Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
Lavasa is called a hill station but does not offer the cool comfort of one. In May and June temperatures touch nearly 40°C— not an ideal summer getaway. In nearby Mahabaleshwar, temperatures rarely cross 35°C. Then what prompted the city’s developer, Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL), to promote it as a …
OVER A century ago in 1896, British physician E Hanbury Hankin reported in the French journal Annales de l’Institut Pasteur that cholera microbes died within three hours in the Ganga water, but continued to thrive in distilled water even after 48 hours. He had collected samples from below the bodies …
THE Madras High Court has ordered closure of more than 700 bleaching and dyeing units, and effluent treatment plants in Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. On January 28, the court also asked the state government to disconnect electricity supply to the units in the hosiery town that failed to comply with …
THERE is a good chance the leafy vegetables that make it to your salad bowls were irrigated using untreated or partially treated sewage. Each day an estimated 20,000 million litres of sewage is used for irrigation—five times what Delhi generates each day—but more than half of it is untreated. Faecal …
DESPITE closure notices several industrial units are operating in Mahad tehsil of Raigad district, polluting a river and wells. As a result fishing and farming in the region have been badly affected. On November 30, Mahad subregional office of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) issued notices to six industrial …
Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa in December announced that his government would consider banning endosulfan. The highly toxic pesticide is banned in over 70 countries. The assurance has come too late and is too little for the hundreds of people in Dakshina Kannada district, like Santosh Menzes, who are …
Why a song on mining? I am a trained environmental engineer, so I always wanted to write a song on environmental degradation caused by mining in Australia. I am not sure why I did not write it before, but it is an opportune time as mining is expanding in the …
How do sanitisers harm the environment? Antimicrobial household and personal care products mostly depend on two chemicals—triclosan and triclocarban. As we use the products, the chemicals are washed down the drain. Even after treatment, 50 to 70 per cent of the compounds remain in municipal biosolids. Less than 3 per …
A New York Times investigation has revealed that months before the BP disaster, some Congressional officials in the US were pressing federal regulators about numerous safety concerns related to offshore drilling, potential oil spills and BP itself. But they were rebuffed. The officials raised concerns about the safety of a …
Nirbhai Singh, an undertrial, wrote a letter from Ludhiana’s Central Jail five years ago and stirred industry and government into action. Addressed to the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, the letter expressed concern over pollution in the city. The court then began to look into the state of environment, …
MARINE biologists had almost given up hope of saving the green sea turtle in the 1980s following an uptick in a tumourcausing disease among the endangered species. They thought the deadly condition might drive the largest hard-shelled sea turtle to extinction. “But that did not happen for a variety of …
THE Nagpur bench of the Mumbai high court has ordered restoration of the world’s third largest meteorite lake in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. A recent study by a group appointed by the court, pointed out that Lonar lake is a dumping ground for raw sewage from localities in the …
THE Tripura State Pollution Control Board has ordered public sector company, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), to suspend exploratory drilling at Aralia village near Agartala in mid- September. The move follows site inspection by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) that found ONGC flouting environmental norms. The company is …
Erika, who is a photographer, and myself, headed out in a boat from Fourchon, US state Louisi ana’s southernmost port. We had four co-travellers: Jonathan Henderson from non-profit Gulf Restoration Network, his friend Randy, who is a cameraman, and Craig, our fishing captain and guide. It was August 16, the …
GAUGING a river’s health need not be complex. Taxonomists can make the job very simple. These biologists, who have specialised in the classification of organisms, can determine a river’s health with the unaided eye by simply studying the organisms present. There is little need, therefore, for bottling samples and rushing …
MARSH India, an insurance brokerage firm, has announced policy cover for water utilities against water contamination like the one witnessed in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir in August. Over 1,000 persons suffered from gastroenteritis after drinking contaminated water; heavy rains and flash floods had damaged the supply network. The …
In late July, BP admitted to doctoring photographs to show that BP was hard at work in a salvaging mission at the Gulf of Mexico oil spill site. A blog identified an altered photograph on BP's website. The website said it was a photo taken from inside a helicopter that …
FOR the past five years Hyderabad has been trying to clean the Hussain Sagar Lake, separating the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh. The efforts suffered yet another blow on June 20 when the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) denied permission to dredge the mouths of …
On July 27, a catamaran called Plastiki, made of 12,500 PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, arrived at Sydney's Darling Harbour. David de Rothschild sailed 8,000 nautical miles from San Francisco to Sydney on Plastiki to make a point on the way plastic is used. "You go a couple of hundred miles …
Aveteran Panaman journalist who was arrested for an article he wrote 12 years ago was released after spending 19 days behind bars. In 1998, Carlos Nuñez wrote about a polluted river in the western province of Chiriqui. "I am here for having defended a river of the Baru volcano, for …
