The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Making Water Everybody's Business: Practice and Policy of Water Harvesting , a book, was released in Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 15, 2001, by the vice chancellor of Tribhuvan University, Navin Prakash Jung Shah. Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation has published the book. Speaking at the public …
The Nepalese government has recently signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which is an international framework that has been set up to regulate the trade in genetically modified (GM) products. The protocol among other provisions stipulates that all GM food products must provide adequate information regarding its ingredients (see: Down …
The boundary of Kanchenjunga Conservation Area in Nepal is being expanded. This will make the whole belt of northeastern Nepal a protected area for flora and fauna. At present the area covers 1,650 square kilometres. To expand the area Milke Hill will be included. "After 30 years, the local people …
The Japanese capital Tokyo receives 1,400 mm of rain in a year. But concrete prevents it from percolating into the ground. Urban flooding and acute water scarcity affected the people almost every second year. The solution to both problems lay in rainwater harvesting. Sumida City was the first ward of …
When I was speaker of the Lok Sabha, I called a special session to discuss serious issues confronting the country. I don't think water was discussed in this special session. We never thought of it. We talked about corruption and criminalisation. Experts and politicians will have to come together at …
Three countries in Southeast Asia -- Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines-- have made efforts to provide drinking water by capturing rain. In Thailand, the absence of foreign assistance for large-scale water projects forced the government to look at smaller options, with great success. The Population and Community Development Association, an …
nepal's forest bureaucracy is set to follow the footsteps of its Indian counterpart. What was hailed as a radical community forest management (cfm) programme is on the brink of a complete, disastrous makeover. The Forest (Second Amendments) Bill, 2001, to be soon placed in parliament for approval, will strip the …
Forest bureaucracy arms itself to halt the spread of CFM • In the guise of a finance bill, the Nepalese government has given district forest officers powers to punish forest users' groups (FUGs) members l In the terai , the government is interested to give the forest to foreign companies …
There was and still is a lot India can learn from Nepal. Nepal's success in increasing power availability in remote areas through community participation and micro-hydel schemes is laudable. Therefore it doesn't make sense that Nepal is putting an end to an enlightened Community Forest Management Programme and trying to …
the Nepalese government's decision to ban vehicles older than 20 years has been met with stiff opposition. On February 2, traffic came to a standstill in various parts of Kathmandu after transporters took to the streets. Again on February 9, the National Federation of Transport Entrepreneurs organised a protest rally. …
Sherpa climbers will be paid to collect garbage dumped on Mount Everest by the Nepal Mountaineering Association. The sherpas usually act as guides and carry supplies for people climbing the Everest, the world's highest mountain. "We are considering paying US $13.50 for each kilogramme of garbage they collect,' said Bhumi …
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Nepal, has launched a 100-year programme for the conservation of the western Terai and Chure hills, one of the best habitats for Royal Bengal tiger, one horned Asiatic rhino and elephant. The WWF has identified 236 out of 800 animal habitats as endangered …
the Supreme Court of Nepal has once again come to the rescue of people campaigning for clean air. It has asked the government to explain its decision to allow Indian polluting vehicles into the country that violates Nepal's emission standards. The petition, filed by Pro-Public, a Kathmandu-based non-governmental organisation, questioned …
Due to a tremendous increase in the number of ecofriendly vehicles running on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Kathmandu, Nepal, there has been a severe shortage of cooking gas. Some 700 three-wheelers and 300 micro-buses running on LPG were imported to solve the air pollution problem in the capital. However, …
The villages of Thulo Pokhara and Raje Danda of Nepal's Kavrepalanchok district have become the "world's first villages to be entirely lit by White Light Emitting Diode (WLED) lightning system'. This has been possible by the efforts of Irvine-Halliday of Calgary University, Alberta, Canada. Irvine-Halliday was fascinated by the natural …
Rajya Sabha members have recently demanded that the Union government should speed up its efforts to sign a treaty with Nepal, that will allow the government to channelise the waters flowing into Bihar. This will help in preventing floods. Nagendra Nath Ojha, a Communist Party of India member from Bihar, …
As the world wakes up to a depleting finite sources of power like coal and the growing opposition to big dams, countries all over the world with water resources and difficult areas to electrify are opting for the community mode of electricity generation and distribution. "Today, a confluence of technological, …
In India, the Central Electricity Act, 1948, does not allow individuals, communities or cooperatives to take up electricity generation and distribution. Only a private company bound to sell power to the government can do so. Of course the company has to sell power at rates the government fixes. Since such …
