Counter affidavit on behalf of Chief Municipal Engineer, Patna Nagar Nigam in the matter of Saurav Narayan Vs Bihar Pollution Control Board & Others dated May 20, 2025. The report said that the corporation has been diligently performing its statutory duties within the limitations of the available resources and infrastructure. …
An expert panel has blamed the increase in commercial plantations for destroying forests, erosion of soil and water bodies in the Western Ghats. According to a Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by its Chairman, Prof Madhav Gadgil, water …
Recommending scrapping of two controversial hydro-power projects in Karnataka and Kerala that had run into difficulty due to opposition from environmentalists, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) has suggested setting up of a statutory authority to protect the Ghats. The report of the panel, headed by Madhav Gadgil, formerly …
Relies on Lokayukta report while filing reply in Supreme Court The State government has washed its hands of a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged role of three former chief ministers — S M Krishna, N Dharam Singh …
Nudged by the Delhi High Court and the Central Information Commission, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has finally made public the Gadgil panel report on ecology in the Western Ghats, but with a disclaimer. The report, which was uploaded on the Ministry’s site on May 23, says: “The …
The Environment Ministry on Wednesday finally made public the controversial report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel prepared by ecologist Madhav Gadgil and submitted almost a year ago. The publishing of the report also came with a disclaimer saying that the ministry has not yet accepted the recommendations of …
The summary of the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), under the chairmanship of Prof Madhav Gadgil, and its report on the Athirappilly hydro-electric project in Kerala will finally be made public — not in piecemeal but in entirety. Dismissing an appeal by the Ministry of Environment …
The Delhi High Court has upheld the Central Information Commission (CIC) order to make the report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) public by publishing it on Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) website. The court on May 17 dismissed an MoEF petition seeking not to disclose the …
The jatropha puzzle has finally been solved. In 2005-06, most of the districts in the State were abuzz with the talk of jatropha. In press conferences, the then District Collectors, especially in those adjoining western and eastern ghats, talked of largescale jatropa plantations as the oil extracted from its seeds …
India-born professor Kamal Bawa has donated the entire prize money of one million Norwegian Kronor (about Rs.10 million) from the world's first major international sustainability award to the Indian organisation he founded in 1996. Bawa, distinguished professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is the 2012 winner of …
New Delhi India’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose 4.2 % to 1301.21 million tonne in 2000 compared with 1994 levels and the GHG profile for the year 2007 is estimated to be of the order of 1771.66 million tonne carbon dioxide equivalent. These are the findings of the second national …
Protection of five river valley basins tops its agenda The Western Ghats Task Force has submitted a proposal to recruit 1,000 forest personnel required to protect the natural forests of the Western Ghats. This was announced by Ananth Hegde Ashisara, chairperson of the Task Force, at a meeting on the …
From being a much sought-after delicacy found in abundance in the Godavari and Krishna rivers, to figuring in the global IUCN Red List of threatened species, the fringed-lipped carp (Labeo fimbriatus) has been hunted almost to extinction, thanks to unscientific overharvesting. A serious effort is hence being made by the …
Ignoring the crucial linkages of a river’s upstream, midstream, and downstream flows can endanger not just the river, but human communities and ecology sustained by it. A disregard of ‘environmental flows,’ by construction of dams, has already harmed many rivers in the Western Ghats, giving rise to political as well …
The area under forest cover in Karnataka has increased by four square kilometres, according to a latest report of the Forest Survey of India. It says the change has been noticed in the assessment year of 2009, compared to the survey carried out in 2008. The report was put in …
Environment Ministry rejected forest clearance to Kalu dam in Thane district While irregularities were surfacing in irrigation projects around Mumbai in early April, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) rejected forest clearance to the Kalu dam in Murbad taluka of Thane district, which …
There is a direct link between unabated mining and the floods which devastated the North Karnataka region in 2009, said environmentalist and High Court Lok Adalat member Y N Yellappa Reddy. Speaking with mediapersons here on Friday, he said mining activities in the Western Ghats region - the main source …
The State government was resorting to “jugglery of words” when speaking about the Netravati diversion project and the Yettinahole project, member of the Western Ghats Task Force B.M. Kumaraswamy said here on Wednesday. Speaking to The Hindu here on the sidelines of a programme organised by the task force and …
Study in the wild to create awareness of conservation The last significant vulture population in the Western and Eastern Ghats are threatened by the indiscriminate use of pesticides, say researchers watching vulture habitats. A team of researchers from CareEarth Arulagam has taken up a detailed study in the wild and …
The closed evergreen forest, called the shola, occurs above 1700 m in patches in the higher hills of South India in the Nilgiris, Annamalai and Palani hills. Sholas are patches of stunted evergreen tropical montane forests which attain a low height of about 16–20 m. These forests have high ecological …
Human-driven land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is one of the most important causes for depletion of biodiversity. Few studies have been undertaken to spatially identify the natural areas prone to LULCC and hence biodiversity loss. This article describes a geospatial modelling technique using a combination of drivers of LULCC, spatial …
