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 …
When swarms of locusts flooded Rajasthan last year, Union agriculture minister Balram Jakhar spared no effort to create the impression that he was deploying the best crisis technology available (Down To Earth, Vol II, No 8). Prominent among his plans was the revival of the Directorate of Agricultural Aviation, with …
Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat is emerging as the messiah of those disgruntled with the government's environment protection policies. Shekhawat recently claimed that the regulations of the ministry of environment and forests and lobbying by rabid environmentalists were responsible for crippling Rajasthan's economy. Addressing a meeting of industrialists and …
The Social Work Research Centre (SWRC), a voluntary agency based in Tilonia, Rajasthan, has stolen a march over the government by installing the country's first solar-powered Rural Automatic Exchange. In the early '70s, a telephone line was installed linking Tilonia with Kishangarh, 15 km away. However, the this link rarely …
RAJASTHAN Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and his cabinet are busy wooing Israeli expertise in, of all things, water management. The first entrant is Tahal Consulting Engineers Ltd, a Tel Aviv-based firm which has bagged a Rs 13-crore contract to prepare a master plan for irrigation water management -- a …
Since the '70s, the Israelis have enjoyed international recognition for using well-managed modern technologies to get the Negev desert and other arid parts of their young country to bloom. Perhaps impressed by the grass being greener on that side of the world, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the chief minister of Rajasthan, …
DEOLI had seen nothing like it. On April 25, over 500 villagers took out a rally through this small township in the Tonk district of Rajasthan, under the banner of the Samanvay Samiti, Bisalpur Bandh Doob Kshetra. They were protesting against the inadequacy of rehabilitation measures for the Bisalpur Drinking …
SILICOSIS -- an incurable lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica, a component of dust -- has debilitated several workers in cement and brick factories and sandstone mines in the country, recent research reveals. In its later stages, the disease can lead to respiratory or cardiac failure. The finding …
Health care in the Pink City is extracting its kilo of flesh. Ironically, Jaipur's citizens are being increasingly exposed to health hazards from infectious waste from the city's health care facilities, according to a recent survey conducted by the Rajasthan Voluntary Health Association. "While it is not my intention to …
THE SPECTRE of drought hangs over western Rajasthan almost every year and this year isn't any different. The worst affected are the animals. A good monsoon last year ensured increased calving -- which means more milk -- but lack of pastures might put the clock back. Owners somehow manage to …
Non-governmental organisations have accused the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) of succumbing to pressure from the Rajasthan mining lobby and de-reserving a part of the Sariska National Park to allow mining. MEF reiterated the area of the park is 866 ha, 279 ha less than the previous figure …
IN THE desert state of Rajasthan, forests have always been managed by communities. Over the years, with "modernisation" and flawed official forest management systems, the practice faded. However, traditional forest management is making a comeback in Alwar district and the success of the revival is spreading. And, all this is …
A kuccha road leading to village Mallana near Sariska in Rajasthan is blocked by villagers. Faces bright with anger, they say: "We will free Mallana from the miners. We will do or die." A truck approaches cautiously and then turns tail. Harshawardhan Varma's moving documentary, The Slaughter of Sariska, drives …
Villagers of Jhadol district in Rajasthan are up in arms against the proposed construction of two dams under the Mansi-Wakal project, which will inundate their villages. In what is already being dubbed the "Narmada of Rajasthan", the Bhil tribals of the area, led by the Chandreshwar Kishan Sangharsh Samiti (CKSS), …
FOR CENTURIES, the people of western Rajasthan have depended on uncertain rain for their feeble attempts at settled agriculture and for drinking purposes. The scarcity has given the people a sense of conservation that is remarkable by modern standards. Children are bathed in shallow metal containers and the water is …
Mining inside and on the boundary of Sariska National Park in Rajasthan's Alwar district has resumed despite a Supreme Court ban. Enquiries with the Zilla Khaniz Udyog Sangh (ZKUS), the local mine owners' representative body, revealed the action followed a recent letter from the Union minster for environment and forests …
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 …
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 …
