Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
IT WAS a typical Indian village, with low, thatched roofs, mud walls and floor. Yet, as I went around I was told, "This is Germany, this is Canada and this, America". Strange names for huts in a village? Not if the village is UP's Varanasi district, also known as Dollarland …
THIS book is part of a project on technology transfer, transformation and development implemented by United Nations University (UNU), a UN organ established in 1972 to conduct research related to pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare. UNU undertook a project to study the Japanese experience between 1978 …
SEEING Beyond Genocide again after four years can bring back the anger and frustration one felt when visiting Bhopal shortly after the Union Carbide gas leak and wandering through JP Nagar and the MIC ward of Hamidia Hospital. In 1988, Doordarshan declared that a film on this unending tragedy was …
The results of a study on the fishery, biology, exploitation and mortality of hilsa shad (Hisa ilishu) are presented. The average annual landing of Hilsa ilisha for 1979 - 88 was 5710 tonnes forming 0.4% of the total landings. The major craft and gears and the contributions of different states …
Farm forestry was promoted in India in the late 1970s to produce fuelwood for rural consumption. The program was immensly successful in the green revolution region in the early 1980s, but farmers produced wood for markets, and not to meet local needs. This market orientation of farmers was recognized in …
PERHAPS no other enterprise of the staid house of Tatas has drawn as much flak from environmental and social activists as its Rs 20 crore Chilika Aquatic Farms Ltd. Many are puzzled why a business group that has steadfastly kept aloof from environmental controversies, should go to such lengths to …
THE RECENT decision to delay indefinitely the introduction of the long-acting female contraceptive Norplant-6 comes as good news for women's groups who have actively campaigned against its introduction in the Indian family planning programme. Norplant-6 consists of a set of six matchstick-size tubes, filled with progesterone, a steroid hormone, which …
WHILE international agencies and the Union government have shown much concern for the protection and sustainable management of Chilika, the Orissa government's response has been surprisingly lacklustre. It was at the 1971 convention on wetlands, held at Ramsar in Iran, that attention was drawn to protection of the lake. India …
THE CHINGUDI (prawn) mania may have engulfed Chilika and its catchments only recently, but state government records show the fish trade started in the 1930s and fish from the lake was exported as far as Calcutta during the World War II. The first known attempt at brackish-water culture was made …
UNTIL about five years ago, Gambhari was a sleepy island hamlet in Chilika lake and senior Puri district administration officials were barely aware of it. So were Balbhadrapur, Alupatanam, Satapada, Panaspada and many more. All of them were merely names in the district"s revenue records. But today these villages are …
"MAVA NATE Mava Raj" (our government in our village) is the slogan Sarvodaya workers raised at a 1988 meeting in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district, to educate people about village democracy. After the slogan-shouting, an old, "illiterate" Maria Gond adivasi, clad in a loin-cloth, stunned the Sarvodaya workers by asking, "You people …
THE GOOD old radio is getting set to replace an entire record library. Using digital audio broadcasting, as against the present analog system of transmission, listeners will be able to tune in from a very large number of programmes and make their own high quality digital recordings from the hi-tech …
BECAUSE irrigation water costs so little in India, it is frequently misused and wasted. Some water management experts now recommend that its disciplined consumption can be ensured by increasing the rates paid by farmers. There is evidence to suggest that Indian farmers are willing to pay much higher water rates …
THE AVERAGE height of the Himalaya was once much higher, the Ganga flowed much further north along the foothills and the Indus flowed east into the Ganga. All this changed about two million years ago -- not all that long ago in geological time. In the early 20th century, German …
THE WORLD Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has gone on record officially that oilwell fires in Kuwait have had no global effect on the atmosphere. At WMO's recent meeting in Geneva with representatives of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) scientific papers were presented that showed the massive amounts of carbon and other …
A REASON for the unabated and heavy migration into Delhi lies in the highly subsidised quality of life it provides. Delhi residents benefit from subsidies on water, power, milk, transport and services. Amitabh Kundu of the School of Social Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University calculates that the subsidy enjoyed …
THE HIMALAYAN-Tibetan rivers have been found to be a major source of marine uranium and scientists estimate they contribute about 3,000 tonnes, or, about 25 per cent of the total, worldwide marine uranium. The Ganga and the Brahmaputra together, they estimate, dump about 1,000 tonnes of dissolved uranium annually in …
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 …
All THAT the government is earning from the Bhopal disaster is interest: Rs 20 crore daily from the Rs 715 crore deposited by the Union Carbide as compensation money. Nearly eight years after the accident not one person has been paid compensation for damages suffered in this major industrial mishap. …
RANTHAMBHOR National Park in Rajasthan is in the news, thanks to rampant poaching in the tiger reserve. This year's tiger census in the park shows their number has fallen from 46 to 18 in just one year. But even this is a rough estimate as only 13 tigers were physically …
