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 …
LATE October 1995, the Gujarat government asked the Dutch company Haskoning to prepare a pre-feasibility report of the Kalpsar project - envisaging a 30-km long dam in the Gulf of Khambat between Bhavnagar and Bharuch. The proposed 2,000 sq km area enclosed by the Rs 9.76-crore dam would hold sweet …
THE latest figures of the oustees of the Sardar Sarovar Project (ssp) show that relief and rehabilitation (R&R;) has almost come to a standstill. In the last 14 months since June 1994, the Gujarat government has been able to resettle just 94 families from all the three states of Gujarat, …
WHEN the Gujarat High Court ((-,Hc) orders for closing down 756 units in and around Ahmedabad on August 5, and 26 major industries in Nandesari estate in Barcida on September 5 (Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 9) were not followed, contempt petition against government officials was admitted. However, the …
IN THE depths of saline ground above a water layer that is blackish they store fresh water for their year's needs. They are the Maldharies inhabiting the vast expanse of undulating Banni porturelands located in the desert areas of the northern Kutch district of Gujarat. They are the descendents of …
A RED dog laps up purple water from an open gutter, while a yellow cow ambles past. Dreams in technicolour? No ... just one of the many everyday scenes in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, Asia's largest chemical industry zone and possibly one of the most polluted. The acrid smell of chemicals welcomes …
Much to the dismay of the owners of 5 industrial estates located in Naroda, Odhav and Narol areas in Gujarat, their writ petition, seeking permission to restart production was turned down by the Gujarat High Court judges on September 19. The division bench consisting of Acting Chief Justice R A …
Chastened by the state High Court's orders on its apathy in disciplining effing polluting units, the Gujarat government has taken belated action and cut off water and electricity connections of about 240 polluting units located in Vapi, Nandesari and the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation estates. The government action was prompted …
THE Gujarat legislature passed a bill in July 1995, reducing the area of the Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary in Kutch, Gujarat, to 444.23 sq krn from the earlier notified 765.79 sq km. Narayan Sarovar, famous for chinkaras, has become the battle ground for developmentalists and conservationists over the last few years, …
Handling facility of general cargo/LPG/chemicals and their storage terminal at Navinal Island, Mundra Taluk of Kutch District, Gujarat: environmental clearance - office memorandum (25 August 1995).
IT WAS a Herculean task. For 6 months in 1993, the residents of Kabripathar village enthusiastically carved channels in the unflinching, hard soil, laid pipes and tamped down and levelled the sloping land. Today, this newly-established lift irrigation system is helping them battle the tyranny of the seasons: they can …
"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 …
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. …
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. …
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. …
