Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Naresh Kumar Vs Government of NCT of Delhi & Others dated 13/05/2025. The matter is related to illegal extraction of groundwater in Manakpura, Delhi by the water supply mafia. According to the complainant, one Hemant has illegally drilled a borewell …
There is never any end to learning. And so, surprises. We have learnt, over 20 years, that environmental governance in India is lackadaisical. Still, the extent of irresponsibility never fails to surprise. Some months ago we did a study on pesticides in bottled water. We were really looking at pesticides …
Judgement of the Kerala High Court in the case of Perumatty Grama Panchayat vs State of Kerala dated 16/12/2003 (Coca-Cola groundwater exploitation case).
Beneath the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip is a groundwater crisis that's rapidly depriving Palestinians of drinking water. Israel and the Palestinian authority share the Mediterranean Coastal Aquifer, which is now contaminated with salts, nitrates and boron. But now, a solution may be at hand. A multilateral team of …
I t's not economic and political challenges alone that the eu countries plan to face together. They also intend putting up a united front against the growing threat of pollution. The European Commission recently adopted a proposal for a new directive to combat groundwater pollution. As per this, it would …
A law enacted to check the illegal sale of water in villages located in the northern parts of Goa has proved to be a damp squib. Tanker operators are openly flouting the state's Groundwater Regulation Act, which was passed in 2002 and notified in 2003. The main objective of the …
april 30, 2003: 158 gram panchayat (gp) presidents of Karur district in Tamil Nadu are up in arms over a district collector's order. It has taken away their right to administer the food for work scheme in the district. Worse still, it has conferred this right to the panchayat union …
A few days ago, most of India reeled under drought. Cities thirsted for water. Karnataka's chief minister S M Krishna - seeing water supply in his software capital reduced to once in three days - announced desperate measures, such as prayer. The entire country seemed to await the first emancipatory …
Groundwater sustains almost 60 per cent of the irrigated land in India. Most districts in India today have larger shares of irrigated land under groundwater irrigation than under surface-water irrigation. This ominous change in water use patterns in India has been extremely rapid since the 1970s. Extensive groundwater usage has …
But not a drop to drink. The heat wave has already killed more than a thousand people all over India. Taps in major metros are running dry. Water bodies are evaporating. Groundwater supplies are running low. At a time like this, who wouldn't fall for a newspaper ad that promises …
function openspmap(){ var popurl="html/20030430_42map.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=500,height=470") } At a time when river networking is being touted as a panacea for the entire country’s water woes, the tide of opinion in Karnataka is turning against the concept. The dissent is moored to a proposed local scheme to divert Nethravathi river. The issue …
function openmap(){ var popurl="html/20030415_map.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=650,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } Welcome to Wah india, a hazy land born of perfidy and malicious grace. Spread over territory co-extensive with 19 states in India, it is both traceable and unknown. Its physical geography, for instance, is quite virtual: Wah india keeps getting discovered; its expanding contours …
The 1970s and 1980s were a time of massive state investment in rural water development. Not only had more land to be brought under irrigation, but also drinking water supplied. These decades saw an exponential rise in the number of privately-owned pumpsets and wells, even as investment in public wells …
The official attitude towards fluoride-laced groundwater is best seen in the manner the state has gone about solutions. In a 1999 nationwide study New Delhi-based Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation (frrdf) found that "only a few laboratories in the country have specified the methodology for fluoride analysis.' Experts claim …
Human negotiation with its own capacities and actions often tends to be triumphalist. A man admires his muscled torso; an elite believes itself to be the omphalos
It is a story about underground water: when the nectar turns into poison. When a daily task of drinking water from the handpump becomes the source of crippling disease and death. This is not a "natural' disaster
dhaka is being milked dry. Of late, there has been a rapid decline in the city's groundwater table. In fact, it has depleted by over 20 metres (m) during the past six years. This alarming trend was revealed in a study conducted by the Bangladesh government. Titled
Fluoride is an acute toxin, with a rating slightly higher than lead. It is, in fact, one of the most bone-seeking elements known to human beings. And groundwater in India shows the presence of unhealthy quantities of fluoride. A worrying scenario: daily ingestion of just 2 milligram (mg) of fluoride …
Central Uttar Pradesh (up) is quite literally on shaky ground. Land subsidence has been reported from several districts of the region, including Fatehpur, Farrukhabad, Kannauj and Unnao. Alarmingly, the culprit is neither seismic nor mining activity, but excessive groundwater extraction. This despite these districts lying in the Gangetic plain and …
the seeds of a novel programme to reduce the rice-wheat predominance in Punjab's cropping pattern have been planted. The state recently launched a multi-crop, multi-year contract farming programme. It seeks to convince Punjab's farmers - who currently follow the rice-wheat cropping pattern - to switch over to alternative crops. The …
'corporate Responsibility' has died a fancy death at the altar of public relations. A recent chemical analysis of branded packaged drinking water (commonly called bottled water) conducted by the Pollution Monitoring laboratory of Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment has brought out a horror story (see: gulp). All the major …
