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 …
IN MANY agricultural ecosystems, manure is used to provide the nutrients and organic matter needed for soil fertility on cropland. Even where chemical fertilisers are available, organic matter such as that provided by manure is the key to sustainable cropping. Farmers and pastoralists often develop relationships centred around each other's …
I understand you have an alternative to the Sardar Sarovar irrigation project, for using Narmada water. Can you give us an outline? The alternative is to use exogenous water judiciously to supplement local water. There are two reasons why we cannot rely only on local resources. In a drought-prone area, …
The Union agriculture ministry's plan to draw up a national fisheries policy for the integrated development of fishing in India has drawn flak from organisations representing coastal fisherfolk in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The fisherfolk have objected strongly to the Union government's policy of supporting …
RECENT press reports have cast aspersions on the Gujarat government's commitment to wildlife and biodiversity conservation. A notification issued by the state department of forests and environment on July 27, cancelled a 1981 notification, under which specified areas of Lakhpat taluka in Kutch were designated as the Narayan Sarovar sanctuary. …
The American multinational company Cargill Inc has abandoned a proposal to establish a $15-million salt manufacturing unit near Kandla port in Gujarat. The decision came on the eve of a satyagraha planned by Janata Dal leader George Fernandes on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who led the salt protest …
LESS THAN a week after Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar put off the much publicised jal-samarpan (death-by-drowning) protest against the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), she attended the first round of talks with a five-member committee established by the Union government to review the project. Prior to the meeting, there …
SEVERAL foods people all over the country consume daily -- milk, butter and cereals, for example -- have been found to contain substances hazardous to health by a nationwide survey conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The ICMR surveyors found that as much as 87 per cent …
African locusts, which have been infesting parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan since mid-July, are keeping pest control experts on their toes. The agriculture ministry has pressed into action two helicopters and a Vayudoot aircraft, armed with sprayers and insecticides, to fight the locusts that rode a cyclonic storm from Oman …
"JODHPUR has a future only if the Indira Gandhi canal is brought till here," says J Venkateshwarlu, director of the Central Arid Zone Research Institute. Come it certainly will, but no one will vouch for the ability of the Jodhpur branch of the canal to deliver sufficient water to the …
THE PLIGHT of the people of Bichhri, whose groundwater was rendered unfit for consumption by the effluent discharge from Silver Chemicals Ltd, may have been forgotten in Udaipur, with the case moving at snail's pace through the courts. But the industrial threat to the area's groundwater has not receded. Now, …
Before the Green Revolution of the early 1970s, the farmers of Junagadh district on the Saurashtra coast set records in agricultural production. They boast of having done as well as their north Indian counterparts in producing oilseeds, groundnuts, sugarcane, bananas and even wheat. But today, many of them -- particularly …
IN THE wake of a severe drought in Jodhpur in 1970, the public health engineering department (PHED) decided to obtain water from the countryside around the city as an emergency measure. Rampura-Mathania was chosen because of its high water table. The PHED installed 26 tubewells in Rampura-Mathania with a total …
OUT OF sight, out of mind. Perhaps that is why the depletion and degradation of groundwater throughout India has gone virtually unnoticed while much concern has been expressed over the condition of surface water resources. The crisis created by falling groundwater levels has grabbed the attention of only the immediate …
The Union government has made yet another feeble attempt at a dialogue with opponents of the Rs 13,000-crore Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Union water resources minister V C Shukla was forced to heed the demands of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) for a comprehensive review of the project after its …
I heard in Baroda on June 2 that the authorities were planning to demolish Keshubhai's hut. That night, some of us sneaked past the police cordon around Manibeli and entered the hut. Around 11 am on June 3, some 100 police surrounded the hut to demolish it. But when we …
The Narmada Bachao Andolan, which wants a revaluation of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), says the review team should consist of pro-dam and anti-dam groups. The Prime Minister or the minister for water resources should lead the pro-dam group, which should include officials from the states concerned with the project …
January 30, 1989: Official Secrets Act imposed on 10 villages around the dam site; 18 protesting activists and 500 villagers arrested. February 22: Medha Patkar and 8,000 others arrested near dam site. May 18, 1990: Armed police beat up people in 17 Madhya Pradesh villages that would be the first …
WHEN RUDA Gugha of Udauna village in the Chotila taluka of Surendranagar district "spotted a tanker parked on the dry (Mahanadi) river bed in the dead of the night" in March, little did he realise the havoc that the tanker was to wring in the region. The next day, cattle …
TUCKED away on the southern outskirts of Bhavnagar town is a dreary stretch of wilderness that once was a beautiful forest with leguminous trees and bushes spread over the rocky terrain. Creepers wove a delicate tapestry of bright flowers on the spiky branches of acacias and jujubes. Nilgai, jackal and …
Six months ago, the Union department of electronics (DoE) announced an ambitious plan to create electronics hardware technology parks (EHTPs) in order to help the country's stagnating electronic components industry by giving it access to international technology and to collaboration with multinationals. However, EHTPs have, failed to take off owing …
