Counter affidavit on behalf of Chief Municipal Engineer, Patna Nagar Nigam in the matter of Saurav Narayan Vs Bihar Pollution Control Board & Others dated May 20, 2025. The report said that the corporation has been diligently performing its statutory duties within the limitations of the available resources and infrastructure. …
A US study refutes the notion that airline pilots nearing 60 are more likely to cause accidents than their younger colleagues. The two-year study, which analysed accident data between 1976 and 1988, was undertaken to test the validity of a US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule, which bars sexagenarian pilots …
AS MANY as 2,000 scientists from former East Germany, who found themselves jobless after the country's behemoth research system was pruned, are now being denied promised university positions, as the universities do not want them. Before the reunification, research in East Germany was carried out by the Academy of Sciences, …
FROM THE house of Nikon have come electric spectacles that are battery-operated and change 0 from dark to light and back again at the touch of a button in less than 10 seconds. In contrast, the better known photochromatic lenses can take up to an hour to turn clear on …
NEPALI environmentalists are opposing the Arun III hydro-electric power project in east Nepal on the grounds that there are "more practical, cost-effective and environmentally sound" alternatives, writes Jan Sharma in a Panos Features report from Nepal. However, the Kathmandu-based Alliance for Energy says the project "will be built entirely using …
A FORMER British hairdresser, Maurice Ward, who traded his shears in the early 1970s for an executive desk at a plastic-recycling firm that he set up, says he has invented a fireproof plastic called Starlite. Ward says the plastic can withstand temperatures as high as 10,0000 C and can be …
SECRET issues in Japan will experience close encounters in the form of toilet tissue. Officials in Tachikawa, west of Tokyo, report they are recycling tonnes of top secret documents with a state-of-the-art shredder. It tears up the paper into shreds without destroying the fibre, but not to worry: the shreds …
A British firm is marketing an environment-friendly, flushless toilet that doesn't require disinfectants, deodorants or sewer connections and even turns human waste into compost (New Scientist, Vol 138, No 1868). Dubbed the Clivus system, the innovative toilet has a chute beneath the pan that conveys waste downward to a polyethylene …
An Act to provide for the prohibition of employment of manual scavengers as well as construction or continuance of dry latrines and for the regulation of construction and maintenance of water-seal latrines and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
TWO HUNDRED years ago, Thomas Malthus had asked at what point man's population would exceed his means of subsistence. The world's population then had not reached 1 billion. Today, a year before the population conference in Cairo, the total number of people in the world is fast approaching 5.5 billion. …
BURDENED by repayment of its enormous external debt, the Peruvian government has been forced to cut down its budgeting for health and sanitation facilities, even though a cholera epidemic claimed about 4,000 lives there in 1991 and diarrhoeal diseases kill about 17,000 children each year in the country. The deteriorating …
AT LEAST 600 million of the 1.5 billion urban inhabitats in AsiaAfrica and Latin America live in squattersettlements on illegally occupied land or in housingdevelmopment schemes that never received municipalapproval. Their houses fail to meet government buildingstandards and their inhabitants are victims of overcrowdingpoor constructionlack of piped waterrudimentarysanitationinadequate drainage and …
RESORTING to legal redress to get public areas free of defecators may soon become the norm in the Capital. And, given the burgeoning slum population and the dismal state of public conveniences, the entire city may soon be caught in a debate on the tricky issue of allowing public areas …
FOR MORE than a decade now, The State of the World"s Children, published annually by UNICEF, has attempted to draw public attention to issues which, though vital to the well-being of the world"s children, rarely get included in the economic and political priorities of governments. Like its predecessors, The State …
China intends to spend about $2 billion in the next two or three years to become a power in the highly competitive computer industry. Chinese officials confirmed recently in Texas they plan to make major purchases of US equipment to produce silicon chips that form the basic component in computers, …
A YEAR ago, there was excitement and anticipation in Shaheed Nagar when it was announced that a weekly Hindi newspaper would be launched in the colony. Shaheed Nagar in Uttar Pradesh was once an illegal slum close to Delhi. Today, it is a regularised colony of 60,000 and has virtually …
THE MYANMAR military junta's plans to use income from oil and gas concessions to buy weapons to keep its brutal dictatorship going have run into a snag, as many of the disenchanted international oil companies have decided to pull out. After three years in fruitless exploratory drilling, most of the …
AS STAR TV enters its second year of existence, there is less of its excellent public service advertisements to be seen. With paid consumer advertising increasing, the network no longer has to run messages on environmental protection and conservation as frequently. This, of course, is a great pity, for Doordarshan …
Australia is regretting buying a pig in a poke. A large quantity of peat moss it had imported from Russia has been found to be dusted with irradiated caesium (a soft, silver-white element of the alkali metal group, found in minerals) from Chernobyl. The moss was tested only after it …
IN AN ambitious crusade sponsored by Hong Kong's Urban Council, 26 architectural firms competed to design posh public toilets. The winning design featured louvred ceilings, spacious stalls and high-tech fibreglass. The redeveloped toilets, which at about US $230,000 each will cost the same as existing facilities, will be the most …
