The nectar poison we drink

When Neena Khanna from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences called to tell us that her patient who lives in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh had high levels of arsenic in his blood, hair and nails, we were stunned. Why Ballia? We knew of arsenic in West Bengal and Bangladesh but not in Uttar Pradesh. What could be the reason?

A fish called hilsa

A sumptuous Bengali feast is incomplete without the hilsa . But very soon Bengalis in Bangladesh might well have to do without it. For, the population of hilsa -- the country's national fish -- is fast decreasing in its river system. This alarming trend has been triggered by factors such as overexploitation, dumping of industrial and domestic waste into waterbodies, construction of dams, and siltation.

Green drive

Every bit counts. Taking note of this adage, Bangladesh has launched a people-oriented drive to encourage its 130 million citizens to plant one tree each year. The drive tries to speed up plans to put at least 20 per cent of the country under forests.

Scrutinising disasters

Flood Studies in India brings to fore several aspects of this natural disaster that are not yet conventional wisdom in policy circles. The book looks at floods from a variety of expertise areas, such as civil engineering, meteorology, hydrology, remote sensing, geomorphology and geography - the only way to do justice to an area that is the point of intersection of several disciplines.

Classified ?

We are not supposed to keep on publishing the report," says N K Ganguly, director-general, icmr. "We are supposed to carry out research and cannot spend money on a particular project," he justifies. It is as if icmr's cancer data is protected under the Officials Secrets Act. Repeated requests to gain access to information fall on deaf ears. Regional registries collect information on cancer incidence and publish annual reports. But most of them do not make it public.

System error

The registries would have helped formulate a control programme . But in absence of the data, the nccp has been forced to source information from other places. "We use World Health Organisation's projections," says Sudhir Gupta, chief medical officer, directorate general of health services at the mohfw.

Attention India!

Three producers of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio shall be camping in India in April to develop programmes on issues related to the environment. The programmes will feature the following themes: the state of the river Ganga, water scarcity and the damming of rivers in India and their impact on the availability of water in Bangladesh. These programmes will be done in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali by BBC staffers Shiv. Kanth Sharma, Shafi Nafi Jami and Sami Zaman respectively.

Living with floods

THE book Rivers of life is a result of an exhaustive study based on assessments of existing flood control works in Bangladesh, of related documents, interviews with flood-affected people and Bangladeshi experts, and interactions with donor agencies for a Flood Action Programme (FAP).

Project without a people

SOON after the euphoria of the Green Revolution in India subsided, it became clear that the high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat were not the answer to the problem of foodgrain scarcity. The planting of HYV seeds, in fact, resulted in more agricultural problems. HYVs of rice required more water, which meant that large-scale irrigation and flood control projects had to be set up.

A bend in the Ganges

The Ganges: A Dying River (13 minutes, directed by Nazneen Azmi) is a condemnation of India's control over the Ganges waters, thanks to the the Farakka barrage. It has been produced by Hasna Moudud, team co-ordinator of the NGO Women for Water Sharing, with the help of the Foundation Pour Le Progre's de L'Homme.