Woman footballer from back water to international field

Gulti Chowdhury, a girl of a remote Brahmacherra village in Tripura’s West district has made her village proud by acquiring a berth in the Indian women’s football team and representing the country twice.

Gulti, who happily joined the rough and tumble of playing football with boys in her teens is the sole woman international footballer of Tripura.
"I love to play football. So I played with boys, because girls did not play football in my village", she said

Born in a poor farmer’s family she was the youngest of five children she was brought up uncared, but had a dream of playing football for the country.

"My aim in life was to play football for country. So, I worked hard in the field and tried to play like a boy", she said.

Gulti was spotted as a footballer by Sunil Sarkar, Physical Instructor of Teliamura School in 1999 while playing an exhibition match at Khowai town.
“Ranjan sir selected me for his team New Millennium Soccer Club. This was turning point of my life", Gulti said.

Gulti played first time in Women Football Tournament at Agartala in 2000. Her daring foot work led to her being selected her as a member of Tripura team.

"When I got selection for state team, I set my target to represent our country. I was very confident of hitting the target”, the woman footballer said.
In 2005, Gulti was selected first time for Indian Junior team for Asian Women Football Tournament in Seoul, South Korea.

"I was delighted because it was my dream which came true. I can’t forget this moment of my life", Gulti added.

After two years, Gulti represented Indian Senior team for Asian Tournament in 2007. She Said. ‘I want to play for my country".

Vulture is extinct from Tripura

Agartala: Vulture which were seen in abundance in Tripura have now become extinct for about a decade due to scarcity of food, official sources said.

Deputy conservator of Forest, Prasenjit Biswas , who is also a famous ornithologist of the state said ,natures most effective cleaning machine has almost disappeared from the skyline of Tripura.

Biwas,who authored a book titled as The Last Flight of the Vulture said, “I have been watching birds for the last 20 years in the state, but, have not spotted a single vulture in last ten years.
Tripura had plenty of vultures earlier, he said adding many birds used to sit in the twigs of a tall tree near my house.

“The cause for disappearance of the feathered scavengers may be due to lack of food and human encroachment into their habitats,” he told

“Now they are not getting their natural foods because human bodies are hardly dumped in the open and animal carcasses are safely disposed off. This has deprived the vultures of their natural food”, he added.
Forest officials said not only in Tripura, the vulture population had declined by catastrophic 97 percent in the past decade throughout the world.

In Gujarat and Maharashtra, the domestic cattle’s are given a veterinary medicine-Declofena, along with diet. The vultures die when they consume the carcasses of such animals.

This fact came into light in 2001 when Gujarat and Maharashtra Government conducted a research , officials said.

However, Biswas said, Declofena is not used in Tripura, even as the vultures have disappeared from the skyline. He said , he is conducting further researches why vultures in the state faced extension.

The ornithologist said that due to consum on of carcasses effected by declofena, the shells of the eggs of vultures become thin and young birds die within the shell.

Large flocks of vultures used to be sighted on the vast Dammbur lake in South Tripura district as a good number of animal carcasses were available in the lake and adjacent deep forest .

The Sipahijala sanctuary in West Tripura district and Rudrasagar lake in Melaghar of the same district were the abodes of vultures, but no “Patient bird” is now sighted there.

Biswas said, Tripura Government had ventured for conservation breeding in Sipaheejala sanctuary two years ago, but adequate funds were not released by the Zoo Authority of India on the plea that one such project was launched at Pinjore at Haryana. Very recently, a pair of vulture was born at

Pinjore in captive breeding, Biswas said adding Royal Society for Protection of Birds have named those vultures as phoenix.