Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
There is no need to establish here that all Indian cities face chronic water shortage, particularly during summers. That government agencies are increasingly failing to meet the water demand of a rising urban population. And that the water table is falling all the time due to over-extraction from underground aquifers. …
The beautiful Valley of Flowers, known for its almost miraculous flower diversity and fecundity, is caught in a strange controversy. The point of contention: is the conservation attempt proving to be the problem rather than the solution? In 1982, the valley was notified as a national park, and livestock grazing …
union health minister C P Thakur recently announced a plan to commercialise the farming of musk deer for medicinal purposes. To execute this plan, he proposes to set up captive breeding centres in Jammu, Himachal Pradesh and in certain areas of Uttaranchal. Musk, an aromatic secretion from the male Himalayan …
2002: international year of the mountains, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly in its 53 rd session. In focus, therefore, is the Himal region
WHEN the Union ministry of urban affairs and poverty alleviation issued a notification on July 28, 2001, making rainwater harvesting mandatory in Delhi, it had inserted another clause that went largely unnoticed: a stipulation that all structures discharging 10,000 litres and above should incorporate wastewater recycling for horticultural purposes. Though …
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 …
it may well be a flashback to the 1970s for the mountainous village of Kataldi in the Tehri district of Uttaranchal. Just as in the past, the villagers are up in arms about the granting of a mining lease to a private firm. They contend that limestone mining will bring …
Acting on an affidavit filed by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) and the Corbett Foundation against a proposed highway through Corbett Tiger Reserve, the Supreme Court (SC) recently ordered the state of Uttaranchal to submit a revised proposal to the Union ministry of environment and forests. The SC …
the owners of some 70,000 traditional watermills ( gharat in local parlance) in Uttaranchal have finally been empowered. The state government has granted small-scale industry status to gharat , fulfilling a long-standing demand. Significantly, watermills
• For effective development and utilisation of its natural resources, the Orissa government intends to draft a mineral policy soon. Along with this, the state also wants to formulate a gems policy to tap its vast gem reserves. • Around 4,000 villagers of Gondriala in Kodad mandal of Nalgonda district …
It is now inevitable that Tehri will be submerged. The 185-year-old Himalayan town's fate was sealed on December 5, 2001, when the gates of two tunnels were shut to terminate the flow of the Bhagirathi river. This major step towards completion of the controversy-ridden Tehri dam also marked the petering …
A supposedly scientific expedition into the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (ndbr) has stirred the minds of people in Lata village of district Chamoli, in Uttaranchal. They say the expedition was a farce. They claim it was a surreptitious attempt to open the region to high-end tourism with tour operators and …
The Supreme Court has stayed a project of the Uttaranchal government to build a highway from Kotdwar to Ramgarh, following allegations that the proposed road will pass through the Corbett Tiger Reserve and destroy thousands of trees. Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has also requested the prime minister to block the …
SUSTAINABLE forest management has been practiced since time immemorial. The Arthashastra records management of forests and wildlife during Kautilya's rule. There were 18 forest laws during the Mauryan period. But the centuries-old indigenous knowledge, developed after careful observations of natural and physical environments, is today a victim of neglect or …
fires are threatening to destroy large forest patches in the states of Orissa and Uttaranchal. Blazes have been reported from Pinder, Mandakani, Nayar, Yamuna and Bhagirathi valleys of Uttaranchal. Due to lack of rainfall in these areas since September 2000 and consequent dry vegetation, the fires are spreading fast. This …
Past experiences have shown that centralized management of natural resources, based on a culture of exclusion and rules, has not contributed to the sustainable management of natural resources. This important realization has led to a series of policy changes in the recent past that provides an ever-widening democratic space to …
There are reports of fires in the alpine grasslands of Uttaranchal. The official version is that these fires are the usual controlled burning done by the forest department in the hills to prevent the outbreak of a major fire during the dry months. "This time it has been a dry …
ramnagar, February 16, 2001. The sleepy headquarters of the Corbett Tiger Reserve (ctr) looks like a war zone. The place is swarming with gun-toting forest guards and top forest officials of Uttaranchal, all in a flurry of activity. The buzzwords are
