Overview
- Jairam Ramesh posted on X on Sunday, June 21, 2026, recalling that on a 1976 flight to Udaipur Indira Gandhi saw a Hindustan Times front-page photo and then met bird enthusiasts led by Harsh Vardhan.
- Ramesh said that sequence of events in 1976 prompted formal conservation steps, including the creation of the Desert National Park and the launch of focused programmes for the Great Indian Bustard.
- The Great Indian Bustard remains critically endangered and faces ongoing drivers of decline identified by Rajasthan officials: grassland conversion, human disturbance during breeding, and poaching.
- State and central responses include Rajasthan's Project Great Indian Bustard (launched 2013), the species' Schedule I legal protection, 2023 species recovery funding and planned conservation-breeding with technical support from the Wildlife Institute of India.
- The story recalls the bird's symbolic history — Salim Ali proposed it as a national bird in 1961 before the peacock was chosen in 1963 — and the renewed attention could increase pressure for stronger habitat protection and funding for recovery efforts.