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 …
Ecological factors • The present alignment passes through densely populated and cultivated coastal land. • The alternative alignment also passes through forest areas. • Trains running at a high speed will have an impact on historic buildings and disturb the peace of the residents. • Vibrations generated will die within …
SINCE THE Konkan Railway Corporation was adamant about going ahead with the project despite protests from environmentalists, Goa Foundation secretary and activist Claude Alvares decided to take the matter to court. In April, shortly before the court adjourned for the summer vacation, he filed a writ petition, but it was …
• Total length of the Konkan railway : 760 km • Cost (at 1991-92 prices) : Rs 1,391 crore • Completion date : October 1994 • Length in Goa : 106 km • Number of bridges proposed : 84 • Total track length in khazan lands : 21.176 km • …
THE GENERAL degradation of Goa's environment is symbolised by the damage being done to its khazan lands, a unique, coastal, estuarine agro-system that plays a crucial role in the state's coastal ecology. Though Goa must import foodgrains to support its 12 lakh population, agriculture is the most important occupation in …
HIS NAME has lent credibility to Goa's environmental and human rights agitations. Matanhy Saldanha, the self-effacing, 42-year-old biology teacher in Panaji's Don Bosco has been involved with these agitations from the early 1980s. In fact, Saldanha's recollections sound like a historical narrative of independent Goa's environmental and human rights activism. …
Babu Lala Sharma, Chairperson, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha 92, United Newspapers, 4 Windsor Place, New Delhi 110 001 G N A Nayar, Chairman, M N Sreedharan Nair, General Convenor, Exhibition Committee, Swadeshi Science Expo - 92 Amba, Pongumoodu, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 011 C N Krishnan Patriotic and Pupil-oriented Science and …
THE GRANT of fishing rights on Haleji Lake, Pakistan, to a contractor has stirred up a hornet's nest and a group of environmentalists gone to court wanting the award to be invalidated. The group says organised, large-scale fishing in the lake will disturb the large number of migratory water fowl …
The Bedti hydro-electric project in Karnataka is in the midst of another controversy. The project, which was scrapped in the early 1980s following protests from farmers and environmentalists, is being considered by the state afresh. Environmentalists had won the first round when, under immense pressure, the Karnataka Power Corporation (KPQ …
SOME interesting programmes on indigenous science and technology are lined up in the coming months in various parts of the country. The Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha-92, inaugurated in New Delhi on Gandhi Jayanti (Oct 2), will continue till National Science Day, February 28. The objective is to involve voluntary groups, …
JUST a couple of weeks after UNCED, participants from Europe, USA and Japan gathered in Geneva, at the newly-created International Academy of the Environment, to attend a seminar entitled "Beyond the Limits: The Limits to Growth, Sustainable Development and Environment Policy after UNCED". The high point of the seminar was …
THE KONKAN Railway is suffering from a typical attack of the NIMBY syndrome -- a two-decade-old acronym popularised during the movement against nuclear power stations by young people in the West, whose slogan was Not In My Backyard. It has since come to denote what is widely recognised as an …
IN A RECENT speech, Prime Minister Narasimha Ra called upon voluntary agencies to participate actively in the country's rural development programmes and gave a categorical assurance it "is not going to be a sarkari programme." Pointing out the Eighth Plan has allocated Rs 30,000 crore for rural development, which will …
IN 1988 the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) allotted 2.1 ha of land in Nand Nagri in east Delhi to the Mud Village Society (MVS) to build a model colony of environment-friendly mud-houses. However, the project seems to have run into rough weather and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has …
AMIT MITRA A LARGE number of the over 700 mud houses built by the Karnataka Housing Board (KHB) at Yelahanka near Bangalore are showing signs of falling apart. This is a major setback to a project that described by V Suresh, a HUDCO director who was then KHB chairman, once …
MUD IS no longer inferior. As a building material, it can be strengthened and stabilised to function as a viable alternative to concrete and steel. Traditional mud-building methods include mixing specified quantities of rice husk, cow dung or lime with raw earth. One of the oldest techniques is the wattle- …
THE MANAGEMENT of water quality is closely related to almost all human activity and, therefore, is of great concern for all. Wastewater, or water polluted to a degree that is harmful to the environment and useless for human beings, is the result of several natural processes as well as all …
THE SWEDISH city of Malmo has carefully landscaped an area of about 10,000 ha, which functions as a natural stormwater treatment plant. In Malmo, on the southern Swedish coast, several projects involving the natural treatment of stormwater are being implemented. One of them is the Toftanas Project in which stormwater …
The figure shows the elements of a small-scale wastewater treatment system in use at Stensund high school in Sweden. First, a sedimentation tank stores the wastewater produced over two days (1). The water then is led to a soil filtration tank (2) with sulphuric bacteria under anaerobic (non-oxygen) conditions, which …
