JFM in jeopardy
A proposal to regularise encroachments in forests creates a flutter
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Rehabilitating land
Innovative technology and consolidation ofscattered land holdings has made agriculture profitable in UP
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Widespread web
The threats from aerosols are all pervading
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Scieniists perfecting protein rich potato
SCIENTISTS have enhanced the nutritional value of the potato by inserting a synthetic gene into the plant and are now considering how to use genetic engineering to provide the plant with
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It's the greenest one
The Korean auto major leads the green bandwagon. But to outgrow the just above average status, it needs to accelerate its environmental performance
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Where cancer lurks
Incidence of leukaemia is higher among children when both the parents are migrants
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Exhausting alternatives
The Indian Parliament has passed legislation that promotes the use of vehicles using alternate fuel
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Picture imperfect
Aerosol research is still in its infancy. Further studies will reveal the definitive long term impact of these tiny particles
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Ringing in the trams
The Union ministry of surface transport is hardselling trams as the answer to the terrible traffic snarls in Indian cities
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Market pulse
Lahu Fale does not have to think twice about market availability, price and transportation when it comes to deciding which crops to grow. Now he and other farmers in Pune's Kolwan Valley can sell
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MONEYMAKERS
yummy utensils: Instead of wiping their dishes and bowls clean, people can now munch and chew them up after meals. A Taiwanese inventor, Chen Liang has launched edible containers made of wheat
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Waking up to old ways
Organic farming has found favour with agriculture officials and scientists.
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Sun lighting up the valley
Solar lighting systems have brightened up the gloomy winters of Himachal Pradesh s Mayad valley
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Have technology, will survive
A green agenda based on the paradigm of pollution prevention can rescue the small scale industry
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Forest right debate focusses on community vs individual
"Will I get rights to my ancestral land inside the forests?' asks Sur Suti from Sonebhadra district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The second convention of the National Forum of Forests People and Forest Workers (<font class="UCASE">nffpfw</font>), held from October 31 to November 3 in Ranchi, tried to answer this question while addressing the issue of granting forest-dwellers their rights over local resources. <br>
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Fuelling devilish debate
The CSE thesis of devil engines is simply deceptive. It is, to say the least, unbelievable that improved, pollution-controlled new technology engines and 0.05 per cent (50 parts per million) sulphur quality diesel are more lethal
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Ragged law, poor enforcement
Though the Salman Khan case is being actively prosecuted, and is in the public eye, this is no thanks to the legal, judicial and enforcement systems currently in place. There is a strong current
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Tragopan country
It's not often that a remote village finds a mention in government tourism brochures. Khonoma in Nagaland does. The village is not exactly an archetypal exotic destination. You have to withstand a two-hour, bone-rattling bus trip from Kohima to get there. But it's a trip worth taking if you are a wildlife enthusiast.
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Goa regional plan has public up in arms
After a delay of over six years, Goa has a 400-page blueprint for development. But the Goa Final Regional Plan 2011 has environmental groups, urban planners and the public up in arms. They want it to
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Landless farmers vs industrial workers
Land Policy Is the Asom Government violating its own land policy resolutions by taking up a policy of giving settlement of Government khas agricultural and ceiling surplus lands to the industrial workers ignoring the interest of the indigenous people of the State? By our Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Feb 21: This question has been raised by the Purbanchal Nagarik Samity (PNS), an apex body of various citizens' fora of upper Asom. The PNS is of the view that such a calculated step on the part of the State Government to deprive the indigenous agricultural workers has been motivated by its desire to appease the tea garden workers so as to get their support. Even though Asom has 69 lakh acres of agricultural land and 1.35 lakh acres of ceiling surplus land acquired till 1975, about 2.29 lakh agrarian families are completely landless and homeless, while 1.8 lakh families are with less than eight bighas of land and 2.86 lakh families are with less than five bighas of land till September, 1969. This was stated in the resolution of the Government Land Policy, 1972 published on July 21, 1972. According to the citizens' bodies, the State Government itself admitted in its policy paper in 1975 that the problem of landless cultivators was increasing day by day, while in the Government Land Policy of 1989 the Government lamented that during the last 16 years land settlement could not be given to genuine beneficiaries. Thus the Government has recommended for settlement of ceiling surplus lands to agriculturists expeditiously, they pointed out. "Although the State Government, in its 1989 Land Policy, banned the transfer of agricultural lands to non-agriculturists and industries, the Government itself has with impunity been violating its own land policy resolutions and taken up a policy of allotting Government khas agricultural and ceiling surplus lands to the industrial labourers since 2001,' the PNS resolution said. It also said that to expedite such settlement of land, the Government had also formed high-power committees in each district in March, 2007. "However, the poor indigenous agriculturists are left at the mercy of God even during calamities, with more than two lakh families being landless and homeless, and their number increasing every passing day,' said the resolution adopted at a meeting of the PNS in Dibrugarh. Though the land policy of 1968 itself declared a ban on transfer of agricultural lands to non-agriculturists, which was also repeated in the Land Policy Document of 1972, the Government officials have started issuing circulars to allot land to ex-tea garden workers, said Ajoy Baruah, joint secretary of the PNS and general secretary of the Dibrugarh Nagarik Sangha, while talking to The Sentinel. In this regard, Baruah pointed out the land policy adopted by the State Government in 1989 (published in the Assam Gazette on August 23, 1989), where it has been clearly stated: "All allotment of land for ordinary cultivation will be made with the indigenous landless cultivators, that is the persons who actually cultivate the land themselves.' The PNS further said the industrial labourers, who are neither contributors nor beneficiaries, and not residents of revenue villages, have been injudiciously included in the Panchayati Raj system. The PNS is of the opinion that such a step has further complicated the very concept of the Panchayati Raj. The apex body of the upper Asom citizens' fora, in an initiative to mobilize public opinion against the alleged injudicious policy adopted by the State Government, has taken a move to hold a State-level convention in association with the Asom Jatiya Mahasabha and the Senior Citizens' Council of Guwahati.