Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. He was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament for Varanasi. Modi is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation. He is the first prime minister outside of the Indian National Congress to win two consecutive terms with a full majority and the second to complete five years in office after Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
A cheetah in India (Credit: Press Information Bureau) NEW DELHI (AP) - Seven decades after cheetahs died out in India, they’re back.Eight big cats from Namibia made the long trek Saturday in a chartered cargo flight to the northern Indian city of Gwalior, part of an ambitious and hotly contested plan to reintroduce cheetahs to the South Asian country.Then they were moved to their new home: a sprawling national park in the heart of India where scientists hope the world’s fastest land animal will roam again.RELATED: Huge 8-foot alligator carries new hatchlings in Oklahoma: videoIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the cats into their enclosure Saturday morning.
The cats emerged from their cage, tentatively at first while continuously scanning their new surroundings."When the cheetah will run again … grasslands will be restored, biodiversity will increase and eco-tourism will get a boost," said Modi.Cheetahs were once widespread in India and became extinct in 1952 from hunting and loss of habitat.
They remain the first and only predator to die out since India’s independence in 1947. India hopes importing African cheetahs will aid efforts to conserve the country’s threatened and largely neglected grasslands.There are less than 7,000 adult cheetahs left in the wild globally, and they now inhabit less than 9% of their original range.