Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Akhilesh Kumar Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others dated 23/05/2025. The matter related to illegal mining activites carried out by Jai Maa Chandrika Enterprises, Rajendra Nagar, village Kabari, district Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh. The applicant also alleged about illegal sale …
RETIRED police officer Tarif Singh and his friends in North Delhi's Siraspur village heaved a sigh of relief as the last of the 23 clandestine lead-smelting units closed shop in their neighbourhood on May 7. "Many of my neighbours had serious breathing trouble because of the smoke," Singh says. Many …
INDIA has become a dumping ground of lead battery waste. Almost all the batteries at Siraspur and Mundka have foreign markings. According to the international environmental NGO, Greenpeace, about 346,000 kg of lead battery waste from Australia alone was brought into the country between January and September, 1993. Of late …
SCIENCE appears to have finally found the elusive cure for baldness. Proscar, a drug manufactured by Merck & Co to treat enlarged prostate glands, has an interesting side-effect: in low doses, it increases hair growth. In clinical trials carried out on 200 young men at an early stage of baldness, …
FOR the past 10 years, over 12,000 inhabitants of Meethapur village on Delhi's Badarpur border have been racked with cough and breathing problems that often degenerate into asthma and tuberculosis. The Batra Hospital & Medical Research Centre (BHMRC) -- which caters to Meethapur in the absence of closer medicare centres …
IT NEEDS little imagination to realise that a degraded environment undermines human health. But the linkage between a deteriorating environment, economy and increased health vulnerability needs to be seriously examined. Of still greater importance is the necessity to integrate health interventions with local needs to reverse the downward spiral. The …
The presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, along with the Russian deputy prime minister have agreed to set up a joint fund to save what was once the world's fourth-largest freshwater lake. The use of water for irrigating rice and cotton has greatly depleted the Aral Sea, which …
CONTRARY to common belief, the main culprit of the "sick building syndrome" is neither cigarette smoke nor polluted air wafting in from outside. It is the increased airborne fibres from ceilings, insulation, ventilation duct linings and other construction materials, says a recent study (Environmental Science and Technology, Vol 28, No …
IS CAFFEINE, which is present in tea, coffee and coke, harmful to pregnant women and foetuses? Although there have been indications to the contrary, a recent Canadian study has found evidence that expectant mothers who take caffeine before and during pregnancy may run a greater risk of foetal death (Journal …
THE ANUGUL-Talcher industrial belt in Orissa's Dhenkanal district -- one of the few water-rich areas in the state -- is facing an acute crisis: People in more than 400 villages in the region, which is served by the Brahmani river and its tributary Nandira, have been bearing the brunt of …
THE MAHARASHTRA government is planning to take action against Nippon Denro Ispat Limited (NDIL), one of the largest steel manufacturing concerns in the country, for causing water pollution. The Rs 300-crore NDIL plant, located in Kalmeshwar town near Nagpur, was commissioned in 1985 and uses hydrochloric acid in its manufacturing …
STAR PLUS began a new science and technology series called Equinox in December. The first episode -- an hour-long documentary called Heavy Metal -- dealt with lead. Though the first of the series was essentially on pollution, Equinox will look at a variety of technological issues in the weeks ahead. …
A sensitive method was developed for the determination of bromate in bread by capillary gas chromatography with a mass detector (GC/MS). Bromate was extracted with water from bread samples. After centrifugation, the supernatant was filtered and Cl− was removed by an OnGuard‐Ag cartridge column.
Oral administration of the insecticide endosulfan (2 mg/kg per day) for 90 days in immature male rats resulted in an inhibition of pole-climbing escape response to electric shock (unconditioned) and avoidance response to buzzer (conditioned). These responses reflect respectively their learning and memory processes. The escape response but not the …
Women farm labourers are more vulnerable to pesticide poisoning -- and they don't even know it. A survey of 13 states conducted by the Consumers Forum, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Consumer Organisations and the All India Women's Conference, found that pesticide-induced headaches, vomiting and uneasiness were common …
ENVIRONMENT protection need not be a dirty word in business. In fact, instead of being considered a financial loss, it can be turned into a profit making proposition. Industries are beginning to realise that "waste minimisation" can not only help them save money by saving raw material and fuel, but …
TOBACCO came to India in the 17th century with the Portuguese and today, the plant is grown over as much as half a million hectares in the country. India was one of the first countries in the world to report the adverse health effects of tobacco use. In 1902, the …
SEVEN minutes. That's how much every cigarette reduces a person's life, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US. A study conducted by the institute's researchers found that every minute spent in smoking robbed the smoker of one minute of life and it took, on an …
WHILE it has become fashionable to talk of ecological economics, minus the jargon, the subject simply attempts to calculate the full cost, which includes environmental costs, that the society should pay for producing a commodity. And that is where it differs from everyday market economics -- it takes into account …
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 …
US-BASED pharmaceutical companies provide incomplete -- and even misleading -- information on the labels of products they market in developing countries, an official study by the office of technology assessment (OTA) states. The study, based on the labelling of 241 products sold in 1988-90 in Kenya, Panama, Brazil and Thailand …
