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 …
SAUL Bellow, in one of his novels, The Dean's December, anticipates the transformation of American cities into vast urban ghettoes teeming with people who are unable to cope with the jungle law of modern civilisation. These are the people whom he calls the "unwanted and dispensable population", who, like Jews …
EVERYONE recognises the importance of forests. We have over the years set up several structures and evolved policies to try and conserve them. How effective these are is, of course, another question. Wetlands, on the other hand, remain an area of darkness. And the recent imbroglio over the Chilika lake …
IT IS perhaps unfair for an economist to review a book which was originally submitted as a PhD thesis in anthropology. Unlike other anthropological works, a doctoral dissertation is necessarily less than a good read. And, as an academic work, the reviewer inevitably shows a bias, wondering much of the …
On JUNE 24, Tamil Nadu governor Bhishm Narain Singh inaugurated a national seminar on diesel conservation in road transport and exhorted bus and truck operators to conserve fuel. Just four days later, the ruling AIADMK arranged a massive jamboree at Madurai, with an eye tilted at the Guinness Book of …
THE NEED for a comprehensive book on forestry seeds has long been felt. Ram Prasad's and A K Kandhya's Handling of Forestry Seeds in India is therefore a welcome addition to the existing literature in this field. The book begins with a chapter on afforestation activity in the country and …
"Traffic jam on Everest", read a startling headline in The Rising Nepal, Kathmandu's leading English daily. The report went on to say that 34 mountaineers were on the way to the peak following the same route and they would all be jostling their way to the top. The headline, meanwhile, …
Japan, once described as an ecological outlaw in a civilised world, faced punishment in March 1991 for its role in endangering the hawksbill sea turtle. The US administration threatened to restrict import of all wildlife products from Japan, including pearl import worth US $53 million, unless the Japanese mended their …
NESTLED amid pine forests, apple orchards and vegetable gardens at Kausani, in UP"s Almora district, is Lakshmi Ashram, a residential school begun 45 years ago and featuring a distinctive pattern of education, placing special emphasis on ecological consciousness. The students come mostly from remote hill villages and from extremely poor …
WHEN PUBLIC interest litigation (PIL) was introduced in India about 10 years ago, it was hailed as a landmark in the development of the Indian legal system. Though touted then as a powerful tool, in improving social and environmental conditions through legal action, PIL has turned out to be relatively …
PIL DIFFERS significantly from other forms of litigation as regards a person's legal right to file a suit. Traditionally, only an aggrieved party had the locus standi to sue for judicial redress. In PIL, the court has broadened and liberalised the concept of locus standi to read: If the fundamental …
• Sanitation in Ratlam: In a landmark judgement in 1980, the Supreme Court explicitly recognised the impact of a deteriorating urban environment on the poor. It linked basic public health facilities to human rights and compelled the municipality to provide proper sanitation and drainage. However, according to numerous reports, little …
Article 21: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedures established according to law. Article 47: The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among …
IN LATE 1989, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi demonstrated his government's commitment to the preservation of the elephant by setting fire to nearly 12 tonnes of ivory worth US $3 million. Moi's dramatic act was the climax of a sustained campaign by conservationists, which caught the hearts of many across …
GLOBAL trade wars are turning green and, across the world, battles are raging to enforce environmental decisions through the power of trade restrictions and embargoes on the countries deemed responsible for environmentally unfriendly products. Japan faced punishment for endangering the hawksbill sea turtle whose shell is used to make jewellery. …
AT FIRST sight, Gandruk village, which is high up in the middle Himalayas, seems no different from other villages on a popular trekking route in Nepal. Children and dogs scamper about, seemingly oblivious of the mid-day heat. But, on closer scrutiny, differences become manifest. For a start, the village is …
A VULTURE is really a stork and albatrosses belong to the same super-family as the flightless penguins. This is what US ornithologists, Charles Sibley, Jon Ahlquist and Burt Monroe have concluded in their recent rearrangement of traditional classification, based on a controversial new technique developed by them known as DNA-DNA …
A biodegradable enzyme that can replace two conventional agents now used to de-hair animal skins for leather manufacture has been produced by the Madras-based Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI). Christened Clarizyme, the enzyme is extracted from a fungus, Aspergillus sp. It has several advantages over the conventional agents, calcium oxide …
WITH INCREASING emphasis being placed on upgrading of technical training, Indian institutes providing such training are seeking help in this area from multilateral agencies. The World Bank is funding two such projects that are being implemented by the ministries of labour and human resource development (HRD). The projects aim to …
WHEN YEAST'S chromosome III became the first chromosome to have its DNA described fully, a big surprise lay in store for scientists: They stumbled upon a wealth of genes whose functions are completely unknown. "All of a sudden we learn there is a whole class of genes, more than half …
EGYPTIAN scientists Y I Hanna and M M Kandil of the National Institute for Standards in Cairo have designed and tested a double-layered curtain using local textiles which absorbs sound and light to a high degree, reports the Indian Journal of Technology (Vol. 30 No. 6). The curtain is not …
