Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item Titled "Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s Golconda Fort Cries for attention appearing in ‘The Siasat Daily’ dated 25 May 2025". The application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled “Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s …
It is five o'clock in the morning. I am inside Jharkhand's Khellari forest, on assignment. In the first light of morning, the forest looks lush and dark green. Suddenly, a frail frame
What if Phulmai did not exist. You can meet her in the forest; follow her for a day; listen to what she says and so complete half an assignment. The other half lies in accounting for her, and all those like her who spend their lives headloading. Step out of …
the Union government appears to have accorded top priority to the scheme for inter-linking of India's rivers. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced in the current parliament session that river networking was "a long-term, permanent solution to the recurring problem of drought'. The proposal also received opposition leader Sonia Gandhi's …
the Supreme Court's (sc) order to convert public buses in Delhi from diesel to compressed natural gas (cng) mode has had a snowballing effect throughout India. Citing Delhi as an example, civil society groups and concerned citizens are increasingly approaching their respective high courts demanding the right to clean air. …
the Supreme Court (sc) has asked the Union government to consider linking the country's rivers within 10 years, advancing the government's own deadline. Earlier, the Union ministry of water resources had filed an affidavit stating that this project, which it claimed would control flood and drought conditions, would be completed …
kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (kiocl) is to stop all mining activities inside Kudremukh National Park, Karnataka by 2005-end. On October 30, while giving this order the three-member Supreme Court (sc) bench consisting of then Chief Justice B N Kirpal, Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice Arijit Pasayat rapped the …
The owners of Panipat's dyeing units are in a defiant mood. Complying with the directions of the Supreme Court (sc), the district administration has ordered around 500 units to shift from residential areas to the industrial zone. However, the dye house owners have said an emphatic "no' to such relocation. …
the Supreme Court (sc) has come down heavily on the Union and Rajasthan governments for showing slackness in the implementation of food-for-work schemes. The sc reprimand comes in the face of the recent hunger deaths in Baran district of the desert state. The apex court ordered that the chief secretaries …
A man now owns a 23.6 kilometre (km) stretch of a river. He has a monopoly on the supply of water from the Sheonath river in a 19 km radius near the Durg township in Chhattisgarh. This has been made possible by a boot (build-own-operate-transfer) agreement that he has entered …
the first reports of death due to hunger in Baran district of Rajasthan followed an all too familiar path. Outcry in the media, denial by local administration, visits by the bigwigs and then a blame game. So what did the people get? A temporary relief in the form of some …
I would love to write a handbook on the Indian bureaucracy. But for now let me focus on a favourite, the yes-minister technique. Do nothing, and then when pushed, unleash chaos. Nothing succeeds as much as failure. Every solution has a problem. Take the issue of encroachments in forests. The …
New Delhi, 15 NovemberIn 1998, Delhi witnessed one of the worst winters of the decade. For much of the season, the city was enveloped by a deadly smog. Respiratory illnesses were rising and there was an alarming increase in hospital admissions. As officials were caught up in the all-familiar inertia, …
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 …
New Delhi, November 15The extent of degradation in and around mines is the evidence of total failure of the state administration to enforce basic rules for ecological safeguards. Recent attempts at planting trees are cosmetic. Exposed groundwater lakes observed in mining sites only reconfirm the worst fears. If mining could …
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
In a significant decision, the Supreme Court (SC) directed the Assam forest department to pay Rs 1,000 per month against every hectare of encroached forestland in the state. "This amounts to Rs 28 crore per month as fine to the SC,' said state forest minister Pradyut Bordoloi. He pointed out …
it is a classic case of keepers turning marauders. The Supreme Court (sc) has issued a notice to the Madhya Pradesh government over the alleged involvement of the state police in timber smuggling. The notice which was issued on September 26, 2002 was in response to an application by Damoh-based …
At a time when the Cauvery river dispute rages on, the Supreme Court (SC) has directed the Union government and all the states to respond on the crucial issue of networking of inter-state rivers. Such an arrangement, the apex court observed, would help tide over the cyclical flood and drought …
Why is everything important reduced to a dramatic farce in our country? Take the Cauvery imbroglio. The issue is serious and important. Namely how will states, regions and people share increasingly scarce water resources? What can we do to maximise water availability? But what do we have instead: an unseemly …
