Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Ramdevbhai Samatbhai Sanjva Vs State of Gujarat & Others dated 09/05/2025. The matter related to remedial actions to be taken for abatement of pollution of river Bhadar near Ahmedabad. Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has filed the response affidavit, March …
"Bath? Twice a month! Washing clothes? Who knows!" There was deep hurt behind the sarcastic laughter of the angry woman. Her audience understood. There were about 300 women -- from 9 districts of Gujarat -- who had congregated in Ahmedabad on May 30 to attend a meeting organised by the …
It was a blazing mid-March afternoon in Ahwa, 130 km from Surat. Some "modern" men were enacting what seemed for all practical purposes a medieval drama. The lawns of the Ahwa collectorate, the headquarters of the Dangs district, were suitably decorated. The local maibaaps (virtual satraps) -- the district"s bureaucrats …
According to David Hardiman, a historian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, the Bhils came to the Dangs around the 14th century, almost simultaneously with the Konkanas, who were initially subjects of the Bhils. The Konkanas practiced rab cultivation in the flatter regions of the valleys. Forest …
The Dang durbar (court) that opened this year on March 13, and continued till Holi (March 17) is an annual pageantry coming down from the Raj days. What actually happens here clearly symbolises the plains-people's and the bureacracy's patronising, condescending, yet authoritarian attitude towards forest tribals. The Dangs durbar dates …
It is an anomaly: the privy purse was abolished 24 years ago, yet, here, in the Dangs, they still exist. The British ruled in the Dangs under the foreign territories regulations. In 1947 it acceeded to India by default. So when the privy was abolished for the former states, the …
In the pre-British era, the Dangis, part of a larger trade circle in forest products, dictated the terms of trade in forest produce. Merchants from the peripheral towns, bought permission to cut timber from the Bhil chiefs. The rate, in 1826, was Rs.2.25 per cart. Payments were often in kind, …
Gandhian leader Chotubhai Nayak had dreamed that they would be the key to the tribals' prosperity, these jangal mandalis, or forest labour cooperatives. They have been a feature of the Dangs since 1948 and operated till 1960, when the Dangs district was a part of Bombay state. They were dissolved …
A lonely wind moans eerily through empty houses and deserted streets, rattling a broken window here, a halfhinged door there: 350 people once lived here. Today, 35 km from Mandvi, Pyaaka is a ghost village. But Navrang Shanushali chose to stay. "Our village is 5 km from the nearest market. …
AT BHUJPUR, 32 km from the coastal town of Mandvi in Kutch, the Nagmati river is only a bone-dry riverbed with a small, out of place check-dam. But buried in the sand lie the village's life- support systems - a dyke and 4 tubewells that quietly recharge the underground aquifer. …
THE scorching sun fissures the salt-encrusted soil of the desolate Bhal, the region near the Gulf of Khambat in Gujarat. In the midst of this, the Vankars, traditionally weavers and agricultural labourers, have transformed wastelands into green acres through cooperatives, helped by the Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), an Ahmedabad-based NGO. …
The plague mystery still foxes the high level technical advisory committee constituted by the Centre. In its 7 page interim report, the committee headed by V Ramalingaswamy, former director general of health, has stated that the isolating of Yersinia pestis from humans through DNA fingerprinting has confirmed that it was …
Conflict between the local population in Gir and the conservation authorities can be traced back to the formation of the wildlife sanctuary in 1965. Revenue wastelands and grazing land on the Gir forest periphery were declared reserved and protected forests without the villagers knowledge. This land was previously kept outside …
Intensive management of Kuno forests is required before lions can be introduced in the area, claim Wildlife Institute of India researchers. Because the population of herbivores such as chital, nilgai, sambar and blackbuck is too low to sustain the lions, it is planned to introduce over 5 years 500 of …
Supplementing efforts to preserve the Asiatic lion, albeit in captivity, the Sakkarbaug Zoo in Junagadh has bred about 150 lions since the '50s. These have been sent to zoos in India and abroad and form the only pure-bred population of the cat in captivity. Sakkarbaug zoo officer R D Katara …
Jan-Feb 1995 •Preparation for relocation and rehabilitation of the local people from proposed national park area in Kuno with their consent. •Translocation of captured nilgai, sambar and other ungulates that form the prey for the lion. March-July •Shifting of villagers from core areas of proposed Park and starting rehabilitation work …
The lion can be heard prowling at night, near the livestock enclosure. In the morning, we are woken up by blasting in the limestone mines surrounding the fields. The lion eats only when it is hungry. But the factory (the Ambuja Cement Factory beyond the mines) never stops eating. --- …
Letter to deputy forest protector, East Kutch forest department to the Kutch collector on matter pertaining allocation of land located at Mudra Taluka, Kutch District on rent to Adani Chemicals Ltd, for the production of salt.
PEOPLE's efforts to protect forests in the villages of Gujarat are recent compared to those in the Bihar-Orissa belt and started only after the forest cover had become non-existent. Villages had become surrounded by dry, barren ground. The trees had been reduced to mere root-stock. With an uncorporative forest department …
The controversy over the reduction of dam height of the Sardar Sarovar project is back in the news with the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh governments locking horns to scale political heights over it. The disagreement is likely to explode in the forthcoming meeting of the Sardar Sarovar Construction Advisory Committee, …
Medical experts have warned that a rat borne disease, leptospirosis, which has already claimed 14 lives in Bulsar district in Gujarat, may spread to other parts of the country and rapped the government for ignoring its spread. At Plague Vision '94, held in Delhi on October 12, K K Aggarwal, …
