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 …
ALL IS not shipshape at Japan's dry dock. Recently, six Greenpeace activists, protesting the first shipment of one tonne of plutonium from France to Japan, were arrested by the Japanese government. The plutonium will fuel Japan's future fast-breeder nuclear power programme. The protestors pointed out the vulnerability of carrying the …
A NON-GOVERNMENTAL report on the state of India's health has expressed concern that environment impact assessments of development programmes almost always ignore their effect on people's health. "What is important is that infrastructural projects that are sanctioned -- even after impact assessment -- might even be increasing morbidity (illness) or …
THERE is really pleasing no one. Last month, the Indonesian government lifted an eight-year ban on export of raw wood -- and came under fire from both environmentalists and business interests. The ban was lifted in response to a demand by the General Agreement on Trade and Tarriffs (GATT), which …
WHEN THE slogan "Declare agriculture an industry" was raised at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Tirupati some months ago, it was an attempt to include rural toilers in the ruling party's grand policies of social reconstruction. But, at best, the slogan is a redundancy, for agriculture is …
THOUGH India now spends more than Rs 4,000 crore annually in research and development -- 87 per cent of which comes from government and public sector industries and the rest from the private sector -- as a percentage of the country's GNP, the R&D; expenditure has been dropping steadily since …
IT"S A sweet end to the bitter battle for the Rs-5,000-crore pharmaceuticals industry. The new draft drug policy promises more profit to the industry, and in doing so, puts the need for inexpensive medicines on the back burner. The industry has used every trick in the book, including contrived shortages, …
DESPITE strides in asthma treatment, the incidence of the disease and deaths due to it are escalating. Researchers now feel that growing industrialisation and pollution could well be responsible for this increase worldwide. Every year in USA alone, some 4,000 asthma victims die and another 500,000 are hospitalised. In 1977, …
Environment ministry guidelines state that many of the adverse impacts of thermal plants can be foreseen and minimised through judicious siting, preventive and control measures and effective environmental management. The ministry has been trying to impose very strict emission controls and other standards to mitigate the environmental problems of power …
ERSTWHILE communist Germany finds to its concern that it really is greener on the other side. Germany's ever-strict pollution control measures have given rise to severe problems for the five states that earlier constituted East Germany. The states were given a year's grace period to set up administrative machinery to …
SIX ASBESTOS companies have been convicted by a Baltimore Circuit Court jury in what is expected to be a model for the over 100,000 asbestos personal injury claims pending before federal and state courts across the United States. The decision that all six defendants were responsible for manufacturing products they …
EFFORTS of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to create a gene bank appear to have stalled barely a year after steps were taken to start it. The proposal to start the gene bank was accepted at the 1990 Male meeting of SAARC and was taken up at …
I HAVE been uncomfortable with the "transfer of technology" demands of developing countries during their environmental dialogue with the North. Let me explain: We do stress, based on irrefutable data, that the North is responsible for the bulk of the perturbation that human beings have caused to the properties of …
BASUDEO ORAON had lost all hopes of ever retrieving his young son Daham from the bondage of Jagdish Kushwaha, a carpet loom owner of Lohara village in UP's Mirzapur district. Daham had been working for the last two years for Kushwaha and Basudeo's efforts to secure either his son's release …
IT WAS a typical Indian village, with low, thatched roofs, mud walls and floor. Yet, as I went around I was told, "This is Germany, this is Canada and this, America". Strange names for huts in a village? Not if the village is UP's Varanasi district, also known as Dollarland …
INDIAN scientists are seeking solutions to such persistent problems as population, disease, hunger and pollution in a new clutch of technologies, collectively called biotechnology, which makes use of living organisms and their components -- genes, cells, proteins and enzymes -- to produce desired products. Research in this field is coordinated …
A MALAYSIAN court has ordered the shutdown of a chemical plant in which Mitsubishi Kasei Corp, Japan's leading chemicals manufacturer, has a 35 per cent stake. The plant was accused of dumping radioactive wastes near a village in the state of Perak. The ruling evoked a strong response in Japan, …
WHEN PUBLIC interest litigation (PIL) was introduced in India about 10 years ago, it was hailed as a landmark in the development of the Indian legal system. Though touted then as a powerful tool, in improving social and environmental conditions through legal action, PIL has turned out to be relatively …
PIL DIFFERS significantly from other forms of litigation as regards a person's legal right to file a suit. Traditionally, only an aggrieved party had the locus standi to sue for judicial redress. In PIL, the court has broadened and liberalised the concept of locus standi to read: If the fundamental …
• Sanitation in Ratlam: In a landmark judgement in 1980, the Supreme Court explicitly recognised the impact of a deteriorating urban environment on the poor. It linked basic public health facilities to human rights and compelled the municipality to provide proper sanitation and drainage. However, according to numerous reports, little …
Article 21: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedures established according to law. Article 47: The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among …
