Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
What happened in your village in 1980? The horticulture department got 10 ha in 1978 or 1979 -- I can't remember exactly when -- from Shyam Singh Bhandari, the village pradhan, to build a seed farm for potatoes and apples. This was a part of our forest of oak, rhododendron, …
THIS IS the scam of all scams. The fat and pampered paper industry, which has thrived because it gets forest resources at throwaway prices, is crying out hoarsely for yet another subsidy: cheap forest land for plantations. The industry proposal must be denounced as extremely anti-poor, anti-environment and a blatant …
CHIPKO was the culmination of a century of popular resistance to commercial forestry in the Uttarakhand Himalaya. And its timing was right. Unlike past movements, Chipko's underlying message was already part of a major public debate. At both national and global levels, Chipko helped to consolidate incipient awareness that deforestation, …
THE BRITISH blamed the improvidence of the Indian peasantry for the destruction of India's forest wealth. Even with Independence, the bureaucracy continued to toe this line and with such effect that in the 1950s, the new forest policy asserted local people should not enjoy special rights over forests in their …
AS A PEOPLE'S movement, Chipko's achievements are well beyond the ordinary. Launched by a small organisation called the Dasholi Gram Samaj Mandal in the tiny village of Gopeshwar in the Garhwal region of Uttar Pradesh, Chipko exerted an immense impact on environmental movements throughout the world. This, despite Chipko's members …
IMMEDIATELY after the monsoon, most of the paddy-fields in central Kerala are prepared -- not for cultivation, but for brick making! Brick-making has been gaining momentum during the last 15 years because it is easy money. From about one hectare of paddy-field leased from farmers, a brick manufacturer can rake …
When Garhchiroli district collector Subrath Rathod seized a truck illegally transporting teak in Maharashtra last September, an enquiry was held and it showed that illegal timber-felling in eastern Maharashtra, particularly his district and neighbouring Bhandara, is widespread and involves forest, revenue and railway officials. The two districts contain more than …
WHEN GOD forbade Adam and Eve from eating the apples from the Tree of Knowledgehe probably had environmental interests in mind. But Eve couldn"t resist the temptationand neither could Adam. Too bad. The price for their folly is still being paid. The Indian governmenttooit seemscan"t fight temptation. Encouraged by successes …
PAMPERING APPLES Subsidies for apple growers in Himachal Pradesh, 1985-86 to 1990-91. Rs (in crores) HORTICULTURE DEPARTMENT Medicines against scab disease Foot sprayers Power sprayers Insecticides Transport of timber from outside the state 4.06 0.18 0.41 0.17 1.05 FOREST DEPARTMENT Concessional timber for packing crates 47.32 HPMC Concessions on cartons …
CRATES for one hectare of tomatoes, which is grown as an off-season crop in Himachal Pradesh, require wood from 10 ha of chir pine forest, says R V Singh, former director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. Tomatoes -- as well as peas and beans -- …
BANANAS are thirsty plants, and farmers in the Jalgaon area of Maharashtra -- who produce 10,00,000 tonnes of the state"s annual banana output of 17,00,000 tonnes -- have literally begun mining for water. Groundwater levels in the area have fallen from 22 m in 1970 to 60 m. Baliram Borawale, …
FARMERS in the orange-growing regions of Warud and Morshi in Amravati district of Maharashtra refer to the area as "the California of Vidarbha." According to the directorate of horticulture, of the 36,800 ha under orange cultivation in the state in 1989-90, 29,000 were in Amravati and Nagpur districts. To keep …
GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD Areas earmarked in the Five-Year Plans Mango Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Goa Citrus Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Assam, other NE states Litchi Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh Guava Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, …
THE CYCLONE that struck southern India in October-November 1992 caused unusually extensive damage in Kanniyakumari district. The area was lashed daily by winds of 80 km per hour and 10-15 cm of rain. There were landslides, and major roads, railway tracks, bridges and houses in the district were washed away. …
A PROPOSAL by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) to ban use of timber in construction from April 1993 is pitting the plywood and wood panel industry against wood substitute manufacturers. The former stand to lose CPWD orders worth Rs 70 crore and even more should state construction departments implement …
OPERATING in defiance of a UN Security Council embargo on the export of logs from Cambodia effective from the new year, Thai loggers are sending hundreds of lorries loaded with tropical hardwood over the border to Thailand. The UN has also banned the supply of petroleum products to the Khmer …
THE SPLENDOUS of a tropical rain forest invariably make a profound impression at first sight. "Here I first saw a tropical forest in its sublime grandeur- nothing but the reality can give any idea how wonderful magnificent the scene is..." exulted Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution significantly shaped modern …
THE WORLD Bank has approved a $70 million loan to finance the 450-MW hydroelectric dam on Chile's biggest river, the Bio Bio. The loan was sanctioned by the bank's International Finance Corp (IFC), which lends to the private sector, even before the Pangue dam's environmental impact assessment by the bank …
WHAT HAPPENS when the environment ministry violates environmental rules? The home ministry admonishes it. Or so it would seem from the predicament environment minister Kamal Nath finds himself in -- he has been asked by home minister S B Chavan to explain why his ministry issued quotas far in excess …
1992 has been a watershed year. Trends that were visible over the last few years came to a head, both globally and locally. At the global level, the events that preceded the Rio summit and took place at the meet were fascinating proofs that micro movements at the community, state, …
