Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Salboni Apartment Owner’s Association Vs State of West Bengal & Others dated 15/05/2025. The matter related to restoration of the Salboni Jheel, Kolkata, West Bengal. The NGT directed the West Bengal Pollution Control Board to place …
Nimati Domohini village in the west of Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal, is on a highway where a side road breaks off and leads to the reserve's Nimati range office seven kilometres away. But the village is miles away from realising the dreams dreamt by its 331-member eco-development committee (EDC) …
The right-to-food campaign gets a fillip with the Common Minimum Programme of the new government incorporating far-reaching commitments on food security and the evolving constitutional doctrine that public welfare is a core obligation of the state. IT could be coincidence. Or it could be the case that committed public interventions …
environmentalists are incensed about the proposed West Bengal Protection of Water Bodies Bill, 2004, which, they allege, could leave the state high and dry. Once enacted, the bill would legalise filling up of waterbodies less than 4 hectares (ha) in size. It would also allow filling up of larger waterbodies …
a decade after air quality standards were set for respirable suspended particulate matter (pm10), the Union government is geared up to fix a maximum permissible limit for fine particulate matter (pm2.5) emissions. pm2.5 forms a major part of pm10 but is considered more hazardous than the latter. It is emitted …
despite its genome sequenced three years ago, the cholera bacterium continues to dodge all efforts aimed at combating its menace. Now, scientists from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), have found out how Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium, renders the
excessive use of pesticides, rodenticides and fertilisers is chiefly responsible for the arsenic crisis in West Bengal and Bangladesh. This controversial theory has been recently proposed by P K Sikdar and S Banerjee of the Kolkata-based Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, and the Centre for Study of …
sixteen rice millers of Burdwan and its adjoining districts in West Bengal have joined hands to sell carbon credits to developed nations by switching over to a non-polluting mode of power generation. If their plans come to fruition, they may reap financial rewards under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism …
a homoeopathic medicine prepared from arsenic oxide could ease the suffering of millions of people at risk from arsenic poisoning. Researchers from West Bengal-based University of Kalyani have developed the antidote called arsenicum album. Its microdoses not only remove arsenic from the body, but they also have the ability to …
There's fresh hope for the Sunderbans region. The West Bengal government has received a grant of us $0.5 million from the United Nations Development Programme (undp) for the conservation of the mangrove forests. The funds will be used primarily for promoting sustainable livelihood practices among villagers who largely depend on …
In his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee promised six hospitals akin to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (aiims) in backward states of the country. He made this announcement under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana, while admitting "people in underdeveloped states …
in a development that threatens to plunge the Rs 6600-crore Indian seafood exports industry into crisis, the us has decided to introduce strict curbs on antibiotic content in imported marine products. The new protocol, being formulated by the us Food and Drug Administration, is meant to regulate antibiotic residues in …
a strategy is being chalked out to make the washing of mined coal mandatory in India. There is no gainsaying the fact that such cleansing can rid the mineral of impurities. At the same time coal washing itself is a highly polluting process. Its environmental implications can, therefore, prove to …
the state pollution control boards of Kerala, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh (hp) have detected the presence of cadmium in sludge supplied as fertiliser to farmers by soft-drinks makers. Cadmium levels in excess of those allowed by the Bureau of Indian Standards were found in the sludge of Hindustan Coca-Cola …
The us beverage giants shell out billions to pop out punch-lines, and repackage Shah Rukh Khan to counter the repackaged Aamir Khan and vice-versa. Many do follow the Khan roadshow and jump on the cold drink bandwagon. But in West Bengal, some other heroes are also beating the heat, sans …
But for timely intervention by environmentalists, the West Bengal government would have signed the death warrant of whatever little greenery is left in the state's non-forest areas. The West Bengal Trees (Protection and Conservation in Non-Forest Areas) Bill was withdrawn after green groups managed to acquire copies of the proposed …
arsenic tainted well water could be killing 3,000 people each year in Bangladesh; digging some wells deeper could save 70 per cent of the victims. These are the findings of a study by geochemists from the us-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit). "Hardly any reliable data exist about the impacts …
India has the largest tribal population in the world. Tribals number 8.6 per cent of its total population. They are also among the country's most marginalised. Why has India's political democracy not given its tribals their due? What is in India's political system that prevents the tribal voice from being …
Kunwar Singh Jonko, 34, belongs to the Ho people, a Scheduled Tribe. His village Katamba is deep inside the forest, 60-odd km west of Chaibasa, the headquarters of East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. In the Forest Department (FD) register, his house, his fields and the entire Katamba village is an …
