Order of the High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) 6444/2021 in the matter of Ratiram Ahirwar & Others Vs Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board & Others dated 13/07/2021. The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi in exercise of his power under Section 22 of the Building and Other Construction …
NORTHERN donors are being forced to rethink their basics after the Rio conference. Prominent among these are the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with developing countries (SAREC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), both of whom fund research projects in the developing world. Before they can get on with …
FOR SOME time now, the Manila-based Asian Development Bank -- the second biggest bank in the world -- has drawn flak from NGOs for its penchant to finance large, capital-intensive projects while ignoring their social and ecological ramifications. When the bank's board of governors met in Hong Kong in May, …
Despite hectic campaigning by the groups opposed to the Narmada dam plus a hefty boost from the anti-dam salvo fired by Bradford Morse and Thomas Berger, who formed a two-member independent review commission, the World Bank has taken a decision to continue funding the Sardar Sarovar project. However, in April …
IN A RECENT speech, Prime Minister Narasimha Ra called upon voluntary agencies to participate actively in the country's rural development programmes and gave a categorical assurance it "is not going to be a sarkari programme." Pointing out the Eighth Plan has allocated Rs 30,000 crore for rural development, which will …
THE EARTH Summit was over three months ago, but its decisions may already be coming apart. Africa's victory in securing support for the negotiation of a desertification convention may have been run into the sand, says a Panos Institute report. Even if the next session of the UN General Assembly …
THE UNITED States Agency for International Development (USAID) stopped assistance for irrigation development projects in India with effect from September 15. Sources attribute this measure to the gradual shifting of US attention to areas such as health and population control and agriculture -- specifically food processing. Some observers feel irrigation …
THE NATIONAL Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), a giant "freezer" in New Delhi to store plant genes, is implementing a Rs 64.8-crore expansion project that will increase its storage capacity four-fold -- from 154,964 varieties at present to 600,000 varieties. The expansion, with partial assistance of about Rs 40 …
MOST CITY dwellers are acutely aware of the growing problem of pollution. Now, action against this scourge seems to be heating up. Hyderabad's polluted Hussain Sagar lake may get a new lease of life with Rs 10 crore of Australian aid pumped in to clean it up. In Bombay, a …
WITH INCREASING emphasis being placed on upgrading of technical training, Indian institutes providing such training are seeking help in this area from multilateral agencies. The World Bank is funding two such projects that are being implemented by the ministries of labour and human resource development (HRD). The projects aim to …
HELPED along with generous grants from the World Bank and Japan to green the Aravallis, plus its own sizeable forestry budget, the Rajasthan government has embarked on an ambitious compensatory reafforestation plan. District collectors have been asked to identify areas which can be set aside to form part of a …
The Union ministry of forests and environment will soon set up a Central authority to monitor and regulate zoos in the country. This body will also be responsible for financial assistance to the zoos. To be constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1991, the authority will become operational by …
IT IS IRONIC that during the same week in June in which the World Bank emerged from Rio as the major funding mechanism to clean up the world's environment and implement Agenda 21, the Morse report revealed to the world the chronic institutional failures of the bank to promote environmentally …
IT IS TIME the government of India set up a high-powered committee of experts to take a decision on the Narmada project. As far as the work on the project is concerned, I frankly cannot say whether the work should be stopped. It is a very technical matter and experts …
MONEY for sustainable development in the developing countries was the only nut which UNCED could not crack. Two years of intense negotiations concluded in Rio with the South getting very little in hand. The UNCED secretariat had estimated that developing countries would need US $125 billion worth of international assistance …
THE SOUTH had a two-point agenda in Rio: funds and technology. It failed to get both. The North continued to insist that technology is a private resource which states cannot give away, whereas the South continued to ask for technology on preferential and concessional terms. If there was any movement …
WHILE NGOs and journalists were taking tours to see what poverty looks like in favelas (Brazilian slums), world leaders were negotiating the chapter on "combating poverty" only a few kilometres away, in Riocentro. They, of course, could not see much poverty on "the road to Rio" as the Brazilian government …
VERY FEW of the pious resolutions made at Rio are going to percolate down to the ground level in our country. On the very day our environment minister was making high-sounding speeches in Rio, I can bet that thousands of resource-poor tribals and peasants would have been displaced and uprooted …
A concerted international effort is underway to protect the remains of the ancient city of Moenjodaro from the double menace of a rising water table that is turning the city to dust and the unpredictable ways of the Indus which threatens to flood the site. But the plan may be …
LOFTY afforestation goals come to grief on a very mundane issue: the survival of people in and around the project area. One such is a US $30 million reforestation programme in the Chopta region of the Himalaya, funded by the World Bank. The government blamed the villagers for the failure, …
TAIWAN is getting ready to counter the spread of hamburgers and pizza with its very own home-grown rice. The council of agriculture has recently launched a US $2 million campaign to promote traditional Chinese meals based on rice as it needs to meet the challenge of US and European fast …
