Reply affidavit on behalf of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of Gavhan Koliwada Matsyavyavsayik Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit Vs City & Industrial Development Corporation & Others dated 28/01/2025. City & Industrial Development Corporation submitted a proposal for CRZ clearance for the construction of coastal road from …
THERE are a few standard procedures to tackle oil spills. They can be contained by booms (inflatable lengths of rubber that float around an oil spill) and collected by using oil skimmers. Or, they can be dissipated by spraying chemicals called dispersants on a spill. The chemical emulsifies the oil …
TIGER prawn collectors face an enemy called the kamot, a small species of shark that infests the saline waters of the Sundarbans. Kamots have sharp teeth and they can slice off a limb. In 1992, the health department of Bangabella recorded 87 kamot attacks, most of them fatal. One of …
CRUDE oil is the single largest commodity traded in ships. Accidents involving tankers usually attract media attention, but when the largest-ever spill occurred in July 1979, when Atlantic Express and the Aegean Captain collided in the Caribbean spilling 270,000 tonnes of crude, the event passed virtually unnoticed in the Western …
WITHIN hours of being alerted by a French news agency about the worst-ever oil spill in Indian waters, a government crisis control group was huddled in emergency session. Their major concern: how best to contain oil leaking in a steady flow from a ruptured tank of the blazing, Tokyo-bound supertanker …
DOWN TO EARTH has been consistently arguing that people"s self-management and control are the best ways to deal with the critical problems facing India, namely, declining productivity and the steady destruction of natural resources such as forests, grasslands, ponds, tanks and wetlands -- problems that result in extreme poverty and …
PARTICIPANTS: G D AGARWAL ADVISERENVIROTECH INSTRUMENTS PVT. LTD D N BASU PLANNING COMMISSION KANCHAN CHOPRA PROFESSORINSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH V B ESWARAN FORMER REVENUE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE K P GEETHAKRISHNAN FINANCE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE ARUN KUMAR CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC STUDIES AND PLANNINGJAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY SURENDRA KUMAR MANAGER (SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT) …
THE NETHERLANDS is negotiating 10-year, bilateral, sustainable development agreements with Bhutan, Benin and Costa Rica, which, Dutch officials say, will be strikingly different from other such treaties. The agreements recognise that the rich should reduce their use of global resources, repay their ecological debt and assist the poor in improving …
FOR SEVERAL centuries, Udaipur has been renowned for the exquisite use of marble in its magnificent palaces. But it was known only recently that the city rests atop the world's largest marble reserves, and the rush to exploit this bonanza is wreaking havoc on Rajasthan's beautiful lake city. The 'marble …
US PRESIDENT-elect Bill Clinton's appointment of Carol Browner as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a clear signal that the new US administration will move aggressively on environmental issues. Browner, 36, has excellent credentials for this key job, whose main challenge will be to settle the thorny issue …
INTO THE HEART is an apt title for the autobiography of anthropologist Kenneth Good and the ethnography of the Yanomama Indians rolled into one, and for a romantic book that journeys into the heart of the unexplored Venezuelan jungle. When Good set off to study the Hasupuweteri Yanomama, he had …
THE BLUE Danube lost much of its magic when on August 1 Slovakia started dumping concrete blocks weighing several tonnes into the river. By October 20, these had narrowed the Danube from 400 metres to 160 metres. Slovakia was at the time given permission by the Danube Commission, the association …
The Union ministry of environment and forests has once again extended for 30 days the deadline for enforcing the controversial draft notification under the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986. The amendment faces stiff opposition from the governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and also industry associations such …
THE PRODUCTS of my research are men, women and children, fully trained to demonstrate the potential power of Mother Earth to retain and use every drop of rain as it falls and where it falls. They are common people but they have a strange power. And, I am determined to …
GUJJARS are up in arms because they resent being thrown out of their homes by the proposed Rajaji National Park in Uttar Pradesh. In coastal Orissa, Chilika fisherfolk are protesting the allocation by the government of a slice of their environment to the House of Tata. What binds these disparate …
LITERATURE, they say, is a reflection of the way a society perceives itself. Indians have, from time immemorial, celebrated the interdependence of human beings and nature. The modern era saw them grow apart. The greater the distance between them, the more romantic became the treatment of nature in literature. Indian …
THREE, thematically unrelated films though off-beat are of interest because they deal with ecological activism, alternate lifestyles and informal banking. The first is Plastic! Plastic! and to see it is to is to appreciate the vital role the kabadiwala plays in Indian society. Mussoorie has no kabadiwala and the result …
FLASH floods and landslides in the Himalaya are caused at times by unplanned development. On August 14 last year, the fast-developing town of Gopeshwar and its surrounding villages was inundated by heavy rainfall and 27 people were killed in resulting landslides. Flooding caused by an irrigation channel left incomplete by …
"The sky is going to fall on our heads," was the thought that ran through the mind of many of Dhedsari's residents. A cloud that should have caused rain to fall over a few days, burst like a bubble and the water poured down all at once in the evening …
Many springs changed colour and flow after the earthquake. The Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology says a large number of springs became completely dry, but some began to discharge murky water with a burnt smell. In other places, discharge levels recorded perceptible increases -- about eight times the normal flow …
RAIN IN the hills usually evokes romantic images. But in the Himalaya, the monsoon often becomes macabre. It had been raining incessantly through the evening of September 2 and the inhabitants of the seven villages in the Angoth gram sabha of Chamoli district were getting ready to sleep. In nearby …