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 …
SCIENTISTS, physicians and surgeons in Bangladesh have formed a human tissue bank with the aim of persuading the government to remove legal hurdles in collecting human body parts for treatment, reports Panos. At present, only blood and eye collection is legal. In Pakistan, too, there are problems. Though more and …
THE LUNAWA lagoon in southwest Sri Lanka is being polluted by various dyes and toxic chemicals being discharged by industries, especially textile plants, writes Tinil Fernando for Biosphere. The livelihood of many people have been affected and 74 per cent of the fisherfolk of the region had to give up …
AIR, WATER, garbage, radon toxicity, sludge, noise. More than a part of our daily lives, these are perennial if hackneyed jargon. Few people would love to begin their mornings with them, fewer would care to read about them and even fewer disgruntled citizens would care to buy a book and …
Municipal authorities in Thrissur, Kerala, have been accused of dilly-dallying though a deadly chemical has reportedly flowed into the town's drinking water reservoir, resulting in at least 30 persons being hospitalised for dizziness, headache and stomach disorders. The reservoir became contaminated when a tanker carrying 12,000 litres of concentrated phenyl …
RESIDENTS of Savitri Nagar in south Delhi are suffering from water-borne diseases and don't know who to turn to. They blame the Delhi Water Supply and Sewage Disposal Undertaking (DWSSDU) for the deaths of eight people, apparently brought about by these diseases, but the authorities disclaim responsibility. Hundreds of other …
AFTER the tragedy, comes the gold rush. In the three Agra localities where several people died after drinking contaminated municipal water, self-styled social workers have surfaced, looking for a slice of the compensation. These "leaders" have assumed the mantle of "champions of poisoned-water victims" and promise the bereaved families almost …
AS THE first president of the International Green Cross (IGC) -- an organisation that has been set up to help victims of human-made disasters and is to have offices at Geneva and The Hague -- ousted Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachov's new responsibility is to save the planet. At IGC's formal …
RIGHT on the heels of the Tomsk-7 nuclear disaster, the British weekly, The Observer, reports Russia has been dumping nuclear reactors at sea and plutonium from nuclear warheads is posing a threat to international fishing grounds off the Norwegian coast. The weekly also alleges that the Russian submarine fleet is …
BEIJING is making an all-out effort to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by the end of this year, despite indications from US trade representatives that it may take longer. The Chinese have been wooing foreign investors by telling them that their entry to GATT is imminent, …
DID YOU know the total UN budget for 1992 was just US $5.2 billion? That's less than the cost of two Stealth bombers, but still enough to pay for all the UN programmes to care for children, feed the hungry, promote development and preserve the peace. A 11-member group convened …
ENVIRONMENTALISTS and civil rights lawyers strongly oppose the Sri iLankan government's move to shift jurisdiction of all cases involving projects approved by, the Board of Investments (BOI) from district courts to the court of appeal in Colombo. This means that a person may no longer petition a district court for …
US SOURCES contend Japan is violating a 1991 agreement, which requires the Japanese to buy 20 per cent of its computer chip needs from USA. A third-quarter assessment in 1992 shows the US share of the Japanese chip market is still only 15.9 per cent. Responding to US commerce secretary …
UNDER the unrelenting pressure of population growth, millions of landholdings in Asia and other parts of the developing world are small - and getting smaller. India alone has at least 33 million holdings of less than half a hectare. These plots may be small but they are far from insignificant. …
Argues that excessive fluorides in groundwater are a serious water quality problem in some parts of Sri Lanka. The incidence of dental fluorosis shows a high correlation with the presence of groundwater in certain areas. Tube wells constructed in various rock types have shown different fluoride concentrations, possibly due to …
INDONESIA boasts its coastline is generally clean, but these claims are based on data that is at least eight years old. Experts say the problems resulting from urban waste and oil pollution in the Strait of Malacca may be quite serious now. One reason why marine data is given such …
THE BRAZILIAN government is considering winding up its Proalcohol project, set up in 1975 to counter the petrol crisis by developing an alternative fuel for automobiles, ironically because the price of "dirty" fuel petrol has fallen. About 4 million cars have been modified to run on ethanol since the Brazilian …
Residents of Karad and downstream villages on the Krishna in western Maharashtra had no reason to suspect the efficacy of their new drinking water network. But they are victims now of a jaundice epidemic resulting from contaminated potable water in both urban and rural areas. The outbreak has taken a …
THOUGH reports linking brain, cancer to the use of mobile phones pushed down shares of US Cellular telephone companies, Japanese firms remain mostly unaffected. Tokyo stock market analysts explain this is because the Japanese have been inoculated by earlier reports of radioactive cellular phones. Says Edward Staiano of Motorola, the …
CHINA'S cut-rate, space-launch business may not be much of a bargain, especially after its most recent effort resulted in the disappearance into space of a US-built, Australian-owned telecommunications satellite. Launched by the China Great Wall Industry Corp for Optus Communications, the $138 satellite vanished before reaching its scheduled 35,000-km orbit. …
The end of 1992 saw advocates of development-at-any-cost increasingly impatient with the Union ministry for environment and forests (MEF), whom they accused of blocking development projects worth several thousand crores of rupees. The major pending projects include the open-cast mining schemes in Bihar, KRIBHCO's fertiliser plant at Hazira in Gujarat, …
