Reply affidavit on behalf of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of Gavhan Koliwada Matsyavyavsayik Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit Vs City & Industrial Development Corporation & Others dated 28/01/2025. City & Industrial Development Corporation submitted a proposal for CRZ clearance for the construction of coastal road from …
GUJJARS are up in arms because they resent being thrown out of their homes by the proposed Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh. In coastal Orissa, Chilika fisherfolk are protesting the allocation by the government of a slice of their environment to the House of Tata. What binds these disparate …
LITERATURE, they say, is a reflection of the way a society perceives itself. Indians have, from time immemorial, celebrated the interdependence of human beings and nature. The modern era saw them grow apart. The greater the distance between them, the more romantic became the treatment of nature in literature. Indian …
THREE, thematically unrelated films though off-beat are of interest because they deal with ecological activism, alternate lifestyles and informal banking. The first is Plastic! Plastic! and to see it is to is to appreciate the vital role the kabadiwala plays in Indian society. Mussoorie has no kabadiwala and the result …
Many springs changed colour and flow after the earthquake. The Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology says a large number of springs became completely dry, but some began to discharge murky water with a burnt smell. In other places, discharge levels recorded perceptible increases -- about eight times the normal flow …
RAIN IN the hills usually evokes romantic images. But in the Himalaya, the monsoon often becomes macabre. It had been raining incessantly through the evening of September 2 and the inhabitants of the seven villages in the Angoth gram sabha of Chamoli district were getting ready to sleep. In nearby …
FLASH floods and landslides in the Himalaya are caused at times by unplanned development. On August 14 last year, the fast-developing town of Gopeshwar and its surrounding villages was inundated by heavy rainfall and 27 people were killed in resulting landslides. Flooding caused by an irrigation channel left incomplete by …
"The sky is going to fall on our heads," was the thought that ran through the mind of many of Dhedsari's residents. A cloud that should have caused rain to fall over a few days, burst like a bubble and the water poured down all at once in the evening …
GEORGE Monbiot's book, for which he risked his life, is a delightfully lucid piece of serious investigative journalism on the ecological destruction of the Amazon, which he describes as the world's "greatest environmental tragedy" and its "greatest ecological catastrophe". Monbiot maintains that the Amazon ecosystem, with its large tropical forests, …
THE KONKAN Railway is suffering from a typical attack of the NIMBY syndrome -- a two-decade-old acronym popularised during the movement against nuclear power stations by young people in the West, whose slogan was Not In My Backyard. It has since come to denote what is widely recognised as an …
IMAGINE dunking one's head in a rapid Himalayan stream and coming up with a mouthful of chemicals and weeds, instead of pristine water. This is not a totally unlikely scenario, according to the editors of this volume, a compilation of 26 articles on the freshwater ecology of the Himalayas. If …
This volume collates 29 papers on environmental management, air, water and wastewater management, ecology and environmental pollution control and noise. The book reflects the extent of information starvation in India: most of the papers are quite dated. Some are so basic they would find a place in undergraduate tutorial notes. …
THE GARBAGE heaps of Kathmandu, which rise in ugly mounds against the breathtaking beauty of the Himalayan ranges, tell a story -- a story of blind, lopsided, urban growth in one of the poorest countries in south Asia. And what is happening in Kathmandu is symptomatic of the growing urban …
COIR IS excellent for making the nettings or grids used on denuded hill-sides to fix soil and promote growth of vegetation, which, in turn, prevents landslides and improves the ecological balance in the area. "Since coir is highly water-absorbant, ideal conditions are created for the germination of seeds", said P …
NESTLED amid pine forests, apple orchards and vegetable gardens at Kausani, in UP"s Almora district, is Lakshmi Ashram, a residential school begun 45 years ago and featuring a distinctive pattern of education, placing special emphasis on ecological consciousness. The students come mostly from remote hill villages and from extremely poor …
What makes the King Mahendra Trust different from other NGOs working in the field of nature conservation? The Trust is the only non-governmental organisation which has been established through an Act of Parliament. It is guided by an independent, autonomous board of trustees. We are self-sustaining. Our approach is also …
AT FIRST sight, Gandruk village, which is high up in the middle Himalayas, seems no different from other villages on a popular trekking route in Nepal. Children and dogs scamper about, seemingly oblivious of the mid-day heat. But, on closer scrutiny, differences become manifest. For a start, the village is …
That concerned citizens have the right to approach the courts on matters of social justice and that India's constitution, by implication, guarantees ecological justice are indeed ideas that have done India's judiciary proud. They have greatly strengthened democracy in the country and, over the years, public interest litigation has become …
IN PLACES like Uttar Kannada, M D Subhash Chandran, a botanist from the Dr Baliga College of Arts and Sciences, Kumta, in Karnataka, claims that the ban on shifting cultivation was largely motivated by the need to release labour for the new plantations that were coming up in the area. …
HISTORY is generally seen as a record of kings, queens and warriors. But it could as well be a record of changing human-nature interactions over time. All human societies have exploited their environment for their survival and economic growth. Sometimes this exploitation has been destructive -- for instance, the Mesopotamian …
THOUGH no commitments have as yet been made by industrialised countries to reduce &rbon; emissions, car manufacturers in the West are already gearing themselves up for renewable and cleaner technologies in the near future. The European Community is pushing for stabilisation of carbon emissions by the year 2000. In Germany, …
