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 …
DOES TISCO, also known as Tata Steel, hope to succeed where Germany's Third Reich failed -- to last 1,000 years? So it would seem, going by the statement of Bihar environment and forest minister Sonadhari Singh that the steel giant has taken over West Bokaro Coal Mines on a 999-year …
EVEN AS Kenya announced the World Bank would contribute US $29 million of the $85 million needed for the country's drought recovery programme, more than 60 people died when flash floods in the river Ngai Ndethya ("God save me" in Swahili) d-estroyed a bridge, which caused a train to tumble …
Trade unionist Datta Samant has helped 2,500 families of quarry workers in Bombay to get their settlement recognised as a slum. The 35-acre plot amid sand quarries at Powai lake was notified as a slum in 1984. But plot-owner Jitendra Sheth was more interested in developing the site as prime …
DISPOSING low-level radioactive waste from hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers and electric utilities will become more difficult and expensive in the US, with the collapse of a waste-disposal system functioning under a 12-year-old law. Now, the three states that have been operating radioactive waste dumps can refuse to accept waste generated outside …
FOR SEVERAL centuries, Udaipur has been renowned for the exquisite use of marble in its magnificent palaces. But it was known only recently that the city rests atop the world's largest marble reserves, and the rush to exploit this bonanza is wreaking havoc on Rajasthan's beautiful lake city. The 'marble …
China's attempts at modernising its energy industry will cause more than 100,000 coal workers to be laid off immediately, while hundreds of thousands more will be retrenched in the coming years. The state-owned coal conglomerate, which employs three million workers, intends to close down 30 mines this year, after determining …
THAT LITERACY is liberation may be rhetoric in many parts of the country, but not in Tamil Nadu's Pudukkottai district. Total literacy was reported in this granite quarry region in August 1992, and it brought with it, for the scores of women workers, freedom from bondage and penury. Today, a …
The end of 1992 saw advocates of development-at-any-cost increasingly impatient with the Union ministry for environment and forests (MEF), whom they accused of blocking development projects worth several thousand crores of rupees. The major pending projects include the open-cast mining schemes in Bihar, KRIBHCO's fertiliser plant at Hazira in Gujarat, …
VIKINGS are taking to the market. A thick, yoghurt-like product made by Iceland's Viking inhabitants and pure, bottled water from glaciers are becoming part of the country's efforts to exploit one of the world's most pollution-free environments. Export diversification efforts come in the wake of a sharp fall in cod-catch, …
YUGOSLAV engineers are working desperately to ease the pressure on a damaged dam in Montenegro, to prevent the release of millions of tonnes of toxic mining sludge into the Danube and other Balkan rivers. Senior officials working on the dam'say the impact would be "disastrous as it would poison the, …
Ever since the use of insecticides was reduced in favour of biological control, British gardeners are discovering that some pests are on the increase (Financial Times, Oct 31/Nov 1, 1992). Now, there are friendly insects to control white flies, greenhouse red spider mites and vine weevils. Encarsia formosa, a tiny …
A BRITISH laboratory and a US firm are collaborating to produce artificial blood after scientists overcame two obstacles that had hampered this effort. Attempts to use haemoglobin isolated from the red blood cells as "artificial" blood failed because it caused kidney damage and was unable to give up oxygen -- …
Workers in noisy coal washeries have been shown to suffer considerable hearing loss. According to one study, 20 per cent of washery workers had mildly handicapped hearing -- hearing loss becomes a handicap when the ability to hear conversational speech is impaired -- while the others developed slight hearing impairment. …
A LABORATORY set up by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research deep in the Kolar gold field mines to study proton decay may be wound up because poor gold yields have forced closure of the mines. Since the past 12 years, scientists in the lab located 2.3 km below the …
WESTERN investors are slowly destroying Papua New Guinea's lush green rainforests with their utter disregard for environmental safeguards while raking in profits from the island's immense natural wealth, be it copper, gold, lumber or oil. And the PNG government, its hands bound by a foreign debt to the tune of …
RESIDENTS of Domiasiat and Wahkaliar villages near Cherrapunji in Meghalaya have formed village action committees to resist a proposed uranium mine in the region. Students, welfare organisations and opposition parties in the state have joined hands to form the Khasi Jaintia Environment Protection Council (KJEPC) to support them. KJEPC convener …
BUILDERS in Delhi are in a bind. The Supreme Court order to close down stone-crushing units around the Capital has hiked structural costs by 10-15 per cent. The Aravalli notification has drastically cut down prime land they have been opening up in Gurgaon, where land prices are less than a …
WHEN WITH 'big brother' presumption, the Centre decided to 'help' the states of Haryana and Rajasthan regulate their industrial development, and arrest the adverse effect of this development on the Aravallis, it stirred up a hornet's nest, with development and the states on one side and environment and the Centre …
THE latest Economic Survey (1991-92) presents a very interesting set of statistics. It shows that, out of all types of commercial undertakings of state departments, only those based on forests and mining have maintained a steady profit margin between 1985 and 1992, while all the others -- industrial firms, dairies, …
BIOTECHNOLOGY was the fastest growing area of scientific research in the 1980s, followed by anaesthesia and intensive care in medicine, says a report published by the Institute for Scientific Information. The report has based its conclusion on the number of papers published in each field. The number of papers in …
