News Snippets

>> Jonathan Deal, a South African anti- fracking campaigner is one of six winners of this year’s Goldman Prize, a prestigious environmentalist award. Fracking is a controversial technique of pumping high pressure fluids into shale rock to recover gas.

Catching them young

KOUSHIK CHAKRABORTY Plant Physiologist at Directorate of Groundnut Research, Junagadh Salt-resistant oilseeds

Legislation for a few

Awarding the tyrant

Human rights groups have condemned UNESCO as “shameful and utterly irresponsible” for awarding a prize sponsored by one of Africa’s most authoritarian rulers. The $3 million award, presented to three scientists on July 17, is funded by Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Stained steel

19/100

No concrete plans

The cement industry is India's ultimate sunshine industry. Up until the 1980s, it was not growing phenomenally. Now it is. After cement was decontrolled in 1989, the industry took off -- its growth rate far outstripping that of the country's gross domestic product. In terms of production capacity, it has grown almost two-and-a-half times -- from 61 million tonnes in 1989-90 to 157.5 in 2003-2004.

On paper

The Top 3 What makes these companies the best #1 ITC Ltd-Bhadrachalam Unit For technology leapfrog -- for eliminating toxic chlorine from the bleaching process; proactively reaching farmers, exhorting them to grow wood. Mind, water use in this plant is still too high; effluent disposal still pollutes the river.

Setting Out

since the release of the environmental rating of the automobile sector by the Centre for Science and Environment several people have told us that it must have taken some courage to rate the auto sector, which is headed by some of the most powerful industrial stalwarts like Rahul Bajaj and Ratan Tata. We had never thought on these lines. On the contrary, we found the industry extremely docile and cooperative.

Science for ecology

Down To Earth and the Centre for Science and Environment announce that the winner of the 2001 Green Scientist Award is V P Sharma , former head of the Malaria Research Centre.

A belief in tradition