Private affairs

Public or private?

Mautak will flower

The abundance of seeds in moist areas then invites rats and rodents, whose fertility, as nature would have it, increases when they feed on bamboo seeds. A study by Fabian M Jaksic and Mauricio Lima, ecologists at the Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity in Chile, records a clear relation between rodent outbreaks in South America since in the 16th century and bamboo flowering and high rainfall.

Too cut & dried

"States like Madhya Pradesh (mp) must be compensated at least in proportion to the forest cover that it has protected, which is far more than the national average", said Digvijay Singh, ex-chief minister, at a National Development Council meeting in 2002.

United Colours of Industry

Colours are inescapably embedded in everyday life. So it's critical to know, and to regulate, the way they operate. Having said that, it's not easy to recognise the problems associated with their use. Adulteration in food colours, or allergic reactions to elements in fabric apart, consumers are unaware of problems caused by agents and vehicles of colour. But a look at the tailpipe in any industrial zone can cure that.Colour problem comes from two types of industries:

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.

A fair hearing

enter -The green rating project

Indian industry is huge and powerful. Most environmentalists believe that it has done little to reduce pollution. Is there, therefore, anything that the civil society can do to change the situation?

Planters devils?

JULY 31 came and went, without the first meeting of the special committee of ministers, set up to decide upon the fate of the environment and forest ministry's (MEF) controversial captive plantations proposal, taking place. The issue still hangs fire.

Supa dam displaced lease out lands to paper mill

Twenty-six years ago, people displaced by the Supa dam were resettled in Karnataka's Uttara Kannada district. The better irrigation facilities promised to them after they were relocated in the district's Ramnagar panchayat haven't materialized. They still face an uncertain future.

<i>No a los papelones</i> a film on Argentine activists' fear over pulp mill

No a los papelones, a documentary criticising activists in the Argentine city of Gualeguaych, who fear a pulp mill to be installed on the eastern bank of the border river between Argentina and Uruguay will cause pollution, was shown for the first time in Uruguay on January 12. Argentine director Eduardo Montes Bradley has so far not shown the film in his home country for the fear of reprisal.