Public vs profit

ioc's move to supply ulsd (with 0.05 per cent sulphur content) to the National Capital Region ( ncr ) of Delhi came as a pleasant surprise for those campaigning for the right to clean air. The company says it has also started supplying premium grade, lead-free, low benzene petrol ( lbp , with 0.92 per cent benzene) to the entire country.

Voices

Mahbub ul Haq

Industrial vibes

Industry and freshwater. "The challenge is to create the market conditions whereby sustainability will form the basis of competitiveness," Bausuano added. "Voluntary commitment cannot be a substitute to legislation," said Bjorn Stigson, president, WBCSD. "It can only complement an on-going process. In developing countries, voluntary effort will have to come from the big industries, and the legislation that is in place will have to look after the small and medium scale industry," Stigson pointed out.

Managing freshwater resources

Do industry and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) make strange bedfellows? Not anymore, apparently. In what could be a trend-setting partnership, UNEP and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have come out with a report titled "Industry, Freshwater and Sustainable Development". Dubbed the "wake up call to business and to the other sectors of society", the report documents how many companies manage freshwater resources more sustainably.

A parched waterworld

The doomsday predictions of wars being fought over water indicate the world's precarious position with regard to water. Though 70 per cent of the planet is covered by water, only 2.5 per cent of water is freshwater. Of this, nearly 70 per cent is frozen in the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland. The rest is present as soil moisture and in deep underground aquifers. As a result, only a minuscule 0.007 per cent of water on the planet is readily available for human consumption.

Water in foreign policy

The gravity of the problem of freshwater scarcity on a global scale was recognised as far back as 1977, when the un Water Conference took place at Mar del Plata, Argentina. The action plan drawn up at Mar del Plata is considered by many as "an excellent road map", much of which is valid two decades down the road.

Send your garbage

In a recently published story, a US newspaper, The Baltimore Sun , said that the US may be looking towards South Asian countries -- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh -- to export its obsolete ships laden with asbestos, PCBs, lead, toxic wastes and other hazardous substances. Earlier, US shipping companies and the Navy had been sending their ships to yards in the US itself for scrapping. But workers and environmental groups started suing the ship yards as they were not meeting environmental norms.

The debt trap

Cotton crop in general is highly susceptible to a number of pests and diseases. The farmer's problem is further aggravated by the intensive cultivation of the crop with large amounts of fertilisers and indiscriminate plant protection measures. "This leads to increased cost of production, less returns and development of pesticides resistance in the pest," says C Sreedhar Rao, deputy director of agriculture at Warangal.

Deadly concoctions

unable to identify the culprit (S litura) that appears only at night, ap farmers resorted to all kinds of pesticides in quantities that astound even the pesticide dealers, who reaped a rich harvest with sales spiralling through the roof. Little did the farmers realise that the pest had developed complete resistance to these and most other pesticides used in the region.

Cold chillies

It is not just cotton. Most other crops have also failed in Telangana. The standing chilli crop in Warangal district has been affected by fruit rot, while the early flowering of the rabi paddy crop has been causing confusion among scientists. Fruit rot has affected about 7,000 hectares of the land under paddy. "We will have to give compensation for other failed crops as well, " says Shalini Mishra deputy commissioner, Warangal. Like cotton, chilli is also a cash-intensive crop, requiring a lot of money for fertilisers and pesticides.