Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Rajendra Prasad Gupta Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others dated 23/05/2025. Counsel appearing for the state of Uttar Pradesh submitted that the action plan to prevent the discharge of untreated sewage and industrial effluents in river Ganga is ready …
WHEN ABOUT 200,000 litres of furnace oil spilled into the Damodar river from the Bokaro Steel Plant on April 2, 1990, it took the authorities four days to wake up to the disaster. By then, the oil had travelled about 150 km downstream to Durgapur and for at least a …
EVERY year, thousands of industrial workers all over the country fall prey to various occupational diseases. Most of the cases go undiagnosed or fail to get proper treatment, until it is too late. For instance, agricultural workers are susceptible to diseases caused by contact with chemical pesticides, whereas, illnesses such …
MOST OF us at some point of time have stayed up all night. The next day finds us slightly under the weather. Why does this happen? Why do some people cope better with night shifts, while other find it easier to work early in the morning? The world we live …
Karoshi -- death from overwork -- has struck corporate bigwigs in Japan. Now, white-collared workers and women too are being affected and a worried labour ministry has announced a set of initiatives to deal with the problem (The Lancet, Vol 340 No 8819). Karoshi, characterised by sudden death caused by …
A bacterium that causes botulism can be used to temporarily banish wrinkles (Asian Wall Street Journal, Nov 9, 1992). While treating a patient with dystonia -- a condition characterised by severe muscle contractions -- researchers at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre discovered the patient looked younger after being injected with minute …
Environment minister David Maclean has delayed British Nuclear Fuel's (BNF) commissioning of the L1.8 billion Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp) at Sellafield until a L50 million treatment plant is set up to neutralise emissions of Krypton 85, a radioactive gas. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have warned local residents …
A PROPOSAL by the National Dairy Development Board to import bovine somatotropin (BST), a synthetic growth hormone for cattle, has run into objections from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), which insists it must first clear BST for safety before it can be used in field tests. The European …
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has admitted a Spanish mother's complaint that the environmental nuisance caused by an unlicensed waste treatment plant adjoining her house is a violation of her human rights. Gregoria Lopez Ostra contendss the smell and pollution from the plant treating tannery waste causes …
DOMESTIC critics of the country's nuclear programme campaign as stridently against it abroad as they do at home. With considerable help from some of them, Yorkshire TV, one of the ITV companies in UK, recently telecast an hour-long documentary entitled Nuclear India -- A Dream Gone Sour. Unfortunately, accusatory quotes …
SOME interesting programmes on indigenous science and technology are lined up in the coming months in various parts of the country. The Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha-92, inaugurated in New Delhi on Gandhi Jayanti (Oct 2), will continue till National Science Day, February 28. The objective is to involve voluntary groups, …
Babu Lala Sharma, Chairperson, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha 92, United Newspapers, 4 Windsor Place, New Delhi 110 001 G N A Nayar, Chairman, M N Sreedharan Nair, General Convenor, Exhibition Committee, Swadeshi Science Expo - 92 Amba, Pongumoodu, Thiruvananthapuram - 695 011 C N Krishnan Patriotic and Pupil-oriented Science and …
A WORLDWIDE study of fertility research says men today have just about half the sperm count of men 50 years ago and there has also been an appreciable drop in the average volume of seminal fluid. These findings raise worries that male reproductive organs may be getting adversely affected by …
DESIGNER food may drive people crazy, but not quite in the way biotechnology firms would want. A few weeks ago, an unidentified group destroyed a test field of genetically engineered maize in Holland. And, there is growing concern in the USA about the effects of genetically modified food on human …
PANIC-STRICKEN by an illicit liquor that has taken a toll of at least 75 persons and a mysterious fever that may be Japanese encephalitis or simple food poisoning, Patna medical authorities have issued a series of directives that range from the irrelevant to the naive. Many days after the outbreak …
DESPITE strides in asthma treatment, the incidence of the disease and deaths due to it are escalating. Researchers now feel that growing industrialisation and pollution could well be responsible for this increase worldwide. Every year in USA alone, some 4,000 asthma victims die and another 500,000 are hospitalised. In 1977, …
THE GARBAGE heaps of Kathmandu, which rise in ugly mounds against the breathtaking beauty of the Himalayan ranges, tell a story -- a story of blind, lopsided, urban growth in one of the poorest countries in south Asia. And what is happening in Kathmandu is symptomatic of the growing urban …
THIS book is part of a project on technology transfer, transformation and development implemented by United Nations University (UNU), a UN organ established in 1972 to conduct research related to pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare. UNU undertook a project to study the Japanese experience between 1978 …
TAKE CARE of your economics, your lifestyle and your environment, and your health will also take care of itself. The report of the WHO Commission on Health and Environment, Our Planet, Our Health, prepared for the forthcoming Earth Summit, inextricably links environment and health. Yet, the report argues, health rarely …
THE Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) has devised now techniques of using fertilisers - through the split application and the deep placement methods and using granules rather than powder - which will prevent the loss of nitrogen into the atmosphere and the water table, and result in higher crop yields …
DOORDARSHAN'S only regular science and environment programme has been drawing a much better response from viewers since it went fortnightly in April. Turning Point, launched last September, has stabilised to become one of the few bright points in an increasingly dismal network. Recent editions of Turning Point have offered fastinating …
