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 …
DELHI's roads display a sign of what's to come -- traffic police wearing gas masks. Police officials decided to issue the masks to give traffic constables some respite from the extremely high pollution at 40 major intersections. The masks are supposed to be especially useful to Delhi police, because the …
THANKS to poor rainfall in the area, the fear of Manibeli being inundated by monsoon-fed waters of the Narmada has receded temporarily. According to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) activists, work on the dam seems to have slowed down considerably and they estimate the height of the dam now at about …
SCIENTISTS at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in Lucknow and the Indian Institute of Tropical Botany in Pune have found growth rings of tropical trees such as teak (Tectona grandis) and tun (Cedrela toona) can be used to reconstruct the climate, especially the vagaries of the monsoon, in the …
EUROPEAN spacecraft Giotto created history mid-July when it swept past the comet, Grigg-Skjellerup, some 240 million km away in space. Giotto flew within 200 km of the comet's nucleus at 14 km a second and collected valuable data, despite being handicapped after its 1986 encounter with Halley's Comet. Fragments from …
BOMBAY's residents are always ready for a deluge -- it is drought that they fear. And, the grim sceptre of waterless days has risen this year. Water levels in lakes Vaitarana, Tansa, Tulsi and Vihar have dipped to within two metres above drawable level. With the monsoon playing truant, city …
THE EIGHTH international conference on AIDS "will be sadly remembered for the change in venue from Boston to Amsterdam, necessitated by the discriminatory travel restrictions still in place in the USA". This rueful comment was made at the opening session by Michael Merson, director of WHO's global programme on AIDS, …
RESEARCHERS at the conference were divided over the dramatic disclosure of a disease similar to AIDS, which does not arise from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This raised a debate on whether this was a new disease or had resulted from an HIV mutant. The virus responsible for this disease …
UGANDA, Rwanda, Brazil and Thailand have been identified by the World Health Organisation as testing sites whenever an AIDS vaccine is ready. So far, only Uganda has agreed to the proposed large-scale trials though responses from the other countries are still awaited. India refused to provide a testing site for …
THE alleged rape in Brazil of an 18-year-old teacher by Paulinho Paiakan, chief of the Kayapo tribe, may be seen as symbolic of the rape of the Amazon rainforests using as a lure the theory that marketing forest produce is more economically beneficial and ecologically friendly than selling timber. Attracted …
PRODDED by fears that the ozone layer is being depleted at a much faster rate than reported initially, representatives of 56 countries met in Geneva recently and largely agreed on a proposal to bring forward the date for phasing out use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from 2000 to the end of …
UNION environment minister Kamal Nath's order of July 30 -which has yet to reach the Orissa government -to stop work on the Chilika Aquatic Farms project till an independent consultant assessed its likely environmental impact may have, at best, bought some time for him. Orissa chief minister Biju Patnaik and …
DESPITE the cynicism of sceptics, a brace of proposed constitutional amendments could empower the people to take control of their environment and turn it clean and green. But this dream will come true only if the proposed political decentralisation is truly democratic and results in the creation of participatory institutions …
• State legislature should decide the powers of gram sabhas. • All states must have panchayats at the village level. But state legislatures can decide if they want panchayats also at the intermediate (block, taluka etc) and district levels. • All seats in village panchayats and intermediate panchayats shall be …
THE traditional gharat (water wheel) has caught the technologist's eye and deceptively simple modifications to its design have made it at least 40 per cent more efficient and also enlarged its capability so that it can power several machines simultaneously. The gharat, in use for centuries in the Himalayan region, …
• State legislatures can decide the composition of municipalities. • State legislatures can decide whether they want committees at the ward level or other levels within a municipal area. • The state legislatures will decide the power and authority they want to give municipalities. • Seats will be reserved for …
THE TECHNOLOGY for manufacturing carbon fibre reinforced composites -- state-of-the-art materials used in making products as diverse as missiles, spaceships, top-quality sports goods, and prosthetics -- have long been the monopoly of the industrialised nations. But not any longer, for National Physical Laboratory (NPL) scientists have indigenously developed the technology …
THIS BOOK by two of India's most eminent environmental historians makes a first attempt at constructing an alternative, ecological view of Indian history. Coming on the heels of Clive Ponting's A Green History of the World, this is a very welcome first step. The book is divided into three sections: …
DURING the dissemination of an improved, smoke-removing chulha (called nada chulha to honour the women of Nada, a harijan village, who developed it), I visited hundreds of rural kitchens in seven northern states to train local women as chulha mistris (stove repairers). In talking with the Nada housewives using the …
ARAKHAKUDA is a fishing village in Brahmagiri block of Puri district and its residents have been fishing in Chilika lake for generations. What makes Arakhakuda significant is that it is the last village on the Magarmukh channel that links the lake to the Bay of Bengal. Hence, the villagers know …
IT IS indeed unfortunate that the two Constitutional amendment bills to strengthen Panchayati Raj institutions and urban municipalities have received little public attention. Political decentralisation has the potential to revitalise this country in more ways than one. Theoretically speaking, it can give power to the people in a way that …
