Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
THE AVERAGE height of the Himalaya was once much higher, the Ganga flowed much further north along the foothills and the Indus flowed east into the Ganga. All this changed about two million years ago -- not all that long ago in geological time. In the early 20th century, German …
Nearly 50% of terrigenous materials delivered to the world's oceans are delivered through just twenty-one major river systems. These river-dominated coastal margins (including estuarine and shelf ecosystems) are thus important both to the regional enhancement of productivity and to the global flux of C that is observed in land-margin ecosystems. …
Observations made during the 1987 El Niño show that in the upper range of sea surface temperatures, the greenhouse effect increases with surface temperature at a rate which exceeds the rate at which radiation is being emitted from the surface. In response to this 'super greenhouse effect', highly reflective cirrus …
The UN sponsored discussions to prepare a global convention on climate began in February in USA. The aim is to prepare a legally binding convention to curb gaseous emissions leading to a much feared climate destabilisation. This convention is being seen as the world's greatest commitment to the environment and …
The idea that developing countries like India and China must share the blame for heating up the earth and destablising its climate, as espoused in a recent study published in the United States by the WRI in collaboration with the UN, is an excellent example of environmental colonialism. The report …
Records of hemispheric average temperatures from land regions for the past 100 years provide crucial input to the debate over global warming. Despite careful use of the basic station data in some of these compilations of hemispheric temperature, there have been suggestions that a proportion of the 0.5
Leaf fall and reproductive phenology of Avicennia marina assessed during 1982-83 using litter fall collections from twenty-five sites in Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand revealed major trends with latitude. Flowering shifted from NovemberDecember in northern tropical sites, to May-June in southern temperate sites. Periods between flowering and fruiting …
The study of climate and climate change is hindered by a lack of information on the effect of clouds on the radiation balance of the earth, referred to as the cloud-radiative forcing. Quantitative estimates of the global distributions of cloud-radiative forcing have been obtained from the spaceborne Earth Radiation Budget …
Pushkar, near Ajmer, Rajasthan, lies in the dry zone to the east of the Indian desert. In the vicinity there is evidence for three arid phases, during the latter part of the Pleistocene, each represented by a major sand sheet and fossil desert dunes. The earliest contains lenses of detritus …
BIOLOGY Yellow pigment clue to evolution Bilirubin, responsible for the yellowish tinge in the skin, eyes and nails of jaundice patients, has for the first time been identified in plants. The pigment was discovered in Strelitzia reginae Aiton, commonly know as the Bird of Paradise plant. It is indigenous to …
It's time the green brigade joins the banker-bashing, Occupy Wall Street movement Another climate summit and another potential disappointment facing the green brigade. Even before it officially kick-starts, there is a widespread feeling that the Durban Summit is expected to be another brick in the collapsing climate wall. The reason …
As the Durban COP enters the homestretch it is worth stepping back a few years – to COP-13 at Bali in 2007. For it is the Bali COP that led to the creation of the Ad-hoc working groups for Long-term Cooperative Action (AWGLCA) and for the Kyoto Protocol (AWGKP), which …
Tuticorin, a coastal district in southern Tamil Nadu, is a large hub for coal-based thermal energy generation with many more such projects in the pipeline. Currently there are 2 power stations commissioned so far. The Tuticorin Thermal Power Station being the largest of them all, as of now, produces power …
With the carbon market in doldrums, emerging economies like India will have to announce bolder schemes for a low carbon future The just-concluded Durban climate meet has been branded by many as a great saviour with even greater hopes being expressed for future. Reams have been written on how the …
Jonas Hamberg stumbles on fictitious companies dealing in public funds. It was all there on the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation (RREC) website—names of companies, addresses and phone numbers. But calling them up did not work. We were to find out the reason later. I am talking about the companies that …
Solar mission is too important to let doubtful dealings hijack it. In public perception the renewable energy sector is a do-good sector that promises environment-friendly and affordable energy. It is for this reason that this sector gets overwhelming support from all sections of society. Civil society organisations, including the Centre …
Preparations for the Rio+20 United Nations conference on sustainable development have begun, but the first round of preparatory meetings did not address important issues such as sustainable resource use, production and consumption. The Rio+20 United Nations (UN) conference on sustainable development, to take place in Rio de Janeiro in June, …
Karno GuhathakurtaIt was a trade exhibition abuzz with the restrained chatter of busy suited executives at company stalls making contacts and finalising deals. Nothing out of place except that this trade was about renewable energy technologies, which have unconventional reasons for growth. First, these technologies are seen as the most …
Delhi needs to critically rethink its move to abandon roof top solar scheme In many countries it is now possible to feed electricity from solar roof top systems into the grid. What that means is you put up a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel on your roof and when it produces …
Is climate change a sustainable development or an environmental challenge? The statement by the Minister for Environment and Forests that the European Union’s aviation tax will be a “deal breaker” is welcome because it reflects one of the policy goals of developing countries, and should elicit widespread support. As far …
