ON SEPTEMBER 9, the Supreme Court ordered detergent company Nirma to file its reply to the show cause notice issued by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) within three months. MoEF had issued the notice in May, asking the company to explain within two weeks why the environmental …
The overpowering stench of municipal waste hits one hard on entering Boragaon. Women and children from the nearby squatter’s colony squabble over the garbage unloaded by trucks from Guwahati, the sprawling business hub of northeastern India and a million-plus city of Assam. A sole adjutant stork, an endangered bird, meditates …
We were standing at the edge of what looked like a swamp—grass and pools and streams. On one side was heavily barricaded land with high walls, barbed wires and armed security. A board read: East Coast Energy, Kakarapalli. This was where a bloody battle had taken place a few months …
Guwahati, the sprawling million plus city of north eastern India has grown at the cost of vital wetlands. While the rich legally bought the water-bodies, the poor ‘illegally’ encroached on them. With major storm water basins in the city disappearing, every monsoon, Guwahati reels under flashfloods. The June 22 police …
It has been six years since the July 26 deluge, but the fear of flood during monsoons still lingers among Mumbaikars. Especially among the residents of Mumbai’s western suburbs who have been facing severe waterlogging for the past six years. The city municipal corporation claims to be well prepared this …
This refers to the editorial “When business rules our kitchens” (June 16-30, 2011). Do we want to sensationalise the issue of poor food safety regulations and use big companies as a whipping boy or work on the solutions? How are we going to deal with the fundamental issue of feeding …
THE Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has asked detergent company Nirma to explain why the environmental clearance granted to its cement plant in Gujarat should not be revoked. The ministry issued a show cause notice to the company on May 11 after a report by a group of …
Immediately after school, 15-yearold Surendra Kumar rushes to the wheat fields running parallel to the main Chambal canal in Umaidganj village in Rajasthan’s Kota district. He begins his search for a pair of Saras Cranes and their two young ones—the crane family he has been tracking for four years now. …
THE Delhi government plans to set up a Waterbodies Authority for proper restoration and maintenance of lakes and wetlands in the city. The proposal to bring all waterbodies under one umbrella came up at a recent review meeting of waterbodies’ restoration work. Currently, lakes and wetlands in Delhi are under …
A village in Andhra Pradesh has become the epicentre of an eight-month-long fight against a power plant in neighbouring Kakarapalli. Following two deaths in police firing on February 28, people from 29 villages near the plant site thronged Vadditandra village in Srikakulam district to show support and mourn the deaths. …
The Supreme Court has ordered a new environmental study of the site where detergent company Nirma is setting up a cement plant. The site in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, is believed to be on wetlands. The March 18 decision came after Nirma moved an appeal in the Gujarat High Court against a …
CHECK LAND SHARKS ASAD RAHMANI, director Bombay Natural History Society The Government of India should enact a wetland conservation act, on the lines of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. But it should also consider the views of people dependent on wetlands. Millions of acres of village, semi-urban and urban wetlands …
Call it the fallout of rapid urbanisation or plain negligence of the authorities, groundwater in Dhaka is sinking at an alarming rate. According to a study by the Institute of Water Modelling in Dhaka in 2009, groundwater in the city is going down three metres every year. It has sunk …
AMID predictions by climate scientists that half the coastal marshes may not survive rising sea level, comes a glimmer of hope. A study published in Geophysical Research Letters in December says vegetated wetlands with high tidal ranges—remaining flooded for longer periods—and sediment concentration may survive sea level rise. The researchers …
THE Kerala Cricket Association’s plan to build a stadium designed to international specifications at Edakochi has run afoul of environmental laws. The state forest department has filed a first information report in a magistrate’s court saying the cricket association (KCA) has destroyed mangrove trees in preparation for the construction work. …
On July 14, two people were killed at Sompeta in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district when the police opened fire on protesters. The people were incensed at the Andhra Pradesh government allotting a tract of Sompeta’s wetland, or beela, to private firm Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC). The company plans to build …
A COMMITTEE set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has confirmed the existence of wetland at the thermal plant near Sompeta and the Bhavanapadu thermal plant site near Kakrapalli village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. The committee pointed out that the 2,640 MW proposed power plant …
FOLLOWING two deaths and a series of misreported facts, the National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA) cancelled the environment ministry’s clearance to a thermal power plant in Sompeta in coastal Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. Paryavaran Parirakshan Sangam, a non-profit organisation, had appealed to the appellate authority against the clearance on …
Ajay Sukumaran, BV Mahalakshmi Hyderabad/Sompeta: Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) on Tuesday said it is confident of reviving the controversial thermal power plant in Sompeta, Srikakulam, despite the National Environmental Appellate Authority (NEAA) quashing the clearance granted to the project. The company is awaiting a site report by the regional chief …
GOVERNMENT circles seem to abound with good intentions these days. Especially with respect to the environment. The drive to correct past mistakes has acquired extra zeal. For example, a new draft policy to regulate wetlands begins with the lament that the country has lost a third of its wetlands (see …
