Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Nabin Kisan Vs State of Odisha & Others dated 15/05/2025. The matter related to discharge of wastewater by the municipality of Belpahar on the applicants land. The affidavit filed by the District Magistrate, Jharsuguda, May 14, …
Brazilian farmers frequently using pesticides in their farm operations, unknowingly make their children susceptible to kidney cancer. Recently, researchers established that 18 per cent of Wilms' turnours - which affect kidneys - among Brazilian children, are due to exposure of their parents to pesticides (American Journal ofEpidemiolop@ Vol 141). Colin …
Unsustainable economic conditions and farming practices have reduced 80 per cent of the total surface area of the southern Argentine state of Patagonia -- once prime grazing land for sheep -- to deserts. This has forced thousands of small farmers to migrate to the cities. The genesis of the problem …
IN THE traditional farming system, locally available resources that are cheap and sustainable have been used after repeated experiments with local knowledge for subsistence. While modern agricultural research made a big stride in many countries, most of the traditional systems of farm practices have been neglected. Be it crop or …
British farmers are on the defensive as opposition mounts from animal welfare groups on current animal farming practices. In early February, a group of about 2,000 animal lovers clashed with the police in an attempt to prevent a truckload of veal calves from reaching the small port of Brightlingsea in …
SEVEN-and-a-half ha of fertile swampland, ideally suited for paddy cultivation, and endowed with several species of commercially valuable trees like rosewood and teak, would seem like a bequest to trumpet about. But for 60-year-old Raghavan Chettiar, the inheritance of just such a plot in Tamil Nadu"s Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary has …
"I CAME to Los Haitises in 1951 when I was abruptly evicted from my farm by the government to make way for a sugarcane plantation. One day I was in my farm, the next day I had to leave. I established a farm in the area the logging companies had …
Dharwad (Karnataka) Opposition to GATT in Karnataka is spearheaded by the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRSS), which has gained strength over the past 2 years and forced the ruling Congress government to accord comparatively greater seriousness in projecting its viewpoint of GATT. The thrust of the official programme -- to …
WHATEVER the outcome of the byelection in Rajasthan's Rajakheda assembly constituency on May 26, it will be remembered for one thing: GATT as a campaign issue. Previously, elections in Rajakheda were always contested along caste lines: Brahmins versus the rest. But now, Samajwadi Party candidate Mohan Prakash, a former legislator …
On the government's information campaign: We have to deal with a great deal of disinformation about GATT. We have launched a counter-campaign to present the right picture. We are organising seminars, workshops and taking up public contact programmes and distribution of literature on how Indian farmers will benefit from GATT. …
ALTHOUGH commerce minister Pranab Mukherjee maintains that India has good chances of cornering a sizeable chunk of the projected increase in world agricultural trade (up to 7 per cent, according to International Monetary Fund estimates) in the post-GATT era, there are overwhelming doubts about such claims. The increase in trade …
Gatt on TRIPS • Provides for protection of plant varieties. • Microorganism and microbiological processes are patentable. • Countries can either provide for patenting of plant varieties or develop an effective sui generis system of protection or a combination of both. Pro-GATT position • This will not affect farmers' rights …
ANTI-GATT ALL the major opposition parties, with the help of mass-based organisations, are planning either demonstrations, rallies, civil disobedience movements or study camps for farmers throughout the country to protest GATT. In the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress is in a minority, opposition parties are getting together to prevent GATT-related …
MORE than a month after the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), ignorance and uncertainty about its implications continue to prevail among Indian agriculturists. The principal issues for farmers is whether they can retain and sell seeds and whether they will be able to compete in …
LANGUAGE, in any campaign, is as potent a force as logic. In Patent Pending: Indian Farmers Fight to Retain Seed Freedom, a beautifully and cleverly made campaign film by Meera Dewan and Vandana Shiva, the language is so loaded as to render impossible any rational debate on the subject. Even …
FOR nearly 400 years, Nepal has been using an indigenous irrigation system fortified remarkably without the help of cement or girders. The farmers in the Gorkha, Palpa and Rupandehi districts have built over centuries a complex network of canals and weirs using only boulders, tree branches, soil and wood to …
The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) -- a farmer's organisation -- has taken the lead in proposing an alternative to the Union government's draft bill on protection of plant varieties, which is based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations. In February, representatives of six groups, including …
Citizens of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra have decided to revive their agitation against the Rs 700-crore copper smelting factory of Sterlite Industries India Ltd in the district. Last August, local environmentalists had formed the Ratnagiri Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, which campaigned against the unit located at Zadgaon, protesting that its operations would …
FOR THE inhabitants of New South Wales, Australia, the nightmare is finally over. "The bushfire, undoubtedly the fiercest one ever witnessed in the modern history of the continent, has been contained at last," declared an exhausted but visibly relieved Bush Fire Services Commissioner, Phil Koperburg, in Sydney in mid-January. His …
THE CHINESE government has been forced to take some drastic measures to assuage the country's long-suffering farmers, who are moving to the cities in droves in search of more money. For one, it has forbidden the construction of new golf courses and horse-racing tracks -- symbols of a "decadent" Western …
THESE are difficult times for UK farmers. Food surpluses are forcing land to be taken out of food production. In many instances, farmers are being paid to leave their land idle - the system of "set-aside" payments - but this fails to compensate fully for falling incomes. Farmers have been …
