Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Nizamuddin West Association Vs Union of India & Others dated 16/04/2025. The matter related to desilting of 24 drains with special focus on two drains - Kushak drain and Sunheri Pul drain before the monsoon. The court was informed that …
In the continuing saga of the closure of Calcutta tanneries, the Supreme Court has now issued notices to over 500 tanneries to show cause as to why they should not be closed down. "Non-cooperation" of the tanneries with the West Bengal government for shifting to another area has triggered the …
IT is the end of March. Sudhamoy Chakladar, the aged Kisan Sabha leader from Khardah, stands drenched in golden sunlight, contemplating the lush green fields sprouting rice saplings... for the unthinkable 2nd time this year. "It is a dream for the peasants. We've 6ever had this in the last 50 …
Villages around Calcutta are possibly the safest place in the country for toads. Villagers have virtually paralysed biology practical tests in several schools and colleges in the city by blockading toad-catching. With the board examinations coming up, educational authorities are panicking. Apparently the villagers have taken the government's recent ban …
Metropolitan municipalities can now heave a collective sigh of relief. The Centrally-sponsored scheme for infrastructural development of megacities has brought them a welcome respite, burdened as they were by huge fiscal deficits. Infrastructural development in Calcutta, Bangalore, Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad is to take place through innovative institutional and financial …
The Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) has jumped onto the bandwagon of real-estate developers that are grabbing the few urban green spaces left in the city. CPT, which claims ownership of land on the banks of the Hooghly and also vast stretches of wetlands around the river, has ambitious multistoreyed building …
URBAN air pollution in India has become a cause of concern and alarm and the subject of much writing and debate on measures to control it. Calcutta is reputed to be one of the world's most polluted cities, but its citizens contend the pervasive acrid odours and hazy horizons are …
CALCUTTA maidan -- at 294-ha, the largest public ground in the teeming metropolis, is in danger of being developed as commercial property by the Indian army. The maidan belongs to the army's eastern command which has its headquarters in the adjoining Fort William estate. The move, prompted by the army's …
Calcutta's wetlands (bheris) have got a new lease of life. The Calcutta High Court has ordered the West Bengal government to stop reclaiming the wetlands. The court also directed the Calcutta Municipal Corporation to use the Town and Country Planning Act's provisions to prevent any private organisation from encroaching on …
CALCUTTA is famed worldwide for its sewage fisheries -- wetlands that use industrial and domestic sewage for fish cultivation. But the Mudially Fishermen's Cooperative Society needed a helping hand from the court to protect a fish farm on land leased from the Calcutta Port Trust (CPT), which wanted to revoke …
AFTER all these years, Subhas Mukhopadhyay must be used to taking awards in his stride. Long before prizes and awards came his way (starting with the Sahitya Akademi award that he won in 1964), those of us who knew Subhasda in the 1940s remember him as a soft-spoken communist poet. …
DEVELOPMENT has two sides, as Sudipto Sarkar of the People United for Better Living in Calcutta told the Calcutta High Court recently. The court is hearing a case against the proposed reclamation of eastern Calcutta's wetlands. The voluntary agency informed the court that the West Bengal government's idea to develop …
THREE documentaries that have just won the 39th National Film Awards this year are a welcome addition to the growing body of audio-visual material on science and environment. The pity is that apart from a possible late night telecast on Doordarshan or a littlepublicised screening at the Films Division auditorium …
Foodstuffs collected from different regions in India were analyzed for the presence of HCH (BHC), DDT, HCB, aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, and PCBs. Significantly high levels of food contamination with HCH, DDT, aldrin, and dieldrin were evident throughout India. Dairy products and livestock meat are the prime sources of human dietary …
