• In a novel initiative, Bishnoi farmers in Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh districts of northern Rajasthan are providing drinking water for a large number of deer and blackbuck facing the intense heat this summer in the plains of the region.
• The farmers have dug about 70 troughs, many of them in their own agricultural fields, over a 60 sq. km. area, and filled them with water to quench the thirst of the wild ungulates.
• The Bishnoi community of Rajasthan is known for its beliefs associated with nature worship and wildlife conservation.

Bishnois

• The Bishnois, a Vaishnavite sect, living in western Rajasthan on the fringe of the Thar desert, have for centuries, been conserving the flora and fauna to the extent of sacrificing their lives to protect the environment.

• For these nature-loving people, protection of the environment, wildlife, and plants is a part and parcel of their sacred traditions.

• The basic philosophy of this religion is that all living things have a right to survive and share all resources.

• In the fifteenth century, Jambhoji, a resident of a village near Jodhpur, had a vision that the cause of the drought that had hit the area and hardship that followed was caused by people’s interference with nature.

• Thereafter, he became a sanyasi or a holy man and came to be known as Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj.

Source: The Hindu & Wiki