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 …
HOW MANY claws does a leopard have? None of the forest officials in Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary (BWS) knew and several villagers nearly paid the price for the officials' ignorance. It all began on September 13, when a leopard entered the house of Dauji Motiram Langhe Ahupe in BWS and hid …
INDIA has urged the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to forge a common programme on population and development before the forthcoming UN conference in Cairo on the subject. During a SAARC meeting in Kathmandu recently, Indian minister for health and family welfare B Shanakaranand said it was essential …
CHINA, Malaysia and Indonesia are adamantly opposed to the creation of the post of a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, fearing it may be used against them. They point out Western countries opposed a proposal requiring the UN to report annually on human rights in developed as well as …
THE SIGNING of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has prompted environmentalists to call for follow-up action, fearing inadequacies of the pact's provisions in the environmental field. Executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Elizabeth Dowdeswell has called the Uruguay round an initial …
A ONCE-peaceful herd of about 150 elephants in southern Sri Lanka has turned violent, destroying property and killing humans in a last ditch attempt to save its habitat, writes Mallika Wanigasundara in a Panos report. The pachyderms feel threatened by the Pelwatte Sugar Co -- an ill-conceived project that encroached …
Mining inside and on the boundary of Sariska National Park in Rajasthan's Alwar district has resumed despite a Supreme Court ban. Enquiries with the Zilla Khaniz Udyog Sangh (ZKUS), the local mine owners' representative body, revealed the action followed a recent letter from the Union minster for environment and forests …
THE PEOPLE of the Aravalli region are tired of waiting for the authorities to rescue their habitat from destruction caused by unbridled mining and deforestation. In November, about 300 villagers from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana reached New Delhi after undertaking a padyatra to spread awareness about the issue. Rajendra Singh, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
JAPANESE scientists have turned raw sewage into a a protein-rich creation that resembles beef in texture and hope to make it also taste and smell like beef. Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a member of the team, said: "We wanted to show that what comes out of the body can be recycled to …
THE US has let Norway off the hook. US President Bill Clinton informed Congress, in the first week of October, that he does not intend to impose trade sanctions against Norway for violating an international ban on commercial whaling, but would instead persuade it to halt killing of minke whales. …
THE LEGISLATION to prohibit state curbs on abortion -- the Freedom of Choice Act -- that was once the primary legislative goal of abortion rights supporters, has lost momentum. Besides being relentlessly attacked by opponents, the pro-abortion lobby is now divided on how comprehensive a bill is needed. They have …
IN BRAZIL'S worst such incident in nearly a century, gold miners illegally prospecting on the Yanomami reservation are believed to have massacred, with machetes and guns, 73 Indian tribals. Brazilian President Itamar Franco called in the country's military leadership to control the miners and set up a special ministry for …
THE PACIFIC island-state of Nauru, once abundant in phosphates deposited by birds, now lies devastated and desolate. Most of the phosphate was mined by Australia and royalties made the Nauruans one of the richest people in the world. Now, they are left without any natural resources and only an investment …
SCIENTISTS at the Gandhigram Rural Institute (GRI) in Tamil Nadu have found that used tubelights can be recycled into inexpensive laboratory apparatus, which will cost just one-tenth of what such apparatus costs in the market. B V Appa Rao, head of the university's science instrumentation centre and his team have …
• The area being mined has gone up 36.5 times in the past 20 years and as a result, forest cover in the area has declined from 237.8 sq km in 1971 to 127.7 sq km. • In 1971, the entire forest cover of 237.8 sq km was classified as …
