Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item Titled "Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s Golconda Fort Cries for attention appearing in ‘The Siasat Daily’ dated 25 May 2025". The application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled “Neglected Katora Houz in Hyderabad’s …
Twenty years ago around half a million people were exposed to toxic chemicals during a catastrophic gas leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. More than 7,000 people died within days. A further 15,000 died in the following years. Around 100,000 people are suffering chronic and debilitating illnesses for …
As the Bhopal tragedy enters its twentieth year, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has identified the country's newest disease: the Bhopal Gas Disease. Down To Earth has exclusive access to an unpublished ICMR document which defines the disease as "a condition of ill-health due to exposure to Bhopal's …
Asha, 24, visits the Bhopal Memorial Trust Hospital once every 2 days. She has a hole in her heart. But the hospital won't operate her, because she has overshot the hospital quota of Rs two lakh per victim. She cannot get herself operated privately. "I have spent the compensation of …
A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR transnational corporation has had to blink first in an eyeball-to-eyeball dispute with an obscure panchayat of Kerala. On November 17, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL)
CONTITUTIONAL issues underlie the deadlock that persists in Plachimada. More specifically, the entire debate is centred on the rights of panchayats. Not only is the Perumatty Grama Panchayat pitted against the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL) and the Kerala government, it is ironically having to take on the local …
Forty year old Ganga stays in a slum close to the derelict Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal. She came to the city long after the gas leak. But Ganga shows symptoms associated with victims of the leak, nevertheless
Bhopal is the name of the place where, once upon a time, a vast plume of poison burst upon 5,20,000 people. But that happened 20 years ago. Now Bhopal is a metaphor for disaster, industrial and human. It has been the object of much speculation and typically endless litigation. A …
Aligarh, an industrial town of Uttar Pradesh, is spread over an area of about 40 square kilometres and has a population in a little in excess of six lakhs. The city has two distinct parts
The problem of natural contamination of groundwater with highly toxic poisons like arsenic and fluoride is here to stay. The million-dollar question is: Is there a way out for this global problem? Most of the techniques used by developed nations remove arsenic and fluoride from drinking water at the treatment …
for the first time, it has been found that depleted uranium (du) used during the Bosnia and Herzegovina conflicts of 1994-95 has contaminated local water sources. Furthermore, the highly radioactive metal was found in air samples of some buildings currently in use, states a un report Depleted Uranium in Bosnia …
function openmap(){ var popurl="html/20030415_map.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=650,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } Welcome to Wah india, a hazy land born of perfidy and malicious grace. Spread over territory co-extensive with 19 states in India, it is both traceable and unknown. Its physical geography, for instance, is quite virtual: Wah india keeps getting discovered; its expanding contours …
The 1970s and 1980s were a time of massive state investment in rural water development. Not only had more land to be brought under irrigation, but also drinking water supplied. These decades saw an exponential rise in the number of privately-owned pumpsets and wells, even as investment in public wells …
The official attitude towards fluoride-laced groundwater is best seen in the manner the state has gone about solutions. In a 1999 nationwide study New Delhi-based Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation (frrdf) found that "only a few laboratories in the country have specified the methodology for fluoride analysis.' Experts claim …
Human negotiation with its own capacities and actions often tends to be triumphalist. A man admires his muscled torso; an elite believes itself to be the omphalos
It is a story about underground water: when the nectar turns into poison. When a daily task of drinking water from the handpump becomes the source of crippling disease and death. This is not a "natural' disaster
Fluoride is an acute toxin, with a rating slightly higher than lead. It is, in fact, one of the most bone-seeking elements known to human beings. And groundwater in India shows the presence of unhealthy quantities of fluoride. A worrying scenario: daily ingestion of just 2 milligram (mg) of fluoride …
At a time when the threat of war looms large over Iraq, here's more ammunition for peaceniks to confront warmongers with. The United Nations Environment Programme (unep) recently released the findings of assessments conducted in the violence-wracked Occupied Palestinian Territories and Afghanistan. The reports have brought into sharp focus the …
The Centre for Science and Environment’s (cse) recent exposé has blown the lid off the industry’s tall claims on the purity of bottled water. Simultaneously, it has brought to the surface a much larger problem: contamination of groundwater by pesticides. On its part, the government seems to be in flip-flop …
