In 2023, the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) recorded a total of 399 disasters related to natural hazards. These events resulted in 86,473 fatalities and affected 93.1 million people. The economic losses amounted to US$202.7 billion. The 2023 earthquake in Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic was the most catastrophic event …
New Delhi, November 15 With laboriously produced details and a very cautious analysis, the new Auto Fuel Policy knocks out all sense of crisis from the problem of vehicular pollution. The policy was recently mooted by R A Mashelkar, director-general, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi. The …
When Karnataka chief minister (cm) S M Krishna was asked to disclose his "strategy' for resolving the raging Cauvery river dispute with Tamil Nadu (tn), he wrung his hands and said: "The only panacea is rainfall.' While Krishna lobbed the ball in "Nature's court', his tn counterpart
The post-war boom had brought gas-guzzling vehicles, expanding highways and mushrooming suburbs in the industrialised countries, especially the US. This boom was fuelled by oil - the industrialised economies depended almost entirely on intensive use of fossil fuels. The world learned about its dependence on oil in 1973. The Yom …
The Caspian region has possibly the third largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world (after the Persian Gulf and western Siberia), estimated to be up to 15 per cent of the total reserves of the world. Hardly any of this potential has been tapped as yet, and it …
India's prominence in the energy market is that it is the world's sixth largest energy consumer - and yet woefully short of energy sources. It has large coal reserves but the worrisome part is petroleum, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the total energy. India produces only 30 …
"One of the ironies at the turn of the century is that, in an age when the pace of technological change is almost overwhelming, the world will remain dependent, out to the year 2020 at least, essentially on the same sources of energy - oil, natural gas, coal - that …
The US President George W Bush is raring to launch an attack on Iraq. Whether it has weapons of mass destruction or not, Iraq certainly has the world's second largest reserves of petroleum after Saudi Arabia. Thanks to UN sanctions, it produces a mere fraction of its potential. The US, …
"Not since the rise of the railroads more than a century ago has a single industry [energy] placed so many foot soldiers at the top of a new administration." - Newsweek, May 14, 2001 George W Bush took over as president of the US on January 20, 2001. Within two …
an ayurvedic detoxification procedure can reduce the body's pesticide and toxin levels by as much as 58 per cent, shows a study conducted by researchers from the Maharishi University of Management, usa. High levels of toxins can disrupt hormones and lead to cancer. During their study, the researchers tested and …
an internationally binding treaty could save millions from dying of mercury pollution exposure. This was the track recently taken by Global Mercury Assess ment Working Group of the United Nations Environment Prog ramme (unep). Among other things, the group has urged unep member nations to strengthen cooperation on information sharing, …
Statistics are easy to window-dress: showing everything but concealing vital facts. It is true in case of the small-scale industries (SSIs) also. For an average Indian, SSIs are more than 3.4 million registered small-scale units (and an equal number in the unorganised sector); 100 per cent of sports goods exports …
FOR many years now, small-scale industries have been making ugly rounds of courts. From Delhi to Kolkata, Agra to Vellore, the story repeats itself. Rather with more ferocity. Acting on public interest litigations and frustrated at the government"s lackadaisical attitude, the courts are cracking the whip on the industries. So …
Interestingly, this unregulated and technically incompetent industry sector has been exclusively entrusted to manufacture items, which pollute the most in processes like the garments, leather tanning, dyeing and electroplating. "The economic logic behind this kind of reservation is a fraud," says Shreekant Gupta, reader, Delhi School of Economics, University of …
It is clear that small-scale industries (SSIs) can no longer afford to remain dirty and defiant. The same is true for the government. Not only is it a question of the livelihood of 20 million people but also about cleaning up India's environment, which again affects people. What is required …
allow retrofitting of dual flush toilet systems in the uk, says a recently published report. The research was carried out by SouthernWater, a uk-based company and Environment Agency, a uk-based non-governmental organisation. The study of the dual flush toilet system has found that replacing single with dual flush cisterns can …
long time exposure to benzene has always been considered detrimental to human health, but now researchers from the Kurukshetra University, Haryana, have found that even an occasional exposure to benzene of an hour a day is sufficient to bring about adverse changes in genetic material of humans. Benzene is a …
it might not be a million dollar question, but is worth us $7,600. A newspaper is offering the amount to anyone who can explain why, over the past almost 30 years, Britain's rural sparrow population has declined by about 60 per cent. For many experts, clues to this puzzle lie …
on september 9, 2002, the Supreme Court (sc) cracked the whip on compressed natural gas (cng) dispensing company Indraprastha Gas Limited (igl) for furnishing wrong information about its capacity to meet Delhi's requirements. igl came in for a severe tongue lashing, with a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice B N …
