Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item Titled "Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s Golconda Fort Cries for attention appearing in ‘The Siasat Daily’ dated 25 May 2025". The application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled “Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s …
RESEARCHERS from-the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Texas in Arlington, US, have developed an inexpensive method of combating water pollution by using sunlight in combination with catalysts. The department has also developed a technique to tackle chromium pollution using a conducting polymer called polypyrrole. According to …
FORTY-ONE year old Tully ofCold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York, us, bears an uncommon epithet: the lord of the flies. Sitting for hours together in a dark closet which resounds to the buzzing of hundreds of flies is the way, according to Tully, to unravel~ne of the least understood mysteries …
THE record highs of summer, this past, year in the us, could be attributed to the phenomenon of global warming. But what about the blizzard of 1996 which lashed throughout northeastern us, depositing more than 50 cm of snow in most areas, dipping mercury levels and paralysing normal life? The …
IN THESE days of new materials and corn - posites, it is interesting to note that sci- entists are increasingly turning towards nature in order to understand the origin of mechanical properties of material~. Spider dragline silk is one fibre whose unique properties have, 10l1g beep coveted by material scientists. …
LANDFILL sites earmarked for toxic waste disposal cannot be treated like just any other landfill. The waste being disposed needs to be carefully handled. And once dumped, measures to decontaminate the site should be taken (Water Report, Vol 5, No 3). Sridhar Susarla, a researcher at the ecological chemistry and …
THE paper industry of Punjab has shown utter disregard for environmental concerns by openly flouting the rules regarding discharge of waste and effluents. And the state pollution control board has taken no action to check this offensive on environment. The paper mills like Sukhna at Derabassi and Shreyans at Ahmednagar, …
VISION is one, of the most stunning achievements of evolution. Beginning in our ancestors with a semi-transparent membrane that had let in light, the visual system in higher animals has evolved to an amazing level of sophistication. The first element in the system, the eye, is as close to a …
Tourists bound for Thailand, beware. The sun-baked, tropical beaches there may transport you to the other world - literally. Alarming levels of cyanide have been found by environmental consultants in the waters near some of Thailand's most popular beaches. They also discovered smaller quantities of another toxin - mercury - …
THE plucky American spacecraft Galileo, which went into orbit around Jupiter after successfully delivering a 'suicide probe' in December last year, has gradually begun to unveil the mysteries surrounding the planet's atmosphere. , After a reasonably long wait, scientists at the us National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have now …
The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) recently carried out the third annual nationwide bird count in India, targeting the commonly seen or heard species. The campaign was aimed at creating environmental awareness among people and collating data to enable the BNHS to prioritise conservation activity areas and to determine the …
IN THE vast expanses of the universe, the fact that we are the only planetary system around a star would stand out to be against all laws of probability. The chances are that there are many such extrasolar planets in the numerous galaxies which make up the universe. The rub …
THE battle against the dreaded AlDs disease may yet be won. The Food and Drug Administration in the us recently approved a new class of drugs which inhibits the ability of the HIV virus to cause the disease. Manufactured by Hoffman-La Roche Inc of Nutley in New Jersey, the drug …
Australian researchers have devised a novel method to deal with caterpillars that create havoc in their cotton fields. They have developed a variety of cotton that kills the caterpillars (New Scientist, Vo1148, No 1998). Genetic engineers at the CSIRO, Australia's national research organisation, have introduced a gene for a natural …
Lions of Tanzania are facing a serious threat from an unlikely quarter - domestic dogs. Canine distemper spread by these dogs have already killed 100 lions in the Serengeti region of Tanzania according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's species survival commission. It is an airborne disease …
Large-scale episodal mortality among the freshwater fishes of certain lakes of Bangalore City, Karnataka State, India occurred in June 1995. We conducted an intensive study of the Sankey Lake which is situated in Sadashiva Nagar of Bangalore city where fish mortality occurred on quite a large scale during June - …
Weeds are more often a nuisance., and so was the case with Banmara or Eupatorium adenophorum which was the bane of farmers in the eastern Himalaya and Uttar Pradesh. Shunned even by animals, the weed had no uses except for being used as an antiseptic and anti-bleeding agent at times …
IN A damning revelation, Bellona, the Norwegian environmental group, has disclosed that dozens of Russian nuclear ftiel containers carrying a large amount of radioactive matter which had been dumped by the Russian navy more than 30 years ago, have been found near the Norwegian borders . The shocking evidence, kept …
A link has been established between aging and cell division by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California. Earlier tests had shown that cells growing in culture medium stopped dividing after a certain number of divisions. Research has shown the presence of an unusual form of enzyme -betagalactosidase -in senescent …
A more proactive World Health Organization (WHO) seems to be in the offing. The Organi- zation intends to set up an earlywarning system El and a rapid reaction force to tackle epidemics. A section of the WHO is launchimg a global surveillance network of laboratories geared to focus on rare …
In July this year, a physician called Gary Pearce of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society of New South Wales, wrote to Vaidya Baiendu Prakash asking him to immediately stop his metal therapy as it contained proven toxic substances like arsenic and mercury. He said it was folly to confuse the …
