India’s power mess

Over the past several months, the power situation in the country has reached dire straits. Media reports that blackouts lasting 10 hours a day are forcing small-scale industries to either shut down or operate partially; textile mills in Tamil Nadu and the manufacturing sector in Andhra Pradesh are examples. Operating heavy machineries for long hours on diesel is prohibitively expensive apart from being highly polluting.

Is coal mineral or bioresource?

THE Madhya Pradesh State Biodiversity Board (MPSBB) has stirred a hornet’s nest by saying that coal is a biological resource and should, therefore, come under the rules of Biological Diversity Act (BDA), 2002.

The inviolate plot

Coal blocks on offer

Coal mine expansion made easy

Ban paves the way

Natural highways

Mukhtar Islam and his crew of 21 have just completed a historic journey from Kolkata to Allahabad in 45 days. They were steering two tugboats, each pulling a barge carrying turbines. In 50 years, no big ship has sailed up the Ganga. By road it would have taken the crew two days to reach Allahabad and by train, less than 36 hours. The turbines, weighing 0.3 million tonnes, could not be transported by road or train because of their size.

Need or greed?

Forest clearances Since 1981, when the Forest Conservation Act was enacted, 1,183,967 hectares (ha) of forests have been diverted; one-fourth of the diversions was done in the past five years

Silence is the best policy

There is nothing more criminal than the conspiracy of silence. There is also nothing more abject than scientists participating in acquiescence and deceit.

India’s Minamata

Saraju Nisha sits at the door of her house, about 500 metres from a mountain of coal mine waste in Chilika Daad village in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district. The 60-year-old former miner is in deep pain.