Thiruvananthapuram Zoo Welcomes Zebras After Nine Years as Samagratha Targets Disability Inclusion
Three zebras have arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram zoo from Gujarat's Vantara wildlife centre, ending a nine-year absence and coinciding with the Onam festival season in what State Health Minister K Muraleedharan called a gift to visitors. Separately, a new community initiative called Samagratha is taking shape in Kadinamkulam, a coastal ward of the city, where a ward-level pilot assessment has found that the number of residents living with disabilities may be more than double the figure recorded in the last official census. Together the stories capture Thiruvananthapuram's blend of festive public life and ground-up civic effort to reach overlooked communities.
Zebras Return to Thiruvananthapuram Zoo for First Time Since 2017
Three zebras arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram zoo from Gujarat's Vantara — formally the Greens Zoological, Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre — after a road journey of two and a half days. The new residents consist of two three-year-old females and a five-year-old male. They were transported in a specially equipped animal ambulance by a 13-member team led by a Vantara veterinary surgeon, while a police escort accompanied the convoy from the Keralam border to ensure an uninterrupted passage. The group reached Thiruvananthapuram at around 5.15 am on Thursday. The zoo had been without zebras since 2017, when a female named Sita — originally brought from the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur, Chennai in April 2002 — died of old age. State Health and Devaswom Minister K Muraleedharan described the arrivals as an Onam gift for zoo visitors, saying the timing during the festival season would make the animals a major attraction and calling it a matter of happiness that zebras could return after so many years. The minister made his remarks after personally opening the visitor entry area so the public could see the animals on the day of arrival. Zoo Superintendent T V Anil Kumar said the long-standing wish of children visiting the zoo to see zebras had at last been fulfilled, and authorities are exploring the possibility of naming all three animals. Zoo veterinary surgeon Dr Nikesh Kiran confirmed they were in good health apart from some fatigue from the long journey. They will undergo a 21-day open quarantine that will not prevent visitors from viewing them. [7]
🤝 Kadinamkulam's Samagratha Initiative Aims to Bridge Disability-Inclusion Gaps in Kerala
A disability-inclusion initiative called Samagratha is being launched in Kadinamkulam, a coastal ward in Thiruvananthapuram, in response to a striking gap between official data and the results of ground-level assessment. The last official census recorded approximately 1,500 persons with disabilities in Kadinamkulam, but a pilot assessment conducted in ward 16 by an organisation called Helping Hands found that the actual number may exceed 3,000 — more than double what census records show. The discrepancy suggests that many residents living with disabilities have not been counted in official enumeration, and may therefore be excluded from welfare programmes and support services that rely on census figures for eligibility. Samagratha is designed to close these gaps by moving beyond standard headcounts and conducting direct ward-level assessments that can produce a more accurate picture of disability prevalence across the area. The initiative treats Kadinamkulam as a model for how Kerala's coastal communities might better identify and reach persons with disabilities who have so far been missed by formal data-collection processes. Organisers hope that by building a clearer and more complete count, the programme can guide more effective delivery of health services, infrastructure support, and welfare outreach to disabled residents in the ward and, eventually, in similar communities across the state. [4]
Sources: [7] Deccan Herald · [4] The New Indian Express