Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Akhilesh Kumar Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others dated 23/05/2025. The matter related to illegal mining activites carried out by Jai Maa Chandrika Enterprises, Rajendra Nagar, village Kabari, district Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh. The applicant also alleged about illegal sale …
MEGHALAYA faces a new threat: the wholesale degradation of its air, soil and water by coal mining. It is damaging the greenscape through indiscriminate felling, excavations, tunnelling and the dumping of debris. In blind pursuit of black gold, mine operators ignore the essential harmony of the environment and continue to …
ACID rain is playing havoc with buildings and wildlife in half of Great Britain. Scottish heather, and salmon and trout stocks in Wales, have suffered damage due to acid rain, caused mainly by sulphur dioxide emissions from coal burned in power stations. According to estimates prepared for the British department …
The iron ore industry in Goa may be asked to cough up the costs for cleaning up the environmental mess it has made. The Goan government is considering a proposal to impose an environment tax on the state's iron ore mining and ore export industry. The environment cess of upto …
ALARMED by unchecked deforestation, the Thailand government launching an ambitious, three-year reforestation project in May, with backing from the Thai royal family.
THE World Bank has commended the Chinese government's resettlement record - at "well over 30 million", the world's largest - as a "model" for most types of resettlements. A leaked report, in which the bank reviewed its own resettlement policy, said, "Over the past 40 years, tens of millions of …
SCIENTISTS at the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have developed a rice plant that can yield 25 per cent more than existing varieties. The new variety, evolved by combining various samples of germplasm, is being tested and the crop is to be harvested in May. IRRI chief plant breeder …
THREE teams of scientists at the University of Delhi South Campus have identified fungi, algae and bacteria that are natural extractors of metals washed out in mine effluents. Sheela Srivastava, a microbial geneticist at the university, says these microorganisms can be exposed to the polluted water and left to gobble …
AS OF today, 18 per cent of the world"s population is using up 80 per cent of the planet"s capacity to sustain life. Bracketed between the 1.1 billion merry overconsumers at one end and 1.1 billion living in unbelievable squalor and misery at the other is an immense pack of …
Non-governmental organisations have accused the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) of succumbing to pressure from the Rajasthan mining lobby and de-reserving a part of the Sariska National Park to allow mining. MEF reiterated the area of the park is 866 ha, 279 ha less than the previous figure …
IN 1993, the seasonal ozone destruction over the polar region of the southern hemisphere started earlier than ever before -- early in August. Record low values of total ozone were registered at Antarctic stations for several days in late September. One extremity of the slightly elliptical ozone "hole" again passed …
A kuccha road leading to village Mallana near Sariska in Rajasthan is blocked by villagers. Faces bright with anger, they say: "We will free Mallana from the miners. We will do or die." A truck approaches cautiously and then turns tail. Harshawardhan Varma's moving documentary, The Slaughter of Sariska, drives …
PAPUA New Guinea is the most exotic country on earth. A visitor is quite likely to be asked, "What is a nuclear family?" According to the local joke in PNG, it consists of a mum, a dad, two kids and an anthropologist. But given the worldwide interest in environment, it …
Ask anyone to locate Papua New Guinea on a map and there are very good chances that he or she wouldn't know where to start. Till recently, Papua New Guinea was a relatively obscure archipelago on the western rim of the Pacific. Portuguese colonisers first landed on the island in …
• Nicolas Hayek, chairperson of SMH AG, is looking for a partner to introduce the automotive equivalent of the Swatch watch he made famous in the 1980s. Hayek's inexpensive, stylish and "environmentally correct" car is to have low pollution levels, thanks to a hybrid system of battery- and gasoline-powered motors. …
MECHANICAL mining rights are being considered on the flood-prone Kalu Ganga south of Colombo for the South African gem trading company, Colombo Sapphire Ltd. According to Panos Features, this will increase the threat of floods as dredging by CSL might weaken the banks and cause them to collapse. Besides, siltation …
IN JANUARY, Doordarshan aired a documentary called The Green Brigade, which despite a typical Films Division tone, was informative, interesting and even balanced. It was on the Ecological Task Force (ETF) set up by the army to take up reforestation and ecological stabilisation in inhospitable regions. The ETF consists of …
THE GRAIN bank scheme started in Karjat tribal block by the Academy of Development Science has had some positive effects. Besides making villagers self-reliant, the mechanism of such banks has resulted in quarrels being settled and the hold of sahukars (moneylenders) getting weakened. The programme began in 1988 with four …
A REVIEW of previously classified documents has revealed that the US had used babies and unsuspecting patients for experiments on radioactivity for many years. It had also released large amounts of radiation into the environment in the 1940s and early 1950s. At least 19 mentally retarded teenagers were fed radioactive …
THE REBELS who struck in the early hours of 1994 in the Mexican state of Chiapas named themselves after the hero of the Mexican revolution of 1910, Emiliano Zapata. The old guerilla hero is still revered as the spiritual leader of the revolution. A portrait of the revolutionary -- in …
In a bid to keep Shimla and its surroundings free from ecologically damaging activities, the Shimla High Court has come down heavily on stone quarry owners and stone crushers in and around the town. A court judgement on January 7, 1994 in effect preempts clearance from the Union ministry of …
