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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
THIS YEAR, US President George Bush announced that US $1.4 billion is to be made available in 1993 to the US Global Change Research Programme (USGCRP), which will lead to a massive increase in humankind's understanding of the earth's atomosphere. As a part of the programme, a network of remote …
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, …
• Pesticides manufacturer Monsanto is testing genetically-engineered cotton resistant to the deadly bellworm. The cotton contains genes from a natural ly-occurri ng bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis which kills the bollworm. • Hundreds of wind turbines produced by the Japanese corporation, Mitsubishi, are now being used on one of the largest …
WHAT DIRECTIONS are science and technology going to take now that UNCED has put environment on the political agenda? Though they were not very much in the spotlight, many scientists were present in Rio to stress that while the development of science and technology has been held responsible for the …
The minister of state for environment, Kamal Nath, had some radical words to say in Rio. "I don't understand why people here are talking about forests being national or global resources. In my country, they are more community resources," he told an interviewer. Surely, that statement will gladden the hearts …
RIO MIGHT have been the biggest jamboree there was, but Doordarshan was not impressed. It preferred to depend on CNN and BBC for most of its live coverage of the event, even though it had a team there. It needed Prime Minister Narasimha Rao's presence at Rio at the fag …
STARVED of fresh water and no longer able to withstand the encroaching Arabian Sea, the Indus is dying a slow death. The channels of this mighty and historic river are running dry, while salt water is destroying the lush tamarisk forests which once lined the river, the estuarine timmar, or …