Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect and poor maintenance appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 25.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect …
Muk Badhir Vidyalaya in Jawhar taluka, Thane district, Maharashtra is quite an unconventional school: the 55 tribal students on its rolls are all hearing-impaired. But ingenious use of alternate energy is what really sets this institution apart from other such schools; biogas plants, that run on seeds of locally available …
Malnutrition petition: In a suo moto petition taking cognisance of the increasing number of child deaths in Maharashtra's tribal areas, the Bombay High Court has ruled that there are inherent flaws in government's policy on malnutrition; these should be addressed before it offers any solution. Condemning government's failure on this …
Cut one: 1989-90: a factory manufacturing h-acid freely dumps iron-sludge, which contaminates the groundwater of Rajasthan’s Bichchri village. Forced to depend entirely on water tankers, villagers begin, and finally win, a prolonged legal battle to get the factory shut down. Cut two: 2004. Pollutants from an oxalic acid plant renders …
What will be your main focus areas? We will primarily concentrate on increasing awareness about renewable energy sources amongst people in villages. This has not been done in the past. There have many schemes and programmes but their impact has not been as desired. We started work on renewable energy …
The Maharashtra government will be distributing Soil Health Cards to 20,000 farmers in 100 select villages as part of the Krishi Saptak initiative launched last year. Based on soil studies, the cards will list the vital components of a particular patch and decide future use of manure and pesticide. Says …
MALNUTRITION is the terminal stage of a disease called ecological poverty. As everyday 16 children die in Maharashtra of malnutrition, and a state government admits it only after some hard prods from the state high court, one expects some rethinking on the disease. The state health department records reveal that …
The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra sees a spate of suicides by farmers, but the State's Agriculture Minister denies any connection between these incidents and government policy. JUST before the monsoon, farmers in Vidarbha arrange frog weddings to welcome the rain god. Villagers make one male and one female frog pose …
Till last year, Laksman Rao Kaldate of Istal village in Maharashtra’s Beed district thought that the agricultural waste generated in his soyabean fields had little economic value. In fact, most farmers of the area had hardly any use for agrowaste. “The common practice was to burn it down,” says Kaldate. …
Residents of drought-hit Osmanabad district learn from an innovative programme on groundwater conservation that local involvement and schemes at the micro-level can go a long way in saving the precious resource. Surekha waits in a line for hours on end for the tanker that brings drinking water to her village. …
The much-awaited AIDS control programme takes off. So why are drug companies still miffed? On the first of April, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), rolled out its long-awaited campaign to reach anti-retroviral drugs to India's victims of the AIDS virus. Called the art initiative (art for anti-retroviral therapy, which …
In these times of water scarcity, it is perhaps salutary to look at water systems built in the past. In February this year, one such system, dating to the eighteenth-century, was uncovered in Pune, Maharashtra. While this 15-kilometre long, 30-feet deep, 5-feet wide underground waterbody was not exactly unknown, it …
Though solid waste management and municipal finances may not sound too exciting, they have created quite a buzz. Last September, credit rating firm Crisil instituted an award for 'Excellence in Municipal Initiatives'. It invited entries in areas like financial management, internal systems, and e-governance. Crisil received a whopping 90 entries …
The sugar sector recently faced another setback as a result of a Supreme Court ruling, upholding the right of state governments to determine a sugarcane price that mills are obliged to pay farmers, different from the statutory minimum price (smp), which is fixed by the Centre. Sugar cane farmers constitute …
By the beginning of the next financial year, consumers in India would have over 10 companies to choose from while buying petrol and diesel. The new entrants in this segment include private players like Reliance, Essar and Shell, and three psus, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Ltd (mrpl), ongc and Numaligarh …
A thermal power plant (TPP) is threatening to snuff out the 100-year-old livelihood of farmers in Maharashtra's Dahanu taluka. It is alleged that pollution from the unit has led to a steady decline in the quality and quantity of chikoo (sapota) production. The TPP, run by Reliance Energy (formerly Bombay …
a recent midnight attack on Maharashtra's Rajapur barrage by farmers belonging to the neighbouring state of Karnataka has fuelled fears that future wars of the world will be fought over water. On March 26, around 400 residents of Soundatti and Naslapur villages, in Karnataka's Belgaum district, crossed over to Maharashtra …
the onset of summer has again brought into sharp focus a plethora of issues pertaining to groundwater. It has been found that the authorities in Rajasthan have yet to spring into damage-control mode despite the state being parched. The situation is equally alarming in states like Tamil Nadu (tn) and …
