Judgment of the National Green Tribunal, May 27, 2025 in the matter of Sumit Saini Vs Shree Ram Steel Industries & Others. Sumit Saini, resident of village Damla, District Yamuna Nagar, Haryana had sent a letter petition dated May 14, 2022 to the NGT. The application said that around 25 …
The Haryana government has adopted a list of 43 industries as highly polluting, rejecting the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) list of 17 types of heavily polluting industries, circulated 2 years ago, as inadequate. Pointing out that the CPCB list allows many other categories of intensively polluting industries in Haryana …
LAST YEAR, the smog-covered industrial township of Panipat in Haryana was accorded the status of an "eco-town". However, a still-to-be-released report by the state department of environment that the Down To Earth team was privy to rudely ridicules a district administration campaign that is flaunting this prestige. The report blandly …
IN THE early 1980s, the people of Sukhomajri village in Shivalik range of the Himalaya in Haryana's Ambala district earned nation-wide acclaim for the way in which they had utilised their forests and water to their benefit. But even they would never have imagined that the 400 ha forest of …
In a significant breakthrough, the Hyderabad-based Directorate of Rice Research has developed five commercially viable, hybrid rice varieties from indigenous species. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) director-general V L Chopra claims this will make India "the second country, after China, to exploit hybrid vigour in order to give a …
While the cultivation of paddy in Punjab (and Haryana) does need some curbing, the extreme forebodings of either total groundwater exhaustion in Punjab or of the state turning into a desert of paddy growing is not curbed forthwith are unwarranted.
Unplanned mining for granite and marble in the Aravalli ranges has transformed Badkhal lake in Haryana from a tourists' delight to a dry, rocky terrain. Located a stone's throw away from Delhi, the lake was developed by the Haryana tourism department into a popular tourist resort. The lake was formed …
KHEJRI (Prosopis cineraria) is nature's best gift to the farmers of Rajasthan and Haryana for it not only thrives in drought conditions and in poor soils, but also encourages the growth of crops planted near it if its lateral roots are pruned (Changing Villages, Vol 12, No 1). Scientists at …
IN MANIPUR, drinking is more than being merely dangerous to one's health. It can be utterly embarrassing because a man caught drinking there is likely to be stripped, have his face blackened, be paraded seated on a donkey and then handed over to the police for prosecution. Nupi Lan, the …
THE DRIVE against liquor in Kaithal district in Haryana reached its most ludicrous in March this year when the Kamoda village panchayat resolved to reopen the village's liquor vend in the village. Says panchayat member Baju Ram, "The decision was taken because liquor was still easily available and there was …
CHADUVU Velugu (Light of Knowledge), an adult literacy primer in Andhra Pradesh, contains a lesson entitled Adavallu Ekamaithe (If Women Unite). The lesson depicts the benefits of literacy and tells the story of how the Dubagunta women won their battle against alcoholism. Adavallu Ekamaithe tells how the men of Dubagunta …
THOUGH Haryana is an agriculturally developed state, its Rewari district is poor and handicapped by lack of drinking water, sharp gander inequality and educational backwardness. Rewari averages 65 cm of rain annually, not enough for efficient fuming and its salinity is such that cultivating the undulating stretches of the Arivall! …
A dry winter followed by the highest temperatures recorded in February in the north Indian plains in the past six decades led to fears in state agricultural departments that rabi crop yields would be cut drastically. Wheat, gram, pea, barley and mustard - the traditional winter crops grown in Punjab, …
FEARING a proposal to withdraw customs duty concessions on pesticides will result in price increases, farmers' organisations in north India are heading for a showdown with the government and pesticide manufacturers. The proposal to end customs concessions relates to certain pesticides that are also produced in India. The farmers contend …
"The Raindrop" is about a village near Chandigarh in Haryana. The book tells the story how this village was able to transform itself from a drought prone one to a food exporting one through community efforts and scientific watershed management.
The Union ministry of environment and forests has once again extended for 30 days the deadline for enforcing the controversial draft notification under the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986. The amendment faces stiff opposition from the governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and also industry associations such …
GUAYULE is an arid-zone crop that is one of only two species yielding rubber in quantities substantial enough for commercial use. Unlike the rubber tree, guayule can be cultivated in marginal lands and provide income to desert dwellers. The whole plant, except the leaves, produces rubber. Scientists at Haryana Agricultural …
TUBEWELL-related deaths in the green revolution districts of Haryana due to the victims getting trapped in poison-gas pockets formed, some say, by heavy use of fertilisers, are rapidly approaching their usual post-monsoon peak. Since 1987, there have been hundreds of tubewell-related deaths in Haryana, in particular in the districts of …
BUILDERS in Delhi are in a bind. The Supreme Court order to close down stone-crushing units around the Capital has hiked structural costs by 10-15 per cent. The Aravalli notification has drastically cut down prime land they have been opening up in Gurgaon, where land prices are less than a …
WHEN WITH 'big brother' presumption, the Centre decided to 'help' the states of Haryana and Rajasthan regulate their industrial development, and arrest the adverse effect of this development on the Aravallis, it stirred up a hornet's nest, with development and the states on one side and environment and the Centre …
In India, as in other countries, problems associated with locally overabundant wildlife species have emerged as important management issues for reason of some species losing their natural habitat but adapting themselves to the manaltered habitats. Consequently, there is a clash with the interests of local people. Crop-raiding by locally overabundant …
