Typical agriculture sectors like animal production and processing, aquaculture and its processing, and fruit and vegetable processing, can be water-intensive and generate complex and sometimes severe pollution. Controlling pollution hinges on knowing its quantity (wastewater and solid waste volume) and characteristics (major pollutants and their concentration range, nature of wastes, …
THIRTY per cent of the country's net prawn yield was "eaten up" by a suspected viral disease in coastal Andhra Pradesh's (AP) aquaculture belt. An entire crop of black tiger prawns was devastated by what some experts suspect was an invasion of the infectious haemotopoetic hypodermal necrosis (IHH-NV) virus in …
Scientists at the Central Inland Capture Fisheries Research Institute (CICFRI) at Barrackpore near Calcutta have successfully achieved artificial fertilisation of hilsa, whose numbers had dwindled following the construction of the Farakka barrage in 1975. The barrage had led to the collapse of the commercially important hilsa fishery in the upper …
Following recent disclosures of its newly established projects inspection panel (Down To Earth, November 15, 1994), the World Bank is on the mat again. The panel, established in November 1994 on the insistence of 4 Nepalese NGOs, maintains that Nepal's proposed Arun III dam involves "apparent violations of policy that …
THE united stand of the labour ministers of the nonaligned and other developing countries to denounce the post-Uruguay round attempt to introduce a social clause to link up international trade with labour standards, although commendable, is still a political riddle. This Delhi Declaration's seemingly aggressive stance, following from the 5th …
IN THE economy versus ecology conflict now troubling Ukraine, it is amply clear that economy is coming first. Undeterred by vociferous protests from environmentalists apprehensive about the future of the Black Sea, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has declared "categorical" support for an oil terminal to be built near the port …
The country's deep sea fishing policy has run into troubled waters. Acceding to protests by fisherfolk against forays by multinational companies into the Indian seas, the government has frozen the issuing of new licences to foreign companies pending a review of the policy, which was announced in 1991. The decision …
THE pressure mounted by the traditional marine fishing community has once again prodded the government into responding, albeit in a Machiavellian manner. The Union minister for food processing industries, Tarun K Gogoi's announcement that the government is going to review the deep sea fishing policy is at best an argument …
Pakistan's fishing industry is in the doldrums following arrest orders for illegal migrants. The Karachi Fishing Boat and Trawlers Owners Group (KFBTOG) warns that unless the crackdown on Bengali migrant workers ceases, there could be severe repercussions on the fishing industry. Normally, annual foreign exchange worth Rs 5 billion is …
China now wants to ensure birth of only healthy babies. It has adopted a law on Maternal and Infant Health Care, designed to "improve the quality of births". The law aims to upgrade maternity and child health facilities. It envisages pre-marital check-ups. If the results are unsatisfactory, the couple would …
The proposed Arun III dam in Nepal has come under fire. The World Bank's newly established investigation panel, which deals with complaints from people adversely affected by the Bank's projects, has received a formal complaint -- its first -- on the dam. A group of NGOs in Nepal charge the …
Singapore has finally found a way to clean up its "wet markets", the bazaars selling fresh meat, fish and poultry. They are named so because their floors are perpetually slippery with offal and blood, fish scales, and water. The government has been tearing its hair out, but it could do …
AS MORE and, more North Americans fall victim to the myriad charms of a personal computer and avail of on-line consumer information services, electronic companies in the us are rushing to find a place in cyberspace. There are already 60 million users of home computers in North America and the …
Civil war in Rwanda has claimed 500,000 lives, but it has spared 60 rare gorillas in the Virunga mountains, a big draw for tourists in the past 15 years. A recent census has accounted for all but 2 of the creatures. Of Rwanda's 650 mountain gorillas, a third live in …
Recent protests by villagers of Puddukottai, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam districts in Tamil Nadu, against mushrooming shrimp farms near their settlements, have forced the state government to establish a high-powered committee to come up with regulatory safeguards for aquaculture enterprises. The committee comprises officials of the departments of revenue, fisheries, rural …
By harvesting the world's first crop of genetically-engineered wheat, the Swiss-owned Ciba Seeds has shown that scientists can alter the characteristics of important cereals reliably, by giving them genes from other species. Within a few years, the work is expected to result in new wheat varieties with increased resistance to …
Indian fisherfolk are up in arms against the foreign trawlers that have been permitted to fish in India's coastal waters by the Indian government. The leaders of fisherfolk associations from 9 maritime states have threatened to go on an indefinite strike from November 23 and prevent foreign fishing trawlers from …
The Bay of Biscay was turned into a battleground as Spanish fishermen snipped the nets of 3 Cornish boats in the first week of August, claiming that they exceeded the European Community length limits of 2.5 km. Skirmishes also took place between French and Spanish fishermen. Meanwhile, Rainbow Warrior, the …
The Other Wealth (63 mins, directed by Sudipto Sen), described by its producer, Mise-en-Scene, as "a tale of magic wetlands, its people and their technology", is about an outstanding example of waste water and solid water recycling. But a distracting technique, of long sequences without commentary or music, goes against …
NEC Corp, the Tokyo-based electronics concern, plans to dazzle consumers with a 256-megabyte flash memory chip. This "next generation" device, which will be 16 times as powerful as those now in the market, has the potential to beat the conventional dynamic random access memory chips hands down, says nec vice-president …
