Judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter of In Re: Zudpi Jungle Lands. A batch of applications involved a peculiar issue concerning the situation prevailing in the six districts of eastern Vidarbha region namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. The issue pertains to the status of the …
IN INDIA, environment is hardly an election topic. No one expects political parties to make environment a plank and neither do most voters base their decisions on ecological promises. However, in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, the absence of a burning …
FOR THE candidates of Bhopal (North) constituency, the area worst affected by the gas leak in 1984, relief for the victims seems to be a non-issue. Congress candidate Rasool Ahmad Siddique smugly declares voters are "satisfied with the relief they are getting" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ramesh Sharma …
GREEN issues came to the fore in several colonies of Delhi. But, for inexplicable reasons, metropolis-wide environmental issues such as the rapidly increasing air pollution, were ignored. Some of the city's otherwise articulate middle-class even accepted the problem of vehicular pollution as fait accompli. Says O P Sharda, president of …
ONE RARE case of an environmental issue spreading out and influencing an election campaign in two constituencies is that of Betwa river pollution in Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Vidisha and the Congress candidate for nearby Sanchi tried to cash in on the issue, cleverly using …
PARTY manifestoes have repeatedly shown that election promises come cheap. Green ones may come even cheaper. The Congress party's environmental concerns have been stressed in its election manifestoes since the mid-1970s. However, that has not stopped the party from presiding over heavy exploitation of India's forests and groundwater. Now, it …
With the increasing importance of birth control in the national family welfare programme, contraceptive research in the country is bustling. A whole range of new contraceptives, from plant-based creams to surgical methods and vaccines, could make conventional birth-control practices such as sterilisation and condom-use obsolete. And, though they have yet …
SOLID waste is piling up in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. Entrepreneurs whose businesses are based on tourism say the country will lose tourists -- its major foreign exchange earner -- if the situation does not improve soon. Garbage disposal has been a problem since erstwhile West Germany, which had earlier …
It is increasingly evident that without the commitment and cooperation of forest-dependent communities, the forests of India will remain in jeopardy. A conerted effort must now be made to regenerate forest ecosystems. Forest departments, communities, NGOs, research and academic institutions, and other government agencies must come together and mobilize resources …
THAT THE world's population problem is not merely a numbers game, was the view expressed by most delegates attending the Population Summit of The World's Scientific Academies, held in New Delhi from October 24-27. The summit statement's emphasis on reaching "zero population growth within the lifetime of our children", therefore, …
* With the patents of several important drugs about to expire, even the giant German chemicals manufacturer, Hoechst, is trying to enter the North American generic drugs market by bidding for 51 per cent of the Copley group of USA. Hoechst says the share of generic drugs in the US …
Pollution levels in the Hooghly river rise sharply after the idols are immersed at Durga Puja, revealed a study done three years ago by J J Ghose of Calcutta University. Though publication of the study had been held back for fear of offending religious sentiments, the state has now realised …
Dense cinchona and silver oak forests covering 3,000 ha in Valparai in the Annamalai hills will be replaced by tea plantations if the state-run Tamil Nadu Plantation Corporation Ltd (TNPCL) has its way. TNPCL was set up in 1976 to rehabilitate Tamil refugees from tea gardens in Sri Lanka. Since …
Environmental issues in India are contested by different social groups, including the state. Since the law vests and divests contesting groups with rights and resources, it has itself become a subject of contest. Wildlife enthusiasts demand legislations to make sanctuaries inviolate from human interference, while others demand laws protecting the …
IN THEIR quest for cultivable land, tribals have cleared more than 2,025 ha of virgin forest in the Hadgarh sanctuary in Orissa's Keonjhar district in less than two years. According to the Antyodaya Chetana Kendra (ACK), a voluntary organisation that has been working in the area for nearly a decade, …
The Bhopal High Court has pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for "lack of seriousness" in handling criminal proceedings against Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), whose negligence caused the Bhopal gas leak in 1984. In a three-and-a-half page order given on September 27, chief judicial magistrate Anil Kumar Chaturvedi …
THE WORLD Bank recently organised a conference in Washington on 'Valuing the Environment'. There is probably no other way that market economists can deal with the environment except by treating it as an externality that ought to be 'internalised' through suitable valuation and appropriate fiscal interventions in the marketplace. The …
GERMAN industries and town councils agreed in the first week of September, to loan $345 million to the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) to rescue the country's ambitious recycling programme from the brink of bankruptcy. Trash collection companies had threatened to stop collection unless they were paid the $121.2 million owed …
PAKISTAN'S cotton crop will reach the target of 960 million kg despite the locust threat and reports of a virus attack, according to the country's central cotton committee. The final output, however, will depend on the extent to which Pakistan is able to mitigate the damage from the locust attack. …
The Kerala High Court has blocked the state government's highly-publicised distribution of 28,588 ha of forest land to migrant farmers who occupied the land prior to 1977. On September 15, the court stayed the distribution of title deeds for land either occupied originally by tribals or included in the Idukki …
THE EIGHTH session of the negotiating committee for a convention on climate change, held in August in Geneva, failed to agree on "joint implementation" by industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Joint implementation essentially means that industrialised countries can sponsor cheap efforts in the Third World to reduce greenhouse …
