Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Residents Welfare Association Savita Vihar Vs Irrigation & Flood Control Department & Others dated 28/05/2025. The applicant raised the grievance against throwing of construction debris and sewage obstruction in the Ghazipur drain. According to the applicant this drain flows behind …
ON JULY 23, Delhi's development minister Sahib Singh Verma kicked off the state government's afforestation drive from Jaunapur village in Mehrauli block. However, indignant at being forced out of the area and suddenly losing their traditional rights over the land, the villagers tried to block the minister's path, leading to …
THE hexagonal shape of the bee honeycomb is often cited by engineers as the most economical use of 2-dimensional space. But now it appears the honeycomb design is ideal for saving energy, too. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi have designed a honeycomb-type of insulation material …
"Green cover" -- a near-generic, near-pacifist environmental term today -- was coined at a time of bitter war, by Allied troops hiding from Japanese bombing runs in Malaya's forests in World War II. In the next great war, the Vietnam war, ironically, green cover was home to the Vietcong and …
MODIFIED agricultural implements that could be used by the leprosy-afflicted has made agriculture a worthwhile profession in Shahadara's Tahirpur leprosy colony in Delhi. Although farming in the colony started 17 years ago, the leprosy-afficted farmers could not use conventional implements as many had lost fingers or limbs. The scenario has …
WHEN applying fertilisers to crops, it is not so much the quantity as the timing that decides how good the yield will be, concludes a team of biochemists at the nuclear research laboratory of the Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). Led by Sukumar R Chatterjee, the team traced the …
SCIENTISTS at the International Potato Centre's (CIP) regional division in Delhi have designed an on-farm facility for storing potatoes through the summer months, which is as good as a refrigerated store, and cheaper by far. Called the rustic evaporative cooled store, it is made of easily available material -- bricks, …
With only Parliament's approval of the Organ Transplant Bill on June 15 gave a chance to a team of doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi to perform India's first successful heart transplant. The operation was performed on August 3 on Deviram, a 45-year-old patient …
Until recently, the Capital's Tihar jail was notorious for vicious outbreaks among its inmates. But since April this year, it has made news for an entirely unlikely reason: taking up, among other things, a programme for converting prison garbage into manure. Leading the image turnabout at Tihar is Kiran Bedi, …
The Refuse Incineration-cum-Power Generation Plant in Delhi is up for grabs. In 1987, the ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES) commissioned the plant, which was bought from the Denmark-based Volunt Miljotechnik with the help of a Danish government loan of Rs 20 crore. The plant converted 300 tonnes of garbage …
The government of Delhi has been inadvertently encouraging the illegal felling of trees. Outdated city laws have created an anomalous situation in which there is an incentive to break the law, a recently-released report of the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out. In 1992-92, the prescribed penalty for illegal felling …
Sulabh International, which has designed and installed over 2,000 public lavatories in slums and resettlement colonies, has just developed a lavatory design that recycles compost to generate biogas for cooking fuel. "We plan to set up 61 such complexes throughout the country," says N D Mazumdar, director (technical research) of …
Plans are afoot to convert the Bhatti stone mines south of Delhi into a major drinking water source for the water-starved Capital. The gigantic stone mine pits, which were closed last year after protracted protests from environmentalists against the pollution caused by the stone crushers, might be converted into large …
ENFORCING water pollution laws depends wholly on strict and difficult congruity between different readings of pollutants in a given water source. To standardise water pollution measurements, scientists at the Delhi-based Centre for Biochemical Technology (CBT), a research laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), have recently developed …
IT IS through very unscientific songs and plays on subjects close to the quotidian concerns of the villagers that the mission that the Bhartiya Jan Gyan Vigyan Jatha (BJGVJ) started met with success. The thespians took into account matters that were close to the hearts of villagers -- agriculture, forests, …
'JABBAR Gears' -- thus proclaims a board on a rickshaw exhibited at the convention. Standing right next to it is Sheikh Jabbar of Nagpur, professional rickshawpuller and special invitee to the convention. Innovator extraordinary, Jabbar has built in a special set of gears in his rickshaw. Equipped with the experience …
CITY authorities and researchers generally react with a practised, silent ennui to noise contour-mappings of urban areas and the consequent short-lived furore about "impermissibly high noise levels". But for once now, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF), deafened by the amplifying din, has initiated an environmental impact assessment noise …
NOISE influences human behaviour both physiologically and psychologically. At 0 decibels, the bottomline of hearing, the weakest sound can be heard in an extremely quiet environment. A soft whisper registers 20 dB and sleep is disturbed when ambient noise levels exceed 35 dB. Conversation is generally conducted at about 70 …
December 1985: The Acoustical Society of India prepares a report on the need to legislate industrial and urban community noise pollution. The Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986, includes noise as an environmental pollutant for the first time. February 1989: A committee constituted by the Central Pollution Control Board sets standards for …
THE government of Delhi has decided to promote the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative, less polluting fuel. More CNG outlets are to be opened in the near future in Delhi, as well as the neighbouring states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Besides, Delhi's Lt …
A BANK with no minimum deposits, no signatures, ridiculously low interest rates on loans and run by the depositors themselves: "It is not really a bank, but more of a thrift and credit scheme," says Sushma, a housewife living in Shankar Camp near Moti Bagh in the Capital, one of …
