Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
safe disposal: Chichibu Onoda Cement Corp of Japan is all set to go green by deciding to phase out five types of ozone-damaging chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) for the government, at its cement plant in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture. The production of these chemicals has already been banned and the company will incinerate …
smokeless autos: Two low-emission cars recently rolled out of Honda Motor Co of Japan. The emission levels of the two models - Civic Ferio LEV and the Partner 1.6 LEV - are only one-tenth of those specified by current regulations in Japan. The Civic Ferio is priced at around US …
the hilly regions of the central Himalaya are facing problems in the storage of sufficient water, especially during summers, for drinking and irrigation purposes. The eight hill districts of Uttar Pradesh (up), spread over 51,000 sq km, have a population of approximately five million, for whom the water resources have …
The city of Mysore in Karnataka has become the scene for an interesting battle royal. In contention is the People's park in the heart of the city, fought over by the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP), a local organisation initiated by a few residents of Mysore, and the municipal corporation. The …
The Taiwanese government has earned the wrath of the Yami people residing in the Orchid Islands - 62 km east of the country's southern tip - for dumping of nuclear waste for 14 long years by the state-run electricity company, Taipower. Yami elders were initially told that a canning factory …
THE recently concluded International Conference on Civil Engineering for Sustainable Development, at the University of Roorkee in Uttar Pradesh, furs recommended developing the nation's economy in an eco-friendly manner. According to K G Ranga Raju, a professor at the university, risk assessment and disaster management should find a place in …
drugs containing narcotics and psychotropic substances can now be easily imported, thanks to a new set of guidelines being issued by the World Health Organization (who). The new rules aim to simplify the procedures for the international movement of drugs containing these substances for emergency purposes. They would allow selected …
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE when I received the invitation to release your report on the pollution of the Yamuna and its effect on Delhi's drinking water supply, I was a little hesitant. I cannot claim any expertise in this field. But since pollution control and preservation of the environment is central …
the newly-elected Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal's move to provide free irrigation water and electricity to farmers will only harm the economy and the environment, without helping those it is meant to. Anything that comes cheap is overused or misused. Farmers must learn to use irrigation water effectively or …
The existence of laws and policies in Australia that affect wetland protection and rehabilitation has been ascertained. There is a diverse range of environmental legislation, primarily at the state level, that potentially affects wetlands. There are environmental planning instruments made under legislation in New South Wales and Western Australia, which …
It is not everyday that approximately 30,000 people from far-flung corners of India, as well as representatives from nearby countries like Nepal and Thailand, gather to discuss a not so juicy issue like people's water policy. That is precisely what happened at Kasravad (Madhya Pradesh*) on the banks of the …
in december 1984, the Telugu Desam (a regional party in Andhra Pradesh), came to power and introduced a scheme to provide the poor households of the state rice at a nominal cost of Rs 2 per kg (it has since been revised to Rs 3.50 per kg). The cheap rice …
developing water resources in the eastern Himalayan region through integrated regional projects is the only way to ameliorate poverty in south Asian countries. This was emphasised by participants at a recent conference in Kathmandu on regional co-operation in harnessing rivers. Experts from Nepal, Bangladesh and India concluded that shelving water …
On the beginning of the world's first green party: It all began in 1970. The Tasmanian government had decided to build a major power station which would have drowned the magnificent Lake Peddar. The campaign against the government's decision was started by a group of Tasmanian environmentalists who contested the …
On the decision to fight against corruption and its link with his work on rural development: I realised that on one hand we were relentlessly involved in developmental activities, and on the other, these activities were getting nullified upto a great extent by the menace of corruption. It was like …
In the last decade pan evaporation measured at the Southern Dead Sea has significantly increased. Wind, temperature and humidity measurements at the Dead Sea starting in the 1930s as well as 3-D model simulations all seem to indicate a statistically significant change in the local climate of the Dead Sea …
LUSH green backwaters dotting a verdant undulating landscape along a north-south 560 km-coastal strip sporting a chain of lagoons - that is nature's gift to Kerala. These backwaters (dammed or still water beside streams and fed by the back flow) many of which are connected to the sea have played …
DELHI already gets water from Beas Sutlej, Ganges and Yamuna rivers and the Yamuna canal after exploiting all its groundwater sources. Four large dams are waiting to begin supplying water to the city. There is even a proposal to bring water for Delhi from dams to be built in Nepal …
DIESELMANIA is the epidemic that our cities forget to control when their roads get choked with soot-spewing contraptions running on subsidised diesel. They suffer not one but 'two-stroke(s)' when their arteries get clogged with thousands of two/three -wheelers that burn petrol inefficiently, belching out hydrocarbons and noxious oxides of sulphur …
AT A multi-disciplinary panel discussion on "Interbasin Transfer of Water', organised by the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) in New Delhi on November 20, 1996, the former secretary of union ministry of water resources, M S Reddy, said, "Whenever I think of Interbasin Transfer of Water (ITW), one question that …
