ON FEBRUARY 10 this year, Machu Dandavate, the deputy chairperson of the planning commission, underlined the reason behind a phenomenon which has lately taken the country by stem. Judicial activism - the intervention of the judiciary to stem the rot, especially in the field of environment and its protection - …
AN INDUSTRIAL estate in Andhra Pradesh's (AP) Medak district, Patancheru lies just off the Hyderabad-Pune highway. Save the electricity lines that snake across the undulating landscape and the unhurried public transport, the region seems untouched by the 20th century. But an insidious by-product of industrialisation has wreaked havoc on the …
THE ridge in Delhi (the capital's 'lungs') has been mired in controversy for the past two decades for its rampant abuse. This rump of the Aravalli hills, a discontinued sparse forest of kikar, babul, shisham, neem and eucalyptus, has always absorbed pressure from a metro that is bursting at its …
THE September of 1995 left its mark on the Kullu-Manali valley in Himachal Pradesh (HP) in more ways than one, While unprecedented rains and an angry Beas river caused widespread havoc in the hills, the aftermath was marked by the exposure of a tale of alleged corruption and nepotism. On …
WHILE the courts have played their role by increasing awareness against environmental degradation and ensuring that executive agencies respect the environmental laws of the land, the results have left more questions unanswered. In Bichhri, for example, the Courts had an opportunity to penalise the polluters with exemplary Cities and resolve …
On April 16,1996, a division bench of the Supreme Court (SC) comprising Justices Kuldip Singh and S Saghir Ahmed directed the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a special division bench to hear environment-related petitions - and the nation's first green bench was born. The SC has …
Whether the SC passed the correct executive orders • The mum are not equipped to deal with environmental issues. They do not have the expertise, the material on the basis of which they can judge the effects of what are alleged to environmentally disastrous activities. - P N BHAGWATI • …
February 13, 1996: SC orders the closure of five chemical units producing H-acid, a chemical whose production processes have been banned in the West in Bichhri, Rajasthan. April 18, 1996: Setting aside a Central notification which had permitted development activity within 200 metres (m) of a beach, the SC bans …
• Greening of the ridge with indigenous species has not started. • Many vacated parts of central ridge are being used as garbage dumps. • Parks covering 310 ha of the notified Delhi ridge area have not been given forest character. • Chandraswami's temple in Sanjay Van has started encroaching …
Bichhri: where the earth bleeds People's protests had forced the closure of Bichhri's polluting industries. The court's intervention, which was late in coming, has not helped much, Bichhri remains the same IN BICHHRI, a nondescript village near Udaipur in Rajasthan, tile wells contain, instead of clear water, a brownish cocktail …
