. The subsidies granted to alpine farmers therefore are aimed partly at preserving this centuries-old tradition of pastoral life and preventing the pastures from becoming forests.

But let’s not pretend the cows do all the work. Herdsmen and women tend to the livestock, driving them out to pasture after the break-of-dawn milking and rounding them up in the late afternoon for a second milking. Making cheese from the liquid bounty fills much of the day in between. On average the men and women work 14-hour days, seven days a week, and are paid as little as CHF70 a day for their labour – about a third of the average Swiss salary. It’s the dream of many Swiss to spend the summer in the fresh mountain air on an “Alp” (mountain pasture), milking cows and making cheese. It’s not unusual to find doctors, lawyers and teachers among those signing up for a crash course in herding and cheese making.  But once they drive their cattle back down the valley after a hard summer on the Alp, they often choose not to go back up again the following year.

The cows aren’t given a choice.  In case you still remember the start and hazard a guess on Aavin milk price for 1 ltr – beware that it comes in 4 varieties and here is the price.

Milk Variety	Colour	Price
Toned Milk	Blue	37
Standardised	Green	41
Full Cream	Orange	45
Double toned	Magenta	34

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

Thanks to : www.swissinfo.ch