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 …
VARIOUS studies indicate that the risk of contracting AIDS during receiving or providing dental treatment is negligible because in the past decade worldwide, only 5 patients -- and all from a single dental practice -- are known to have become infected by dentists and only 2 dental care staff out …
The Kerala government decided constructing the Ambalur-Keecheri dam in Ernakulam district would remedy the decline in paddy production. Instead, the dam has accelerated damage to the crop. The dam was intended to prevent inflow of saline water from Vembanad lake, which was supposedly lowering crop yields. But agricultural experts now …
DUGONGS, a marine mammal that inspired the mermaid legends of ancient seafarers, may soon vanish from Indian waters if their large-scale slaughter is not stopped in Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. Sea cows, as they are also known, are believed to number a mere 100 now. Despite the …
GORGED by monsoon rains, the Ganga flows unpredictably in the winter creating pockets of land on the Bihar-Uttar Pradesh border, which frequently trigger violent conflict between cultivators on either side of the river. This year, tension was marked in March, especially in the adjoining districts of Ballia in UP and …
A NON-SCIENTIFIC approach and closed-door decision-making in the sanctioning of grants, are blamed for hampering scientific research in India -particularly in government laboratories. This is one of the findings in a recent study of the problems of Jllanagement of scientific research, conducted by the National Institute of Science, Technology and …
When the turbine generator unit of the Narora atomic power plant caught fire on March 31, the department of atomic energy was quick to boast about the efficient working of the plant's indigenously-developed safety systems. The 220-mw plant in Uttar Pradesh is equipped with two safety systems; one shuts down …
DELIVERANCE for the World Bank (WB) could be damnation for the Indian government. When India surprisingly announced on March 30 that it would reject WB aid of Rs 500 crore for the Rs 13,000-crore Sardar Sarovar project, some observers commented the WB had arm-twisted India into refusing its funds for …
EVEN WHILE the government is privatising and cutting subsidies, paper and forest-based industries are about to receive in response to their clamouring the biggest bankroll of all: natural wealth. At a recent seminar in Delhi on raw material supply for these industries, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) hinted …
AN ANSWER to the country's deepening energy crisis could be biogas, which besides being a non-polluting energy source, also provides enriched manure and improves local sanitation and health standards. Biogas consists largely of methane gas and it is produced through the anaerobic fermentation of cattle dung and other organic wastes. …
1931: The British government proposes a plan for development of the Narmada valley. 1961: Jawaharlal Nehru lays the foundation stone of the Sardar Sarovar project. 1969: A Narmada tribunal is set up to decide water distribution. 1974: At Indira Gandhi's behest, Rajasthan is given 1,215 million cubic metres (cum) and …
STRUTTING and swimming through the Antarctic, some emperor penguins are working on a scientific mission: monitoring the sea resources of the polar region. Every winter, emperor penguins -- the largest of the species -- travel long distances searching for food in open water, called polynias, that punctuate the sea ice. …
AT THE World Bank (WB) executive committee meeting in October 1992, held to decide future funding for the Sardar Sarovar project, the opinions expressed were in three main categories: China, Libya and Kuwait felt the WB should continue funding and reject a report by Bradford Morse, a former US senator …
AN AMERICAN satellite has provided firm evidence that cosmic rays -- showers of energised particles from space that bombard the earth from all directions -- are produced within earth's own galaxy -- the Milky Way. Speculation was rife on whether these radiations emanated from within the Milky Way or outside …
MOTIVATED by the need for a holistic understanding of the impact of human activity on the earth's natural phenomena, scientists in the last decade have been studying the earth as an entire system, focussing their attention on large-scale physical and biotic (related to living things) interactions. The pursuit of this …
TWENTY years ago, the people of the remote Garhwal village of Mandal decided to resist commercial felling of the trees on which they depended for their basic needs. Their resistance soon spread to other parts of Garhwal and Kumaon, where local pressures on the area's limited grazing resources had reduced …
What happened in your village in 1980? The horticulture department got 10 ha in 1978 or 1979 -- I can't remember exactly when -- from Shyam Singh Bhandari, the village pradhan, to build a seed farm for potatoes and apples. This was a part of our forest of oak, rhododendron, …
THIS IS the scam of all scams. The fat and pampered paper industry, which has thrived because it gets forest resources at throwaway prices, is crying out hoarsely for yet another subsidy: cheap forest land for plantations. The industry proposal must be denounced as extremely anti-poor, anti-environment and a blatant …
CHIPKO was the culmination of a century of popular resistance to commercial forestry in the Uttarakhand Himalaya. And its timing was right. Unlike past movements, Chipko's underlying message was already part of a major public debate. At both national and global levels, Chipko helped to consolidate incipient awareness that deforestation, …
WHENEVER a dictionary of green terms is written, even if it is in English, it will contain at least one Hindi word. And that word is Chipko. The idea that people are prepared to hug trees to save them from being felled excited and enthused so many people across the …
NALINI Singh has made a highly successful career as a television crusader by walking on the thin edge of the permissible. No wonder Doordarshan gives her space -- she lends them credibility. Singh exposes social ills without criticising the government and covers government programmes with enough implicit criticism to make …
