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 …
A dry winter followed by the highest temperatures recorded in February in the north Indian plains in the past six decades led to fears in state agricultural departments that rabi crop yields would be cut drastically. Wheat, gram, pea, barley and mustard - the traditional winter crops grown in Punjab, …
"WE ARE happy without government help for our agriculture. Our lands now yield thrice what they used to four years ago," says 36-year-old Jagdish Gujjar of Guwara Dewari, a village of 60 households in the green belt of the Sariska reserved forest in Rajasthan's semi-arid Alwar district. Agriculture in the …
WITH THE dye industry being phased out in industrialised countries because of increasingly stringent effluent treatment and environment laws, the Indian dyes and dye intermediates sector expects to treble its exports in the next seven years to Rs 25 billion. A paper prepared by the Punjab, Haryana and Delhi Chamber …
TWICE-DISPOSSESSED Pong dam oustees have urged the Centre to sponsor tripartite talks between their representatives and the BJP governments of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan to settle rehabilitation issues. At a Congress-organised rally recently, Union minister of state for planning Sukh Ram condemned the Rajasthan government's high-handed and unilateral amendment of …
THE HIGH incidence of bone cancer and leukaemia in western Rajasthan has led doctors to advocate studies be carried out to ascertain whether the 1974 Pokharan nuclear test is responsible in any way. A retrospective study of malignancy frequency in the region, conducted by R G Sharma and his associates …
The Union ministry of environment and forests has once again extended for 30 days the deadline for enforcing the controversial draft notification under the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986. The amendment faces stiff opposition from the governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and also industry associations such …
IN HIS Independence Day address this year, prime minister P V Narasimha Rao vowed to eliminate scavenging from the country within a year. But mere administrative fiats will not make life easier for people like Rameshwari, who estimates she is 35 and has been a scavenger for 15 years in …
"ONE BY one each of the girls answered my questions. What was their name and age? What do they do during the day? What do their parents do? Had they ever been to school and for how long? The children were remarkably articulate. Half of the children had been to …
WHEN ARMIES march, they usually leave a trail of barren, brown desolation in their wake. But in parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, former Indian army personnel are embarked on greening projects involving the most degraded tracts. Operating as units of the so-called Eco Task Force (ETF), …
RANTHAMBHOR National Park in Rajasthan is in the news, thanks to rampant poaching in the tiger reserve. This year's tiger census in the park shows their number has fallen from 46 to 18 in just one year. But even this is a rough estimate as only 13 tigers were physically …
BUILDERS in Delhi are in a bind. The Supreme Court order to close down stone-crushing units around the Capital has hiked structural costs by 10-15 per cent. The Aravalli notification has drastically cut down prime land they have been opening up in Gurgaon, where land prices are less than a …
HELPED along with generous grants from the World Bank and Japan to green the Aravallis, plus its own sizeable forestry budget, the Rajasthan government has embarked on an ambitious compensatory reafforestation plan. District collectors have been asked to identify areas which can be set aside to form part of a …
WHEN WITH 'big brother' presumption, the Centre decided to 'help' the states of Haryana and Rajasthan regulate their industrial development, and arrest the adverse effect of this development on the Aravallis, it stirred up a hornet's nest, with development and the states on one side and environment and the Centre …
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, …
THE morning hours in Barapal, near Udaipur, present a curious sight. Hundreds of headloaders crowd around the national highway looking for vehicles to transport charcoal or firewood to Udaipur. All of them are victims of drought. Selling wood illegally felled from government forests is their last resort for survival. Kesa …
IT is at a time like this that the famous Ralegan Siddhi village in Ahmednagar district -- the handiwork of a social worker, Anna Hazare -- stands out with a difference. It is green and it is surviving. There is indeed stress but no distress. The village has received only …
LARGE parts of India are again in the grip of drought -- from the dry regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Marathwada and Vidarbha to the high rainfall state of Kerala. By official meteorological accounts, this was a near normal year. The pundits in New Delhi's Mausam Bhawan have a map of …
Using data from villages in three districts of Western Rajasthan, this paper describes the decline in area and deterioration in quality of common property resources over three decades. The decline of common property resources is associated with institutional changes in the villages. The introduction of land reforms in the early …
Pushkar, near Ajmer, Rajasthan, lies in the dry zone to the east of the Indian desert. In the vicinity there is evidence for three arid phases, during the latter part of the Pleistocene, each represented by a major sand sheet and fossil desert dunes. The earliest contains lenses of detritus …
Less than a kilometer from Asia's largest Solar Termal plant, west of Bikaner, Rajasthan, lives the farmer Sabhu Khan. His hamlet is still unreached by the grid. Instead of the grid connection, he decided to go for an off-grid solar system – He bought it himself, at full market price …
