The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
IN INDIA, environment is hardly an election topic. No one expects political parties to make environment a plank and neither do most voters base their decisions on ecological promises. However, in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, the absence of a burning …
FOR THE candidates of Bhopal (North) constituency, the area worst affected by the gas leak in 1984, relief for the victims seems to be a non-issue. Congress candidate Rasool Ahmad Siddique smugly declares voters are "satisfied with the relief they are getting" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ramesh Sharma …
GREEN issues came to the fore in several colonies of Delhi. But, for inexplicable reasons, metropolis-wide environmental issues such as the rapidly increasing air pollution, were ignored. Some of the city's otherwise articulate middle-class even accepted the problem of vehicular pollution as fait accompli. Says O P Sharda, president of …
ONE RARE case of an environmental issue spreading out and influencing an election campaign in two constituencies is that of Betwa river pollution in Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Vidisha and the Congress candidate for nearby Sanchi tried to cash in on the issue, cleverly using …
PARTY manifestoes have repeatedly shown that election promises come cheap. Green ones may come even cheaper. The Congress party's environmental concerns have been stressed in its election manifestoes since the mid-1970s. However, that has not stopped the party from presiding over heavy exploitation of India's forests and groundwater. Now, it …
• WITH WESTERN governments trying to cut health-care costs and consequently, the pharmaceuticals market becoming more competitive, many companies including Glaxo are keen to move into untapped markets. Glaxo chief executive Richard Sykes insists that to be successful, the company must develop "innovative medicines". "Every week, 3,000 genes are being …
ON NOVEMBER 7, residents of Vivekanandapally in Calcutta staved off yet another attempt by a group of real estate developers, which has been trying to fill up a shallow 0.134 hectare lake in the area for more than a decade. The developers, lured by the prospect of selling the filled …
ROBIN Raphael, the US state department official who was the cause of a major diplomatic row with India, visited Pakistan in early November for talks with the Benazir Bhutto government. Her visit is being interpreted as an attempt by the US government to smooth Pakistani feathers ruffled by the controversy …
THE ENVIRONMENTAL Foundation Ltd (EFL) of Sri Lanka has threatened the country's Central Environment Authority (CEA) with legal action for becoming an "advocate for industrialists" by granting "illusory legitimacy" to a metal quarry in Nittambuwa. EFL says CEA issued the quarry an environmental protection licence, ignoring the protests of the …
THE FORMER executive director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), Mostafa K Tolba, has been awarded the UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize for 1993. Misael Pastrana-Borrero, former president of Colombia and chairperson of the selection committee, said Tolba went far beyond the call of duty in his commitment to protect the …
Developed countries are insisting on greening GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) to minimise environmental degradation that could be caused by unshackled international trade in the post-Uruguay Round era. But this may result in barriers to trade with developing countries and also bring about a new range of protectionist …
Terre! Terre! (Earth! Earth!), an exhibition held in New Delhi in October, seemed to draw more children than adults. As is evident from its name, the exhibition aimed at a better understanding of the Earth's environment and its social, biological and physical dimensions. Experiments, visuals and complementary video films served …
Contemporary environmental consciousness and concern among professionals in the West was triggered off by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which was published in 1962. Summing up the disastrous impact of chemical pesticides on ecological cycles, she said in the book, "The chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life... …
AS THE pollution threat to the Taj Mahal from industries around Agra becomes a topic of hot debate, the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) has given a clean chit to the Mathura refinery -- the biggest of them all -- saying its emissions are well within the prescribed norms, …
ONE EXPECTS doctors to refrain from overdosing the patient. But do they really do that? Apparently not, as is evidenced by experiences in some European countries such as France and Italy. The governments of these nations are spending twice as much on medicines per capita than others without any significant …
THE WORLD'S first certification system for "sustainably produced timber" has been set up. At an early October meeting in Toronto, environmentalists, businesspersons and human rights groups launched the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which will verify claims that wood products and wood pulp come from sustainable forests. Producer countries have treated …
A BHUTANESE princess, Deiky Wang-chuck, was arrested in Taiwan for trying to smuggle 22 Asian rhinoceros horns into the country, in the largest ever seizure of such horns (New Scientist, October 16, 1993). Taiwanese authorities say Wang-chuck admitted she expected to sell the horn -- weighing 14 kgs -- for …
JUTE could find exciting new applications as an environmentally friendly raw material in paper-making, contend experts, even though it is being increasingly sidelined by synthetic fibres in the making of Hessian sacks. Scientists at the Central Pulp and Paper Research Institute (CPPRI) in Saharanpur, have found jute pulp to be …
The drug controller of India is considering banning anti- diarrheal drugs for children because they are increasingly replacing oral rehydration solutions -- the first-line treatment for replenishing lost water and salts in the body. The ban will be part of a plan to ban "irrational" combinations, which is likely to …
BRITAIN'S environment secretary John Gummer is determined to limit the development of super stores, to protect declining town centres. Gummer's department issued guidelines that strengthen the position of local authorities resisting applications for super stores. The revised notes for local authority planners place greater emphasis on the need to maintain …
