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 …
IN THE '40s and '50s, an abandoned canal in New York state's Love Canal neighbourhood became a dumping ground for toxic wastes produced by Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corp. Later, the company filled up the land and gave it to the developing city of Niagara Falls, which constructed houses on …
The situation is, if anything, worse in the north Indian states like Punjab, where many industrialists acknowledge they are not even aware of the possibility of their products being toxic or of solid waste disposal norms. As Kuldip Raj, vice-president of Punjab Woolcombers Ltd, said, "This is the first time …
Storage: • The generator of hazardous wastes is allowed to store a maximum of 10,000 kg or a truck load, whichever is less, of the hazardous wastes on site for a maximum of 90 days. • The waste should be stored only in closed, specified containers in designated protected areas. …
THE concept of common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) was pushed by former environment minister Maneka Gandhi. But 5 years and vast sums of money down the line, CETPs seem to have become just another attractive official solution that never took off. The idea was to enable cash-strapped small-scale industries, which …
Industrial estates are proliferating in Gujarat and state pollution control officials admit that waste disposal has not been a priority consideration for any of them. The Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat industrial belt is packed with over 2,000 units in the organised sector and more than 63,000 smallscale units churning out chemicals like soda …
RETIRED police officer Tarif Singh and his friends in North Delhi's Siraspur village heaved a sigh of relief as the last of the 23 clandestine lead-smelting units closed shop in their neighbourhood on May 7. "Many of my neighbours had serious breathing trouble because of the smoke," Singh says. Many …
INDIA has become a dumping ground of lead battery waste. Almost all the batteries at Siraspur and Mundka have foreign markings. According to the international environmental NGO, Greenpeace, about 346,000 kg of lead battery waste from Australia alone was brought into the country between January and September, 1993. Of late …
Every country should have, the right to protect its people and environment from the negative actions of foreign countries. Based on this basic principle, the German Minister, Klaus Topfer was right in saying in Agra that he will not allow Third World to dump products that under the environment and …
Two amendments to the National Environment Tribunal Bill recommended by the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology and environment and forests, are likely to be tabled during the winter session of parliament. Though these will make the proposed tribunal slightly more powerful, it will not give it the teeth …
WHEN CITIZENS of Arcata, on Humboldt Bay in northern California, were faced with the need to treat the industrial waste water and sewage that had been pouring into the bay for decades, they decided against building a $30 million chemical treatment plant and chose instead to spend $5 million on …
US jet engine and automobile-part manufacturer, United Technologies Corp, has been fined $5.3 million for its carelessness in handling and discharging hazardous wastes in recent years. The wastes contained solvents, paint thinners and sludge, among other toxic chemicals. Seven plants of the firm's Pratt & Whitney jet engine unit and …
AIR, WATER, garbage, radon toxicity, sludge, noise. More than a part of our daily lives, these are perennial if hackneyed jargon. Few people would love to begin their mornings with them, fewer would care to read about them and even fewer disgruntled citizens would care to buy a book and …
Municipal authorities in Thrissur, Kerala, have been accused of dilly-dallying though a deadly chemical has reportedly flowed into the town's drinking water reservoir, resulting in at least 30 persons being hospitalised for dizziness, headache and stomach disorders. The reservoir became contaminated when a tanker carrying 12,000 litres of concentrated phenyl …
PARTICIPANTS: G D AGARWAL ADVISERENVIROTECH INSTRUMENTS PVT. LTD D N BASU PLANNING COMMISSION KANCHAN CHOPRA PROFESSORINSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH V B ESWARAN FORMER REVENUE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE K P GEETHAKRISHNAN FINANCE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE ARUN KUMAR CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC STUDIES AND PLANNINGJAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY SURENDRA KUMAR MANAGER (SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT) …
THE CLINTON administration jumped into a contentious issue even before assuming office by announcing it would block a final-stage, testing permit for a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. Vice-president Al Gore, casting his lot with a Greenpeace campaign to stop the US incinerator industry, said there are "serious …
INDIA is now exports 40 per cent of the iso-proturon (a wheat pesticide) it produces, a far cary from two years ago, when it had to import a large part of its requirement. But in return for the increased in foreign exchange, the country will have to pay in terms …
MAJOR differences of opinion have surfaced within the government in Japan over the shipment of weapons-grade plutonium from Europe even as the Japanese freighter Akatsuki Maru continues its 27,000 km-long journey from Cherbourg in France to Japan. This is the first large-scale shipment of commercial plutonium fuel, the opening step …
IN EUROPE, a ban on toxic waste movement between countries has led to a hot debate on free trade. Concerned by a legal ruling stating European Community (EC) legislation which bars governments from imposing prohibitions on trans-border passage of merchandise, many states have announced bans specifically relating to wastes. These …
IT WAS a routine job of replacing the defective safety valve of the spare ammonia feed pump at the 15-year-old urea plant of the National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) at Panipat. Around 11.00 am on August 26, eight employees climbed the steps to the open-air ramp, which had been declared a …
ALL IS not shipshape at Japan's dry dock. Recently, six Greenpeace activists, protesting the first shipment of one tonne of plutonium from France to Japan, were arrested by the Japanese government. The plutonium will fuel Japan's future fast-breeder nuclear power programme. The protestors pointed out the vulnerability of carrying the …
