Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of News Item titled "2 killed in blast at illegal cracker unit in Thanjavur appearing in The Hindu dated 19.05.2025". The application is registered suo-motu on the basis of the news item titled 2 killed in blast at illegal cracker unit …
France has 58 million people living in 22 regions, 96 departments (counties) and 36,000 municipalities, varying in population size from 100 to 2 million. Two-thirds of the municipalities have less than 500 inhabitants and so several municipalities are grouped into boards to deal with, for example, management of water or …
• Denmark's fourth-largest city, Alborg, has groundwater so pure it can be pumped directly into homes. But the supply from the Drastrup underground reserve is threatened by contamination and local officials are trying to solve this problem by encouraging users of the land to change their ways. Drastrup authorities did …
A SERIES of explosions in China's economic boomtown of Shenzhen is the latest proof of the country's dismal industrial safety record. About 70 persons died as the blasts ignited the eight warehouses at a depot owned by Anmao Dangerous Goods Shipping & Storage and the resulting explosions resembled a giant …
DESPITE its travails, pregnancy is commonly perceived as a delicate give-and-take between a woman and the embryo she carries. But now David Haig, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University in Boston, challenges this view by suggesting that conception is a long evolutionary struggle between the mother and the foetus. Says …
IS THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), proponent of saffron Hindutva, turning green? In Maharashtra, the party recently led two anti-pollution agitations that have impressed even the BJP's opponents, save the ruling Congress, which dismissed the protests as an "unnecessary politicisation" of environmental issues. Both campaigns targeted new industrial projects -- …
EVEN THOUGH the profits are small, miners in search of a quick buck are exploiting coral reefs all over the Indian Ocean, causing immense damage to the marine ecology. The problem is particularly severe in Sri Lanka, where 10,000 tonnes of live coral and coral fragments are hauled ashore each …
Nearly a decade after N C Mehta filed a public interest petition for the closure of industrial units in Agra, whose atmospheric pollutants he alleged were damaging the Taj Mahal, the Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in his favour. This is Mehta's second victory in less than six months -- …
TURTLES, bought originally as children's pets at the height of the Mutant Ninja Turtle craze, are posing a serious threat to bathers in the French Riviera. Biologists say the pet turtles, abandoned and flushed down lavatories or discarded in lakes, have flourished in the hot climate and absence of predators. …
DEVELOPING countries with vast forest reserves took a major step in coordinating a joint position on international cooperation in tropical forest management at the first ministerial conference of the forestry forum for developing countries (FFDC) in New Delhi in September. Indian environment minister Kamal Nath, who chaired the conference, told …
WITH THE collapse of the Soviet Union and the ongoing changes in communist China and Vietnam, the market today rules supreme. Entrepreneurs mobilise resources -- finance, raw materials, knowledge and labour -- to make products that cater to market demand. Whether they are farmers, miners, industrialists or providers of services, …
ZIMBABWE'S magnificent game parks are a big tourist draw, but until recently, the people of the surrounding areas did not feel they had a stake in the parks' success. Poaching, too, had become a major problem. Now, wildlife conservation in the country is being made to work differently - by …
ANTS ARE known for their industriousness, but not many people know about their ability to figure out the shortest path between two points -- that is, along a straight line -- without having a bird's eye view of their surroundings. How ants follow a straight path to their food has …
FACED with the daunting task of making Australia's meat-and-potatoes consumers switch to meat-and-rice, growers are hoping to exploit the recent royal wedding in Japan. They have launched an advertising campaign urging Australian couples to adopt some of Japan's rice-related wedding rituals, especially the placing of white rice cakes in the …
AT A SMALL function in New Delhi in August, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) honoured six of its scientists who had obtained international patents for their inventions. Three scientists had patents registered in the US and the others in Europe. N R Subbaram, adviser to CSIR"s patents …
MANY GOVERNMENT agencies commission films with alacrity, but as few of these get disseminated systematically, their message rarely gets through. One such agency is the Council for the Promotion of Advancement in Technology (CAPART), which, in the past couple of years, has been making films of two kinds: records of …
THE PERSONAL computer on your desk could soon be processing data at 10 times its present speed following the introduction of the most advanced microprocessor chip for PCs yet -- the Pentium, made by Intel Corp of USA (New Scientist, Vol 138, No 1873). The Pentium, also one of the …
WITH TOBACCO generating nearly $196 million annually just for fourth-ranked Virginia, the effect of smoking on lungs abroad is best ignored. Thousands of jobs in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee depend on tobacco, including 10,000 at the giant Philip Morris factory in Richmond. Besides, federal price supports ensure an …
EUROPEAN Community (EC) experts are to report shortly whether the bovine somatotropin (BST) drug can be marketed freely. In making their recommendation, EC experts will not worry about safety reports, but will take into consideration the economic effects of BST-induced milk yields. The scientific evidence against BST, one of the …
POISONING of nature is a constant obsession with BBC's Nature series. The latest episode in the series was on the ubiquitous yet controversial chlorine, a chemical the programme dubs as "The Devil's Element". The title has been derived from the words of a professor of environmental chemistry: "There are 91 …
US SCIENTISTS are making the most elaborate efforts yet to detect gravitational waves, which are the distortions in the fabric of space and time predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. These waves are produced during violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two neutron stars or …
