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 …
Faced with European proposals for higher taxes on oil, Saudi Arabia is signalling desperately that it wants higher prices. This makes a change from its earlier policy of restrained oil pricing. This fortnight's crucial mid-year meeting of OPEC saw the conspicuous absence of the Saudi oil minister. This shift in …
ON MAY 15 this year, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgement in response to a public interest suit demanding the closure of the 300-odd stone-crushing units in and around New Delhi. Unlicensed units were immediately closed and the rest are to be shut down by August 15. All units …
The Greens in the European Parliament have asked the European Community to cancel the debts of poor countries, to safeguard the planet's ecological balance, and generate sustainable forms of development. Holding the IMF and the World Bank responsible for creating a scenario in which, for over five years, the net …
CALL IT a guilty conscience or call it uncanny business sense. But Toyota, Japan's largest car manufacturer, is busy trying to produce a genetically-engineered tree which can absorb larger amounts of carbon dioxide than its more natural counterparts. The research programme first aims at identifying and cultivating existing tree species …
EVE MAY not have been the mother of the human race after all. Molecular biologists have been arguing that the genetic components of human beings indicate that all family trees lead back to a single African woman, nicknamed Eve, who lived about 200,000 years ago. But there is a school …
IT'S BEEN a rat race to get the patent. But Harvard University's onco-mouse, a creature designed in a laboratory for cancer research, may still not make it. In mid-May, shortly after the European Patent Office published its patent for this mouse that has been given cancer-causing genes, European green activists …
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is hoping that an international convention will get accepted on industrial disasters like Bhopal at this year's session of the International Labour Conference, commencing in Geneva in early June. The convention aims to set comprehensive safety standards and protocols for controlling flammable materials and toxic …
THE GOVERNMENT is learning to lead by example. Its largest construction agency, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), has decided that the use of wood in its housing projects will be banned from April 1993. The urban development secretary, Raj Bhargava, points to the paradox of the government borrowing for …
INDIA and Bangladesh have arrived at an agreement to prepare a comprehensive and permanent sharing of the Ganga-Brahmaputra waters. This agreement was reached in New Delhi between visiting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her Indian counterpart, P V Narasimha Rao. The pact also refers to using waters from …
THE SUBANSIRI hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh may not take off as the ministry of environment and forests feels it will cause irreparable damage to the biodiversity of the region. This contrasts with the support the project has got from both the Planning Commission and the water resources ministry. These …
DEVELOPMENT has two sides, as Sudipto Sarkar of the People United for Better Living in Calcutta told the Calcutta High Court recently. The court is hearing a case against the proposed reclamation of eastern Calcutta's wetlands. The voluntary agency informed the court that the West Bengal government's idea to develop …
GENETICS presents a strange dilemma. Manipulations in this field have greatly increased the yields of crops, animals and trees. Witness the green and white revolutions and the large commercial timber and fruit plantations. Ironically, this cloning threatens the global gene pool itself. It is important to conserve the global gene …
WILL HE go? Will he sign? Will he give money? All these and many more questions on the behaviour of the US President George Bush are threatening to overtake the Earth Summit at Rio. Bush's cat and mouse strategy is an effort to push the Europeans, Asians and Africans to …
National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources Pusa Complex New Delhi 110 012. National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources Indian Council of Agricultural Research National Dairy Research Institute Karnal 132 001. National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources Indian Council of Agricultural Research 2 Bagambari housing scheme Shivnagar, Allapur Allahabad UP 211 …
Forests: For the South, this is perhaps the most crucial and most difficult battle ahead. The North has been insisting on a legal framework to manage the world's forests. Each preparatory meeting saw bitter negotiations as southern countries rallied together to prevent this assault on their sovereignty. This time again, …
IF ONE were to visit the beach along Inchampakkam, a fishing village off the Madras-Mahabalipuram highway, one would see, amongst the wooden catamarans, a few black plastic ones. Catamarans made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE) are becoming popular in Inchampakkam and its nearby villages, despite their high price -- between Rs …
Environmental economists hold the brief that the best way to put environment on the agenda of various countries is to make them realise its economic value. Partha Dasgupta of Stanford University and Karl-Goran Maler of the Stockholm School of Economics have collaborated on an environmental economics project sponsored by the …
WHY HAS the National Malaria Eradication Programme (NMEP) never really been able to contain the disease? The answer may finally be here. The Malaria Research Centre (MRC) in New Delhi has found that Anopheles culicifacies, the mosquito species responsible for 70 per cent of malaria in India and 80 per …
THE VILLAGE of Seed stands out as a green oasis in Rajasthan's denuded Aravallis. Its gram sabha meets regularly and, being a gramdan village, it has full control over all the land within the village boundary, including erstwhile government land. Rawat was the adhyaksha (chairperson) of Seed's gram sabha from …
Gods, it is said, can assume any shape or many shapes at one time. Our mythological Hanuman, monkey god of the epic Ramayan, conforms to this omniscience. A combination of the rhesus monkey, the langur and man, it cannot be said to belong to any single species. I find this …
