Order of the National Green Tribunal (Central Zone Bench, Bhopal) in the matter of Kamal Tiwari Vs Union of India & Others dated 27/05/2025. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan stated that a high level meeting to review the progress on the demarcation of Nahargarh …
We know the potential, we know the opportunity. We have the necessary diversity and the knowhow. But still, not many plants are in use for extraction of dyes in India. Of 40 species of indigo found in India, only 16 yield the dye and only four are commercially grown in …
This dye plant was at the heart of Mahatma Gandhi's first satyagraha against the unfair Tinkathia or British taxation system, practiced on the indigo cultivators in Champaran, Bihar. For the British, India was Indigo and Indigo, India. The use of indigo, a biennial plant with yellow flowers and blue leaves, …
Five years ago, Ama Herbal, a Lucknow-based company, quick to see potential in the natural dye industry, started to manufacture natural dyes. “The response was tremendous. Everyone asked us for samples within 15 days of writing to them,” says Y A Shah, the company’s managing director. “But later, everything backfired. …
The stalks of the Madder are so weak that they often lie along the ground, preventing the plant from rising to its maximum height of 8 feet. The red dye obtained from Madder (Rubia tinctorum) is based on the anthraquinone molecule. Madder has been used for many centuries and the …
Used as a charm to protect the wearer against evil or as a dye for making saffron coloured robes of Buddhist monks, or even as an antiseptic, turmeric is native to India and belongs to the Zingiberaceae or ginger family. The juice from the turmeric rhizome is used medicinally for …
The proposed 140 megawatt (mw) integrated solar combined cycle (iscc) power plant, coming up in Mathania near Jodhpur in Rajasthan, has already undergone many changes (see: Down To Earth, Vol 9, No 24, May 15, 2001). Now it is going in for a fuel switch-over. The Rajasthan State Power Corporation …
For the last three decades, the villagers of Karauli district in Rajasthan had grown accustomed to listening to the blasts of mines. And worse, to having their fields rendered useless for cultivation. With illegal miners clearing large tracts of land, and using dynamites for creating quarries, agriculture is no longer …
These factories do not exist in government records. Nor do they figure in the lists of pollution control boards or other regulatory bodies. Even as they have mushroomed in small towns, they are also sprouting in the dark bylanes of congested localities in large cities. They function from one or …
We need to give the devil his due. Finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, has drawn flak from almost all sides for his nightmare budget 2002. But there was one item, which missed most eyes, which said that the budget would provide deduction for afforestation projects on degraded non-forest land. The crucial …
"I took the responsibility of spreading water harvesting because of two reasons. One, it would have ensured water in the scarce areas," he says. For equally important for him was the "opportunity it gave me to mend my ill-doings". Today, his work has brought about a sea-change in the attitude …
Dada, as a child in a Marathi family, was a witness to the discordant practices. But unlike most people, he couldn't turn a Nelson's eye to existing conventions. Finally in 1958, he founded Swadhyaya (self-learning), an institution where faith, irrespective of religion, matters. From the motley group of 19 people, …
He shares his name with the father of the nation. But that's not where the similarity ends. If an incident in South Africa was to change Mahatma Gandhi's life forever, Gujarat's second Bapu's changed on the trip to the Netherlands in 1979. That's learning home truths in alien lands. Sadhu …
THINK saffron. Think sadhus and sants, communal frenzy, the Gujarat pogrom, of swords raised to the sky and the battle cry of kar sevaks and their adversaries renting a fresh spring morning. Now take a break. Picture a rishi meditating on the edge of a temple tank - say, a …
Modesty could very well be his second name. Seventy-one check dams, 55 percolation tanks, 33 ponds, 22 nullahs and 60 gully plugging - 241 rainwater harvesting projects in just nine months. But Pramukh Swami Maharaj is humility personified. His refrain: "This is not enough. We can do more." The mantle …
Village Hatiyaniki. Fifteen-odd people have gathered to discuss water harvesting activities in the vicinity. But there's just one face among the crowd, which is conspicuous enough to attract attention. Bereft of tact, his often-blunt interjections are received by a smirk from the other like-minded participants. But being unconventional only comes …
ON FEBRUARY 2, 2002, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) may have finally brought the curtain down on India's first pressurised heavy water nuclear reactor - Rajasthan Atomic Power Station's unit-I (RAPS-I). India's nodal regulatory body for its civil nuclear establishment took the decision to decommission RAPS-I by April 30, …
• The Supreme Court has asked the chief secretary of Bihar to file an affidavit regarding the killing of District Forest Officer (DFO) Sanjay Singh by " perhaps those indulging in illegal mining activities'. • Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot is seeking funds from the Union government for the development …
THE contagion appears to have been contained before it could assume epidemic proportions. But it has still claimed four lives. The recent outbreak of plague in the Rohru-Jubbal belt of Himachal Pradesh (HP) highlights how a surveillance mechanism is conspicuously absent in India. While the disease is said to have …
• The Supreme Court recently slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on the Union environment ministry for showing laxity in probing the disappearance of huge quantity of hazardous waste oil from major ports. • The Sikkim Forest Department arrested a person on charges of smuggling medicinal plants from Borong recently. …
the Andhra Pradesh Forest Development Corporation (apfdc) has selected nine herbs and plants for large-scale cultivation.The apfdc is carrying out experimental farming on a few of the chosen herbs like safed musli. Says apfdc managing director S K Das, "Since growing of these herbs requires intense crop management and investment, …
