Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
A BARREN hillock in Agali village in Kerala's Palakkad district is now verdant with forests worth lakhs of rupees, as a result of natural farming -- farming without any external inputs -- by two school-teachers, Vijayalakshmi and Balakrishnan. They have made 8 ha of degraded land cultivable through mulching, water …
FOR THE candidates of Bhopal (North) constituency, the area worst affected by the gas leak in 1984, relief for the victims seems to be a non-issue. Congress candidate Rasool Ahmad Siddique smugly declares voters are "satisfied with the relief they are getting" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ramesh Sharma …
THE EXPERIENCE of Kudumbam, a voluntary organisation based in Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai district, shows organic farming is more readily accepted by villagers when propagated by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) than by individual farmers. Kudumbam disseminates knowledge on organic farming through its Tamil monthly, Pasuthalir. With the help of the local …
GREEN issues came to the fore in several colonies of Delhi. But, for inexplicable reasons, metropolis-wide environmental issues such as the rapidly increasing air pollution, were ignored. Some of the city's otherwise articulate middle-class even accepted the problem of vehicular pollution as fait accompli. Says O P Sharda, president of …
ONE RARE case of an environmental issue spreading out and influencing an election campaign in two constituencies is that of Betwa river pollution in Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Vidisha and the Congress candidate for nearby Sanchi tried to cash in on the issue, cleverly using …
PASTORALISTS are a vanishing breed the world over. These herders of sheep and cattle have a key role to play in the rehabilitation and sustainable management of fragile ecosystems. India has 34 million pastoralists managing a livestock population of more than 50 million. Apart from producing milk, meat, leather and …
IN MANY agricultural ecosystems, manure is used to provide the nutrients and organic matter needed for soil fertility on cropland. Even where chemical fertilisers are available, organic matter such as that provided by manure is the key to sustainable cropping. Farmers and pastoralists often develop relationships centred around each other's …
CITIZENS' groups have flayed the World Bank's (WB's) new information policy -- Expanding Access to Bank Information (EABI) -- for keeping information in and people out. In a desperate attempt to shore up its sinking image and secure a $18 billion capital replenishment, WB had recently cobbled together the information …
HIV IS fast spreading its tentacles in India. According to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), more than 300 people have contacted AIDS since the first case was reported in India in 1986. It is feared that by the turn of the century, about five million persons in the country …
PARTY manifestoes have repeatedly shown that election promises come cheap. Green ones may come even cheaper. The Congress party's environmental concerns have been stressed in its election manifestoes since the mid-1970s. However, that has not stopped the party from presiding over heavy exploitation of India's forests and groundwater. Now, it …
IN INDIA, environment is hardly an election topic. No one expects political parties to make environment a plank and neither do most voters base their decisions on ecological promises. However, in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, the absence of a burning …
Simultaneous cultivation of several crops , using organic manures and pesticides, can raise productivity, says Karnataka's L Narayana Reddy. CATTLE urine fights pests such as white flies far more effectively than chemicals such as malathion; besides, dung manure doesn't lower paddy productivity, says organic farmer L Narayana Reddy, of Sorhanese …
RECENT Canadian studies suggest that hydroelectric power generation may, in some cases, be a major source of greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, and so be as polluting as thermal power generation (Ambio, Vol 22, No 4). The gases are produced, explain John W M Rudd of the …
THE PESTICIDES Association of India (PAI) and the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) are at loggerheads over a draft notification that includes pesticides in the list of products to be covered by the eco-mark scheme. The scheme labels products that are environment friendly. Though the MEF claims this will …
After reports of the success of cloud seeding in the US, Australia and the Philippines, Union agriculture minister Balram Jakhar has become a strong votary of the practice. "There is no reason why cloud seeding cannot become a major component of our dry-land farming programmes," he says. The Indian Council …
INHABITANTS of the vast Sahel desert need no longer wander in search of wood -- a scarce and consequently, expensive commodity in a desert -- when they construct a house. They can instead build woodless domed and vaulted roofs made entirely of mud, thanks to a technology developed by a …
NOT SO long ago, Ladakhis would have laughed at the idea of growing vegetables in winter when the mercury nosedives to about -300 C. Not any longer. The greening of the Ladakhi winter market has begun, as defence scientists successfully grow fresh green vegetables in greenhouses. Scientists believe greenhouse cultivation …
THE EXECUTIVE committee of the Ozone Fund -- an international fund instituted to replace ozone-depleting substances (ODS) -- has rejected India's request for a $2 billion grant to replace these substances by 2010. Northern donor countries felt India's plan lacked detailed information and also projected a ten-fold increase in ODS …
When a team of young French civil servants selected by the Paris-based Foundation Nationale Entreprise et Performance (FNEP) visited India in the second week of November, the media was quick to assume they had come to India with a technology offer. A press release from an apex industry organisation further …
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has entered into a technical collaboration with Nordex A/S of Denmark in a major effort to expand its wind-powered electricity generation equipment. BHEL has its eye on the plans of the Union ministry of non-conventional energy resources to install 800 MW of wind-generated electricity in …
