Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Akhilesh Kumar Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others dated 23/05/2025. The matter related to illegal mining activites carried out by Jai Maa Chandrika Enterprises, Rajendra Nagar, village Kabari, district Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh. The applicant also alleged about illegal sale …
Rising NOx levels and volatile gases in the air, primarily from vehicles, form the recipe for ozone finds this analysis by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Read this CSE analysis and find more in this package. Summer pollution curve takes an ugly turn as ground-level ozone, a highly reactive …
NANOTECHNOLOGY has revolutionised industry. It is used to improve wide ranging products, from cosmetics, toys and toothpastes to textiles and missiles. Industry thinks the technology holds promise to change every facet of life in some way. Substances at nano scale, or nanoparticles, demonstrate novel physiochemical properties compared to larger particles …
TOY makers use phthalates to make plastic toys supple and chewy. But the chemical also happens to be very toxic and its use in the Indian toy industry remains unregulated. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has finally drafted standards for phthalates in toys and childcare products so that their …
EXPOSURE to organic pollutants can disrupt the formation of nervous system in a foetus. This in turn may lead to neural tube defects. The disease affects over 320,000 infants worldwide every year. Earlier studies have linked organic pollutants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), from indoor coal stoves, smoking and vehicle …
FOR the past two years 1,500-odd families in a small town of Tripura have not received a modest drinking water supply. Reason: a dispute over water withdrawal from the Feni river, the international border between India and Bangladesh. Though the Feni passes through Sabroom, the town entirely depends on groundwater. …
The government of India has banned the sale of gutkha and other chewing tobacco products across the country. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued new regulations on August 1, prohibiting the use of tobacco and nicotine in any edible product. Health experts and civil society groups …
The Planning Commission of India has set up a working group to look into the drug regulatory mechanism in the country. One of the tasks the panel has been entrusted is to devise a strategy to weed out irrational drugs from the market. Most of these drugs are fixed dose …
AFTER imposing a ban on endosulfan, the Supreme Court is now examining the possibility of allowing export of the pesticide. On August 5, the court-appointed joint committee was given a three-week deadline to submit an interim report on the possibility of exporting and disposing of the endosulfan stocks with the …
The courtyard of Retnamma’s house resembles a battlefield. There are dead giant snails strewn around, slime oozing from their brown conch-shaped shells. “These are the ones I killed last night with salt,” says the 60-year-old resident of Konni village in the foothills of the Western Ghats in Kerala. “I was …
The government’s ambitious mission to control diabetes has made a reluctant start. Worse, it suffers from lack of planning. The project was launched as part of the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS). The first phase of the diabetes control project started …
THE Supreme Court has turned down the request of pesticide manufacturers to allow them to export the pesticide stocks in India. The court had banned the sale, manufacture, use and export of the pesticide on May 13 on a petition by the youth wing of the CPI(M), the Democratic Youth …
CARBONATED drinks and junk food may soon be off the shelves of school and college canteens. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said this in a counter-affidavit filed in the Delhi High Court on July 18. Global bans • US passes bill in December 2010 banning junk …
This refers to the editorial “When business rules our kitchens” (June 16-30, 2011). Do we want to sensationalise the issue of poor food safety regulations and use big companies as a whipping boy or work on the solutions? How are we going to deal with the fundamental issue of feeding …
A youth enters a south Delhi bar, greets the bartender and orders “the usual”. The drink, it turns out, is Red Bull plus vodka. Prod him a little and Manoj Joshi, a law student, says there is no better drink on the menu. It tastes great, he says, and will …
A bill to be tabled in Parliament is set to re-ignite an old tussle between the Centre and states. The Pesticides Management Bill of 2008, which will be heard in the Monsoon Session, aims to replace grand old Insecticides Act of 1968. It will regulate a wider range of chemicals, …
AN ESTIMATED 410 million Indians live in the cities. Their lifestyle is seen as an improvement over life in rural areas, be it in terms of job security, stable future or better access to sanitation and medical help. But cities have their ills—higher incidence of violence, never-ceasing noise, increasingly unclean …
THAT day when Darla Dhanalakshmi suffered severe joint pain and numbness in the limbs she knew something was seriously wrong. She had been suffering from the pain since January after she visited a clinic on the outskirts of Hyderabad. There she was asked to pop an unknown pill. The pain …
HealthDirty truth If you stop your children from eating mud, read this. Craving for earth—geophagy—can be one of the natural ways to protect stomach against pathogens. After studying 480 reports and analysing theories that geophagy is driven by hunger and for nutrients in the soil like iron, zinc or calcium …
IN WHAT could prove to be a breakthrough in containing environmental impacts of white asbestos globally, India has agreed to label the mineral hazardous under the UN’s Rotterdam Convention. This is a historic shift in stance, as India has always claimed there was not sufficient data on the health risks …
For years the World Health Organization (WHO) maintained that radiation from cell phones is generally safe. But on May 31, it changed its stand and announced that cell phones pose a possible cancer risk. A panel of 31 scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a part …
