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 …
In March, 1992, the District Committee for Science and Technology, Dharwad, an independent body set up by the state government, sent a team of scientists to take water samples from the Tungabhadra and examine the people of villages located along the banks of the river. Following are the main points …
THE apathy of the Nepalese government to the pollution of the once crystal-pure waters of the Bagmati river has landed it in court, writes Jan Sharma from Kathmandu. Environmentalists have filed a petition at the country's apex court, questioning why action should not be taken against prime minister Girija Prasad …
GIVEN the state of pollution in Indian cities and rivers, most people would conclude that nothing is being done to control pollution. But figures have an unusual knack of belying common thinking. According to the Central Pollution Control Board, in 1992 no less than 5,535 cases were filed against pollution …
DOES THE ago-old belief in Ganga's incorruptibility hold water? Yes, says environmental engineer D S Bhargava of Roorkee University, who believes that this is what has led to apathy towards the Ganaga. Unlike other rivers, the Ganga's water doesn't putrefy even after long periods of storage. Unfortunately, very few, if …
THE ANUGUL-Talcher industrial belt in Orissa's Dhenkanal district -- one of the few water-rich areas in the state -- is facing an acute crisis: People in more than 400 villages in the region, which is served by the Brahmani river and its tributary Nandira, have been bearing the brunt of …
IN INDIA, environment is hardly an election topic. No one expects political parties to make environment a plank and neither do most voters base their decisions on ecological promises. However, in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, the absence of a burning …
FOR THE candidates of Bhopal (North) constituency, the area worst affected by the gas leak in 1984, relief for the victims seems to be a non-issue. Congress candidate Rasool Ahmad Siddique smugly declares voters are "satisfied with the relief they are getting" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ramesh Sharma …
GREEN issues came to the fore in several colonies of Delhi. But, for inexplicable reasons, metropolis-wide environmental issues such as the rapidly increasing air pollution, were ignored. Some of the city's otherwise articulate middle-class even accepted the problem of vehicular pollution as fait accompli. Says O P Sharda, president of …
ONE RARE case of an environmental issue spreading out and influencing an election campaign in two constituencies is that of Betwa river pollution in Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Vidisha and the Congress candidate for nearby Sanchi tried to cash in on the issue, cleverly using …
PARTY manifestoes have repeatedly shown that election promises come cheap. Green ones may come even cheaper. The Congress party's environmental concerns have been stressed in its election manifestoes since the mid-1970s. However, that has not stopped the party from presiding over heavy exploitation of India's forests and groundwater. Now, it …
Pollution levels in the Hooghly river rise sharply after the idols are immersed at Durga Puja, revealed a study done three years ago by J J Ghose of Calcutta University. Though publication of the study had been held back for fear of offending religious sentiments, the state has now realised …
Kanpur -- the second most polluted city on the Ganga after Calcutta -- has come under the microscope during the first phase of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP). However, the city's residents will have to wait for another two years before the river water quality improves because the effluent treatment …
FREEING a river from bondage might seem preposterous. But that is exactly what the Ganga Mukti Andolan (GMA) set out to do in 1982 in Bihar's Bhagalpur district by mobilising fisherfolk, peasants and boatpersons against the infamous panidari -- the exclusive rights of zamindars (landowners) to fish and run boats …
RAJPURA, a village adjacent to the Shiv Shankar Chemical Industries Pvt Ltd, a liquor factory in Banka district's Jagadishpur block, is almost ruined. Effluents from the factory have rendered Rajpura's agricultural land, the two drinking water wells and the shallow handpumps useless and a perpetual stench pervades the village. This …
EVEN AS the world prepared to celebrate Environment Day on June 5, environmentalists in Karnataka filed a complaint against the state pollution control board (SPCB) for failing to discharge their duties under the Water Act, 1974, and the Air Act, 1981. On May 11, Ram M Apte, an advocate and …
WHEN RUDA Gugha of Udauna village in the Chotila taluka of Surendranagar district "spotted a tanker parked on the dry (Mahanadi) river bed in the dead of the night" in March, little did he realise the havoc that the tanker was to wring in the region. The next day, cattle …
IT TOOK a series of dogged protests by farmers to get small-scale textile dyeing and printing units near Pali in Rajasthan to get together to set up effluent treatment plants jointly so that pollutants need never again paint the Luni river red and blue. The town and its more than …
ECOLOGISTS and large-scale industrialists fear India's liberalisation policies will lead to a runaway growth in the dyestuffs sector, which will cause unimaginable damage to the environment. They say the Indian small-scale dyestuffs industry is a prime example of a dirty industry. K R V Subrahmanian, managing director of Colour Chem, …
SEVEN entrepreneurs from chemical units at the Jeedimetla Industrial Estate (JIE) near Hyderabad have shown how effluent discharge can be collectively reduced. In 1987, they conceived the idea of a cooperative effluent treatment plant, and two years later, a one million-litres-a-day effluent treatment plant, was set up by Jeedimetla Effluent …
CASTING its anti-pollution net wider, the Supreme Court has cracked down on industries in Bihar and West Bengal spewing pollutants into the Ganga river, ordering them to be shut down or relocated. Ruling on a public interest petition filed by lawyer M C Mehta, Justices Kuldip Singh and N M …
