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 …
Managers of five US companies face fines upto $ 3.75 million each and imprisonment upto 75 years for shipping toxic waste to Australia, Bangladesh and Pakistan in violation of US waste exports law. Three companies from southern USA -- Gaston Copper Recycling Corp, Stoller Chemical Co and Hy-Tex Marketing -- …
Drink Cafedirect. Give Third World producers a fair deal! Christian Aid, along with other UK charity groups, has launched a two-year campaign to encourage "fair trade" with an assault on the European Community's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The plan is to encourage shops to stock "fairly traded" goods, having a …
UNTIL recently, indiscriminate hunting and poaching had threatened the survival of elephants in Africa. But the international ban on ivory trade and increased vigilance against poachers have reduced elephant-killing to an extent that their population is increasing annually by 5 per cent in many African countries. As a result, elephants …
VILLAGERS in Uttara Kannada district are waging a battle against Karnataka Forest Department officials who are allowing contractors to fell trees in the betta lands -- tracts of forests sanctioned to farmers of the region during British rule. The trouble began in March when villagers in Adnalli gheraoed a contractor …
THE BRITISH public is faced with a grim choice: clean versus cheap water. In a recently released document, The Cost of Quality, Ian Byatt, director general of water services, predicted the cost of water in Britain would double by 2005. He questioned the stringent standards for drinking and bathing water …
THINGS could not have turned out more badly in the fight over the fate of the wastelands board. Last fortnight's cabinet notification lays to rest the uncertainty over where the new minister for wasteland will sit. The notification certainly also does another thing: It dug a grave for the entire …
TRAVELLING north through the Brahmaputra valley, you come to a diversion to Tejpur and a three-km bridge, the second spanning the river. On the north bank, a national highway goes all the way to North Khimpur. You pass by tea gardens standing in disciplined rows and you are overwhelmed by …
NUCLEAR energy can be good business. And for the ailing West European nuclear industry, the unsafe nuclear reactors of its eastern neighbours has come as a boon. Siemens AG of Germany has announced that its power-plant division would form a consortium that will undertake rehabilitation of nuclear reactors in Ukraine, …
THE EUROPEAN Community (EC) has decided to seek membership to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). At present, the EC is a member only of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation though seven EC nations are individual members of the IWC. In the wake of this decision, the EC has informed …
FOUR million ha of the Siberian coniferous forest, the taiga, are cut down every year, and it is feared that this may shortly increase as controls on logging disintegrate after the break-up of the former USSR, says a report prepared by Armin Rosencranz and Antony Scott of the Pacific Energy …
COUNTRIES on the Pacific rim have asked Japan to use an ocean route well away from land when it begins importing plutonium by sea from France later this year. These include Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Micronesia. Japan intends to import 30 metric tonnes …
TIMBER worth crores of rupees is being stolen from the UP forests. Trees are cut either without permission or with the connivance of those in authority. Timber worth Rs 30 lakh was seized in a single seizure recently, reflecting the magnitude of the problem, which is complicated further by terrorist …
IF THERE was one thing that African leaders wanted out of Rio, it was a convention on desertification. And finally they got it. The 47th general assembly has now been asked to set up an intergovernmental negotiating committee for the convention. The jubilant Africans, however, had numerous tense moments with …
WEN LIAN TING, Malayasia's permanent representative to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), won the epithet of "dragon lady" during the Rio summit for her unwavering opposition to the forest convention. The tough UNCED prepcom meetings, spread over a period of two years, required enormous mental and physical stamina, which …
The minister of state for environment, Kamal Nath, had some radical words to say in Rio. "I don't understand why people here are talking about forests being national or global resources. In my country, they are more community resources," he told an interviewer. Surely, that statement will gladden the hearts …
STARVED of fresh water and no longer able to withstand the encroaching Arabian Sea, the Indus is dying a slow death. The channels of this mighty and historic river are running dry, while salt water is destroying the lush tamarisk forests which once lined the river, the estuarine timmar, or …
China, this fortnight, detonated its biggest nuclear test ever. The explosion, about 70 times as powerful as the one at Hiroshima, is seen as a sign of China's nuclear prowess. And also as a slight to the US which has been putting India under the cloud for its missile programme. …
NEPAL'S Terai region seems hell-bent on courting environmental disaster. In the last 30-odd years wetlands and swamps have been reclaimed and massive rivers have been tied down by dams. The flood plain area has grown, while the sal and mixed forests have disappeared. By 1959, in the Chitwan valley alone, …
WHAT IS common between Rajasthan's deserts and quality paper? The National Chemical Laboratory has isolated an enzyme from a micro-organism found in the Haldighat region of the state. This chemical breaks down a component of paper pulp, hemicullulose, which lowers the quality of paper. But the enzyme leaves the cellulose, …
WHILE foresters and policy-makers cry themselves hoarse calling for bans and pointing accusing fingers at goats, the animals themselves go on unperturbed, secure in the fact that for the poorer sections, they are often the only means of survival. The primary accusation against goats is that of desertification, though all …
