{"id":53864,"date":"2023-03-28T15:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2023\/mar\/28\/winged-messengers-how-first-class-pigeons-help-police-keep-indians-safe"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:00:09","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T06:00:09","slug":"winged-messengers-how-first-class-pigeons-help-police-keep-indians-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=53864","title":{"rendered":"Winged messengers: how first-class pigeons help police keep Indians safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since 1946, despite floods, cyclones and remote terrain, the birds have carried vital intelligence round Odisha state. Now the authorities want to clip their wings \u2026<\/p>\n<p>With social media and smartphones offering instant communications, the postcard and the telegram are virtually obsolete. But in India\u2019s eastern state of Odisha, police are working hard to preserve an even older practice \u2013 carrier pigeons.<\/p>\n<p>Used to carry messages between stations in remote regions and keep in touch with police units on the move, the police pigeons of Odisha also proved to be the only dependable method of communication during devastating floods in 1982 and a 1999 super-cyclone that caused widespread destruction in the coastal state. Indeed, the handlers say pigeon post helped save many lives.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2023\/mar\/28\/winged-messengers-how-first-class-pigeons-help-police-keep-indians-safe\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since 1946, despite floods, cyclones and remote terrain, the birds have carried vital intelligence round Odisha state. Now the authorities want to clip their wings \u2026With social media and smartphones offering instant communications, the postcard and the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2056,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,337,59,62,61,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-birds","category-global-development","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2056"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53865,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53864\/revisions\/53865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}