The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
india has called upon the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (saarc) to evolve a united stand over the issue of toxic waste trade. The government thinks that India and other developing nations face high risks in the matter of cross-border movement of hazardous wastes. This is why India wants …
after getting hauled up by the country's apex court, the Indian government has set up a high-powered committee to oversee what it terms the "strict and faithful" implementation of rules to manage hazardous wastes. The committee held its first meeting on December 18. The Basel Action Network, a network of …
Authorities in Thailand have warned that certain brands of cheap cosmetics sold in the markets could contain mercury and cause kidney failure or even death. The Food and Drug Administration has banned 21 harmful products found on sale in the country and has set up a hotline offering rewards to …
chemists in the us have developed a sponge-like material that is very effective at absorbing certain heavy metals. The material called mesoporous silica, can be used to clean wastewater and turn it into drinking water. Researchers say it may also be cheap and adaptable enough to use the substance in …
A plasticizer is a substance normally incorporated to a PVC resin or some other materials such as paints, to improve some of its properties as flexibility or processability. Phthalates, adipates, phosphates and some others are the main compounds used as plasticizers. Some of these compounds, as bis-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DOP), are …
Officials of more than 100 Durga Puja and Kali Puja committees have been fined by the Calcutta High Court for the use of microphones making noise exceeding the permissible sound level. The division bench of Justice Bhagabati Prosad Banerjee and Justice S B Ray passed these orders and imposed fines …
chlorofluorocarbons (cfcs) are not the only threat to the ozone layer. Nitrous oxide (n2o), also known as laughing gas, has been quietly eating into the layer that screens out harmful ultraviolet radiations. The gas has a tremendous global warming potential, with a heat absorption capacity 250-290 times that of carbon …
a two-day seminar held in the first week of November at Delhi on disposal of hospital wastes concluded that while its destruction was of paramount importance, incinerating such wastes was no solution. It was also brought to light that a mere 10 per cent of total hospital wastes are hazardous …
for the five lakh people who were exposed to the lethal gas leak in Bhopal in 1984, it has been one battle after another. Now they are fighting perhaps their last battle
robot fish could soon be searching the ocean floor for hazardous chemicals. Researchers at the University of Central Florida, usa, have developed the Micro Electronic Fish Robot (mefir) that would be used for studying aquatic life. The 0.6 m long robot has been designed to look and move like fish. …
from killer algae to mind-altering microbes, coastal areas worldwide are facing an assault of some of the strangest micro-organisms known to humankind. While scientists have yet to establish the cause of this phenomenon, it is highly likely that human-induced changes to the coastal environment and pollution have disturbed the natural …
a coalition of Scottish environmental groups under the banner of the Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link (swcl) has called for a review of the environmental impacts of marine salmon fishing in Scotland. The main cause for concern is the wide and indiscriminate use of chemicals to control sea lice, parasites …
Greenpeace activists are protesting against the government's decision to ship 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste to famine hit North Korea. They say the move is irresponsible and immoral exploitation of the acute poverty in North Korea. According to a Greenpeace spokesperson, Taiwan is using its money power to trap a …
Both the CPI(M) and the Samata Party, have come out with public statements urging the Union Government to ratify the Basel ban that seeks to prohibit the movement of hazardous waste from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to non- oecd countries. However, they have made it clear …
residents of the coastal port town of Koko in mid-western Nigeria are complaining of strange deaths and illnesses which, they suspect, have resulted from the poisonous chemicals that were secretly shipped to the port as part of 3,500 tonnes of toxic waste about 10 years ago. The radioactive waste including …
even as the fourth Conference of Parties ( cop iv ) is about to meet in Kuala Lumpur from October 6 to 10 to decide whether a ban on trade in recyclable wastes under the Basel Convention should be implemented, the Indian government knows that it cannot win. If it …
reports that two ships of us origin had entered the Indian maritime zone to be broken up at one of the country's ship breaking yards created a stir in the Lok Sabha on August 5 when it came to light that the ships in question were used for transporting hazardous …
The poisoned hearth A study established that PCBs were posing a threat to human health in Delhi . A DOCTORATE study submitted by Satya Prakash Saxena to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( aiims) 12 years ago presented evidence that highly toxic polychlorinated biphenyls ( pcbs) are present …
SAXENA's study was conducted over three years under the supervision of top medical practitioners in obstetrics and gynecology, reproductive biology and forensic medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( aiims ). The additional director of the Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences, Delhi, was one of the …
