Reply affidavit on behalf of the Central Ground Water Board in the matter of Suo Moto case titled "Haryana 60.48% groundwater over exploited Kurukshetra worst Jhajjar best says" appearing in the Tribune, January 8, 2025. The CGWA report, May 3, 2025 addresses the issue of groundwater exploitation and violation of …
THE POPLAR trees that the Bareilly-based match manufacturer, Wimco, persuaded area farmers to plant is causing much heartburn. The farmers allege that Wimco, sensing a wood crisis in the 1970s because of felling restrictions in India and Nepal, tried to get land from the Uttar Pradesh forest department to raise …
FEW WOULD disagree that the monsoon in India is almost unparalleled in beauty, but not many realise the subtle nuances in the workings of nature that makes this season possible. These curious processes of nature continue to remain an enigma for the scientific community; nevertheless, we can draw parallels between …
EVENTS leading to the 1992 Earth Summit, then to the Commission on Sustainable Development and to the UN Conference on Population and Development in 1994 have reinvigorated the South as an important bloc in international negotiations. After its heyday during movement in the 1970s for a new international economic order, …
TWO FILMS made by Krishnendu Bose and sponsored by INTACH, which were shown in New Delhi recently, make a pointed and absorbing examination of a current agricultural dilemma -- how do you achieve productivity without paying the ecological price of the Green Revolution? The films attempt to go beyond the …
THE INDIAN National Congress -- the political party that led the country to independence -- had as its election symbol during the 1950s two bullocks, to symbolise the relationship between animal draught power and Indian farming. But now, under the impact of agricultural modernisation, that relationship is now changing. A …
AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Paul Keating dismissed fears that the concept of giving aborigines title to native land could put the country's agriculture and mining industries at risk. Keating was responding to a leading conservative politician's warning that the high court ruling, which handed ownership of government land to aborigines, would …
Fears over seed patents are exaggerated THOUGH farmers differ widely on the effect the so-called Dunkel Draft (DD) will have on agriculture, the influential section of intellectuals seems convinced the DD and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) will be overwhelmingly destructive. Unfortunately, the fact is that most …
PROPRIETY demands India's participation in the final round of the GATT negotiations on the Dunkel Draft (DD). A multilateral system of trade and technology transfer arrangements has its own set of advantages and India must help in the foundation of an equitable, transparent and efficient mechanism for the future. A …
THERE are some in India who believe that the Dunkel Draft (DD) would lead to a reduction of subsidies paid by developed countries to their farmers and this would help agricultural produce exports from India and other developing countries. They are the victims of an illusion created by the DD …
OUT OF sight, out of mind. Perhaps that is why the depletion and degradation of groundwater throughout India has gone virtually unnoticed while much concern has been expressed over the condition of surface water resources. The crisis created by falling groundwater levels has grabbed the attention of only the immediate …
"JODHPUR has a future only if the Indira Gandhi canal is brought till here," says J Venkateshwarlu, director of the Central Arid Zone Research Institute. Come it certainly will, but no one will vouch for the ability of the Jodhpur branch of the canal to deliver sufficient water to the …
THE PLIGHT of the people of Bichhri, whose groundwater was rendered unfit for consumption by the effluent discharge from Silver Chemicals Ltd, may have been forgotten in Udaipur, with the case moving at snail's pace through the courts. But the industrial threat to the area's groundwater has not receded. Now, …
Before the Green Revolution of the early 1970s, the farmers of Junagadh district on the Saurashtra coast set records in agricultural production. They boast of having done as well as their north Indian counterparts in producing oilseeds, groundnuts, sugarcane, bananas and even wheat. But today, many of them -- particularly …
IN THE wake of a severe drought in Jodhpur in 1970, the public health engineering department (PHED) decided to obtain water from the countryside around the city as an emergency measure. Rampura-Mathania was chosen because of its high water table. The PHED installed 26 tubewells in Rampura-Mathania with a total …
A NEW approach to agricultural planning, drawn up by the Planning Commission at the instigation of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, has run into a near-fatal snag: State governments are jittery about putting their money into something that still hasn't been proved tried and true. Rao had urged the …
• Plan priorities ACRP assumes that once land and water resources are developed, the desired levels of yield and productivity will be achieved. Soil conservation and reclamation, irrigation and other land development schemes have been listed as priorities. The proposed ACRP plans have sought major increases and redeployment of funds …
USE OF additives, irradiation and the threat of pesticide residues and food-borne infections have led to the quality of diet being questioned these days as never before. Factory Farming comes as a comprehensive review of modern livestock farming and its implications, mainly in the context of Europe and North America. …
OVEREXPLOITATION of the planet's resources is causing environmental damage worldwide. An alternative is sustainable development, defined as a pattern of resource use that satisfies current needs without compromising the future. But it raises as many questions as it answers: Sustainable development for whom, in what context and with what objectives? …
THE PRINCE of Wales wants it known far and wide that he was "not entirely dotty" when he switched to organic farming on his vast estates both around his country home 160 km west of London and in the Duchy of Cornwall. Prince Charles said that organic farming was a …
AUSTRALIAN astronomers have chanced upon a rare type of pulsar (a word coined from pulsating star) -- a cosmic source of regular and rapid pulses of radiation, usually at radio frequencies. The pulsar is lurking at the edge of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Named PSR J0437-4715, the pulsar is …
