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 …
Our syllabi (for training forest officials) still have manuals written during the Raj S K Mukherjee Acting director, Wildlife Institute, Dehradun Why do you still train foresters in horseriding and shooting, 5 decades after the British have left? Surely, that's teaching them to charge against us. Nanakram Gujjar, a villager …
THE low hum of conversation suddenly gives way to melody as the Banjara women break into song. A voice yells, "Don't sing, shout slogans!" and the air is rent with cries of "Yeh azadi jhooti hai" (This independence is a sham). This was the scene in front of the District …
Rajasthan villagers have taken to uprooting the eucalyptus trees, popularly known as safeda, which they had welcomed a decade ago as harbinger of greenery in the desert state. Residents of Samredpur Kalan Khurd, a village 60 km from Jaipur, have started an 'uproot the safeda campaign' after Rajasthan Mukti Panchayat, …
THE Udaipur lakes are dying of asphyxiation. Fed by huge amounts of nutrients and organic matter, the lakes are covered with a carapace of water hyacinth and blue-green algae, the first indication of "accelerated eutrophication". Eutrophication is the slow and steady natural ageing process of any confined waterbody, and is …
Even as the cerebral malaria epidemic in Rajasthan abates with the onset of winter, NGOs who had first sounded the alarm are trying to ensure that the incident does not slip from the state government's memory, till the next outbreak. The Rajasthan Voluntary Health Association (RVHA), with support from the …
TILL the other day, the Rajasthan chief minister, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, seemed to spend much of his time frozen on an anti-environmentalist platform, ranting against the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF). Last fortnight, he seemed to have passed the megaphone to Orissa's Biju Patnaik. That both these stormy …
JUST as farmers in the dry districts of western Rajasthan were looking forward to a good harvest following the heaviest Irains in 2 decades earlier this year, a deadly disease - cerebral malaria - ran riot through the villages. All hopes of prosperity were dashed as hundreds of people were …
Despite international scepticism, the Union ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES) has revived plans to set up a solar thermal power plant in Rajasthan. The project will be executed by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) in collaboration with Solel Solar Systems Of Israel (See Down To Earth, October 15, …
THE recent outbreak of falciparum malaria in non-endemic areas in Rajasthan has underscored the link between development projects and the damage they cause to the human environment. Public health experts as well as social workers have pointed out that the fuse for the disease's flare-up lay in the well-meant Indira …
NESTLED within the degraded Aravalli hills are Udaipur"s 5 lakes, easily the city"s greatest asset. Since 1678, these human-made lakes have provided revenue, recreation and water to the people crowded around their shores. Seven lakh tourists came last year to feast their eyes on their green waters, providing 50 per …
ABOUT 60 km from Udaipur lies a pristine lake in peril. Jaisamand is one of Asia's largest sweetwater lakes, measuring 54.4 sq km and dotted by 7 islands. It was founded in 1685 by Maharana Fateh Singh who dammed the Gomti river. Today, a squat hotel casts ominous shadows on …
This indicative plan has based on the work of field/park directors and their colleagues in the eight protected areas, and of various non-governmental organisations involved in carrying out PRA in the proposed project area. The final output has benefit greatly from the inputs of the various national consultants and consulting …
NOTWITHSTANDING the self-applause the government claims on its wasteland development programme in the recent spate of advertisements in leading national dailies, community work at the local level is still being impeded by archaic regulations and the unbending attitude of the officials. Lapodia in the Dudu block of Jaipur district in …
The growing problems in providing adequate drinking water to urban populations is a consequence of the lack of long-term planning and inefficient management of urban water usage.
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 …
