Affidavit filed by the Chief Wildlife Warden, Assam in the matter of news item titled "the last feral horses in India" appearing in Mongabay, November 5, 2024. The matter relates to the critically endangered status of feral horses in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park as well as of smuggling of these …
a controversy has arisen over the Assam forest department's attempt to open up quarrying close to the Kaziranga National Park. The forest department has invited tenders to open a stone quarry at Mikir Chang, located in a prime wildlife habitat close to Kaziranga. The quarry is to supply 10,000 cubic …
The island of Majuli on the river Brahmaputra has been under constant threat from floods as well as rising erosion levels. Tension has simmered between development agencies responsible for flood control and the local people who have opposed the structural measures. The proposed Bogibeel bridge has evoked concerns that the …
Thousands of villagers destroyed a coke unit that was under construction in Assam. The people were protesting against the health hazards to their villages from the Shwastik Coke and Mineral and the Chati Coke Industry, in Rani block in West Guwahati. The January 6, 2006, incident was an unprecedented show …
thirty-three-year-old Prahlad Goala, a Golaghat-based reporter, was killed on January 6, 2006, at Thuramukh near Nambar reserve forest, around 300 km east of Guwahati. A car knocked down Prahlad while he was returning home on his motorcycle. A local scribe later spotted his body. The body showed many wounds, probably …
NHPC EERS: An Assam-based NGO, River Basin's Friends, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC). The petition claims that while implementing the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project in Arunachal Pradesh, NHPC violated an earlier order. It also claimed NHPC was dumping debris in …
artemisinin is the only drug available right now against Plasmodium falciparum, one of the malaria-causing pathogens. But its indiscriminate use may make the drug ineffectual, warns a study published in The Lancet (Vol 366, No 9501, December 3, 2005). Though the World Health Organization (who) recommends that artemisinin should be …
Forestry is the second largest land-use in India after agriculture, and an estimated 275 million people in rural areas depend on forests for at least part of their livelihoods. This study focusing mainly on community-based forestry outside protected areas, indicates that forests offer vast potential for poverty reduction and rural …
Forestry is the second largest land-use in India after agriculture, and an estimated 275 million people in rural areas depend on forests for at least part of their livelihoods. This study focusing mainly on community-based forestry outside protected areas, indicates that forests offer vast potential for poverty reduction and rural …
a countrywide vitamin a supplementation programme for children has been embroiled in controversy, with accusations that unicef has been pushing it to benefit Roche, the only company that manufactures the vitamin supplement. A public interest petition demanding a better programme, designed to combat night blindness, is pending in the Rajasthan …
function table() { var popurl="files/images/20051031/27-table.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=500,height=275,scrollbars=yes") } In 1959 the lives of the Mizo people in northeast India was morphed completely by the flowering of a bamboo species called Melocanna baccifera or mautak , as they call it. It led to famine, an armed insurrection, more than 3,000 people dead …
function table() { var popurl="files/images/20051031/36.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=420,height=430,scrollbars=yes") } India has a stock of 80.40 million tonnes of bamboo in its forests, as reported by the Planning Commission in 2003. Northeastern states account for 66 per cent of the total stock (see: Pole position). inbar estimates domestic trade in bamboo involves 20.30 …
The main objective of this study in Kaziranga National Park (Assam) was two fold: 1) Review of protection strategies and suggestion to enhance their effectiveness and 2) Development of a comprehensive capacity building plan for frontline staff.
A writing technique used in Assam's Majuli islands since 600 AD The process: Strips from the bark of an agaru tree (15-20 years old),in separate rolls of 6-18 feet, are sun-dried and exposed to dew overnight. Then, the nikari (outer layer) is removed, the surface smoothened and cut into convenient …
Manori Rabha lived at a distance of Rs 5 from river Brahmaptura. That is what the local bus would take to drop her at the banks of the river when it was not flooded. When the river did flood, like it does each year in Assam, it would reach her …
the North Eastern Frontier Railways (nefr) and the Assam government have locked horns over the construction of the Bogibeel rail-cum-road bridge on the Brahmaputra, 17 kilometres (km) downstream Dibrugarh. The government has refused to issue a no-objection certificate (noc) for constructing the bridge unless nefr agrees to bear the maintenance …
For the first time, the Assam government has admitted the severe threat to people's health posed by arsenic and fluoride contaminated drinking water in the state. The state's minister for public health engineering, Dinesh Prasad Goala, recently told the assembly that the government has initiated steps to provide alternative sources …
pantanal threatened: The world's largest wetland, The Pantanal, spread across areas of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, is under the threat of destruction by farming, urban development and climate change. A UN report says use of pesticide and fertilisers for soybean farming in Brazil's Mato Grosso state poses the biggest danger. …
danger spilling out: Mexico's oil monopoly Pemex recently confirmed the fifth fuel spill in the past four months, even as authorities quoted a requirement of US $9 billion to repair the country's degenerating oil pipeline network. Media reports said nearly 45,000 litres of oil spilled in the latest incident near …
