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 …
A LARGE number of dead whales were found washed up by whale scientist Roger Payne in Patagonia, Chile. The cause of death was apparently skin infections. The mysterious human-AIDS-like plague, which attacked the whales' immune system, was also reported in large areas as diversely located as the South Pacific and …
FINALLY, an AIDS vaccine that works -- on monkeys. Harvard University researchers in despair turned to the old-fashioned, but unsafe, method and injected four rhesus monkeys with a weakened, live form of SIV, the virus that causes AIDS in primates. The researchers reported that the vaccine immunised the monkeys with …
AND NOW a human gene can be environmental groups call it a "landfound in plants. A Canadian scientist mark decision". has succeeded in adding a human The problem in the affected areas gene - metallothionein - to plants has been caused by excessive use of like rapeseed, tobacco and alfalfa. …
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has convicted Britain for allowing high nitrate content in drinking water, court upheld an EC complaint that in 28 water supply areas of Britain in 1989, nitrate levels were above the safe limit of 50 parts per million as laid down by the EC. Responding …
SO FAR it was the Orissa government, or rather its ebullient chief minister, Biju Patnaik, who has been fighting all the verbal battles in defence of the controversial Chilika Aquatic Farms Ltd (CAFL). Tata Steel, one of the two major owners of CAFL, chose to remain silent, even though the …
GROWING piles of garbage in the mountains have led the Himalayan Environment Trust to release a code of conduct for climbers. With the rise in the number of Himalayan expeditions, Jarge amounts of waste that are left on mountain slopes are becoming a major source of pollution. The new code …
IMAGINE dunking one's head in a rapid Himalayan stream and coming up with a mouthful of chemicals and weeds, instead of pristine water. This is not a totally unlikely scenario, according to the editors of this volume, a compilation of 26 articles on the freshwater ecology of the Himalayas. If …
WESTERN investors are slowly destroying Papua New Guinea's lush green rainforests with their utter disregard for environmental safeguards while raking in profits from the island's immense natural wealth, be it copper, gold, lumber or oil. And the PNG government, its hands bound by a foreign debt to the tune of …
WHEN PUBLIC interest litigation (PIL) was introduced in India about 10 years ago, it was hailed as a landmark in the development of the Indian legal system. Though touted then as a powerful tool, in improving social and environmental conditions through legal action, PIL has turned out to be relatively …
PIL DIFFERS significantly from other forms of litigation as regards a person's legal right to file a suit. Traditionally, only an aggrieved party had the locus standi to sue for judicial redress. In PIL, the court has broadened and liberalised the concept of locus standi to read: If the fundamental …
• Sanitation in Ratlam: In a landmark judgement in 1980, the Supreme Court explicitly recognised the impact of a deteriorating urban environment on the poor. It linked basic public health facilities to human rights and compelled the municipality to provide proper sanitation and drainage. However, according to numerous reports, little …
Article 21: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedures established according to law. Article 47: The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among …
INDUSTRIAL towns with a high growth and, therefore, high pollution potential will come in for special attention from the Punjab Pollution Control Board, under a new initiative to deal with pollution in the state. Amritsar, Batala, Gobindgarh Mandi, Jalandhar, Khanna, Ludhiana, Nangla and Phagwara have already been earmarked by the …
WHILE contaminated water has occupied centrestage in Udaipur for many years, the Pesticides India plant has been insidiously emitting odorous gases for almost as long. The plant manufactures pesticides, including phorate, all of which are highly toxic. While officials at the plant claim they have taken all possible precautions to …
THE RECENTLY-concluded Rio conference commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm. The Stockholm Conference was a watershed in the international environmenial movement - it put environmental issues on the international agenda for the first time. It was Sweden which had first …
ALMOST half of India's urban population is in favour of protecting the environment "even at the risk of slowing down economic growth" as against one-fourth who feel that economic growth should be the topmost priority. This is the major finding of an all-India survey conducted recently by the Indian Institute …
The Delhi high court has rejected a petition asking for the ban on ivory trade to be lifted. With this order there is now a total ban on selling and carving in ivory and all stocks of the precious 'white gold' can be confiscated. The petition was filed by the …
THE crowd gasps as a sadhu pierces his tongue with a trishul. Chants of awed reverence go up as a baba lights the hawan kunda (sacrificial pyre) with super-natural powers and another passes a flaming torch over his body. It is to expose such miracles and to promote scientific awareness …
On the basis of hydrochemical and biological studies, a trophic gradient has been established between the inshore and the offshore areas of the Dal lake. The inshore areas receive large quantities of raw sewage and agricultural runoff as a result of which high nutrient concentration of water and the presence …
Calculated loading rates of trace metals into the three environmental compartments demonstrate that human activities now have major impacts on the global and regional cycles of most of the trace elements. There is significant contamination of freshwater resources and an accelerating accumulation of toxic metals in the human food chain.
