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 …
AN INDUSTRIAL estate in Andhra Pradesh's (AP) Medak district, Patancheru lies just off the Hyderabad-Pune highway. Save the electricity lines that snake across the undulating landscape and the unhurried public transport, the region seems untouched by the 20th century. But an insidious by-product of industrialisation has wreaked havoc on the …
THE ridge in Delhi (the capital's 'lungs') has been mired in controversy for the past two decades for its rampant abuse. This rump of the Aravalli hills, a discontinued sparse forest of kikar, babul, shisham, neem and eucalyptus, has always absorbed pressure from a metro that is bursting at its …
THE September of 1995 left its mark on the Kullu-Manali valley in Himachal Pradesh (HP) in more ways than one, While unprecedented rains and an angry Beas river caused widespread havoc in the hills, the aftermath was marked by the exposure of a tale of alleged corruption and nepotism. On …
WHILE the courts have played their role by increasing awareness against environmental degradation and ensuring that executive agencies respect the environmental laws of the land, the results have left more questions unanswered. In Bichhri, for example, the Courts had an opportunity to penalise the polluters with exemplary Cities and resolve …
On April 16,1996, a division bench of the Supreme Court (SC) comprising Justices Kuldip Singh and S Saghir Ahmed directed the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a special division bench to hear environment-related petitions - and the nation's first green bench was born. The SC has …
Whether the SC passed the correct executive orders • The mum are not equipped to deal with environmental issues. They do not have the expertise, the material on the basis of which they can judge the effects of what are alleged to environmentally disastrous activities. - P N BHAGWATI • …
February 13, 1996: SC orders the closure of five chemical units producing H-acid, a chemical whose production processes have been banned in the West in Bichhri, Rajasthan. April 18, 1996: Setting aside a Central notification which had permitted development activity within 200 metres (m) of a beach, the SC bans …
• Greening of the ridge with indigenous species has not started. • Many vacated parts of central ridge are being used as garbage dumps. • Parks covering 310 ha of the notified Delhi ridge area have not been given forest character. • Chandraswami's temple in Sanjay Van has started encroaching …
Bichhri: where the earth bleeds People's protests had forced the closure of Bichhri's polluting industries. The court's intervention, which was late in coming, has not helped much, Bichhri remains the same IN BICHHRI, a nondescript village near Udaipur in Rajasthan, tile wells contain, instead of clear water, a brownish cocktail …
ON FEBRUARY 10 this year, Machu Dandavate, the deputy chairperson of the planning commission, underlined the reason behind a phenomenon which has lately taken the country by stem. Judicial activism - the intervention of the judiciary to stem the rot, especially in the field of environment and its protection - …
JAPANESE followers of fashion can now buy the latest thing in sartorial elegance: fabrics printed with the same technology used by millions of computer printers worldwide. Canon, the electronics company and Kanebo, the clothing company, have developed the bubble jet textile printing system, which the companies say can be faster …
TWENTY European countries recently signed a treaty which effectively bans human cloning. They signed the first international convention to control research into human genetic engineering and cloning at the Convention on Human Rights and Bio-medicine in Oviedo, Spain. The accord prohibits the use of genetic engineering techniques for anything other …
Web of physics The discovery of a leptoquark in a particle accelerator in Germany has created ripples in the world of particle physics. "If the existence of the new particle is confirmed by further experiments, it could be on par with the discovery of the electron or DNA", says one …
WITH a view to conserving the diverse habitats of the world, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched a campaign in 100 countries on April 5. The Global 200 campaign aims at preserving 232 places thought to be representative of the remaining ecosystems in the world by the year …
THE effect of dams on surrounding ecosystems could be traced even to the seas which receive the waters of dammed rivers. According to researchers from the University of Hamburg and the Baltic Research Institute in Rostock, both in Germany, the Iron Gates dam on the Danube river has transformed the …
A gyroplane (a flying machine balanced and supported by rapidly rotating horizontal or slightly inclined blades) said to be capable of flying non-stop around the world at 800 kmph has been developed in the US. Texas-based Jay Carter says his Cartercopter, fitted with two rotors and a modified racing- car …
P N BHAGWATI DIRECT judicial activism is not a good idea. When it comes to environment, I do not think that the courts are equipped to deal with environmental issues. They do not have the expertise, the material on the basis of which they can judge the effects of what …
I am not at all unhappy to see H D Deve Gowda go. The manner in which his coalition partner, the Congress, turned against him is, maybe, debatable. But his performance as a leader who should have thought of economic development as a holistic issue, taking environment, poverty and equity …
Teetotallers, who miss out the benefits of red wine need not lose heart. According to Normal Williams and his group from the Papworth Hospital near Cambridge, an alcohol-free powder of red wine is just as effective against heart disease by preventing the arteries from collecting deposits of the dangerous low …
