Ash flies in the face of power plan

How India is getting gas and coal policy wrong

Two monopolies. One private and the other public; one in gas and one in coal. Both equally disastrous for the environment. I speak here of Reliance Industries Ltd and Coal India Ltd.

Sundarbans at risk

In deep water

Conflict over Krishna Third floor of Trikoot Bhawan in Delhi’s Bhikaji Cama Place, which houses the second Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, will turn into a war zone by February-end. A battery of lawyers, technical staff and irrigation department officials from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will fight hard to win the maximum allocation of the Krishna river water for their respective states.

US sets mercury emission limits

TO MINIMISE the largest source of pollution from coal-based and fuel oil power plants, America’s environment protection agency has set the first ever mercury and air toxics standards (MATS). Some 7,000 power plants in the country will now have to reduce their mercury and other toxic emissions levels.

Pollution-hit Tuticorin salt manufacturers worried by food safety act being implemented

Olympics 2008, Beijing - raising the bar

With the Olympic Games breathing down Beijing's neck, the city is racing against the clock to ensure it meets one of the commitments it made when it won the bid for the games in 2001 blue skies. As one alights on the Jingshun highway that connects the airport to Beijing, a question comes inevitably to mind will Nini, the flying swallow chosen as one of the five mascots for the 2008 games, prosper in a city gridlocked by incessant waves of traffic--and the smoke it spews?

Damodar - Ten years after

Also read: Damodar - Ten years ago

American thermal power plants under mercury regulation

Indian pollution control authorities could take a cue from the US, which has issued the first-of-its-kind standards for regulating mercury emissions from thermal power plants. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on December 16 last year, will be effective from December 2014. The EPA was supposed to probe mercury emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act (CAA) which came into effect in 1990, but the regulations have been released only now.

Serious inquiry

A committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has issued first-of-its-kind guidelines. They seek to categorise non-compliance of conditions attached to environmental clearances as “serious” and “not so serious”.