INDIA

• The Goldman Environmental
Foundation, US, recently awarded
the annual environmental prize for
Asia, worth US $75,000 to M C Mehta,
a Supreme Court lawyer who has won
about 40 landmark environmental
judgements since 1984.

• To give a boost to composite mariculture in the coastal areas, the Central
Marine Fisheries Research Institute
in Kochi, Kerala, launched an ambitious programme on April 30. It aims
to promote the farming of seaweed
culture, mussel, pearl, crab and
oyster.

• In a bid to strengthen laws against
poaching in the country, the Centre is
planning to overhaul the Wildlife
Protection Act, 1972. It will consider
the recommendations made by the
committee appointed by the Delhi
High Court in this regard.

• India has gained the dubious honour
of being the country with the
largest number of people infected
with the HIV virus which leads
to AIDS, according to the World
Health Organization. At the end
of 1995, an estimated 1,750,000
adults in India were infected
with HIV.

• As part of USAID's development programme for third world countries,
the US government has sanctioned
US $25 million for 'various ecofriendly projects in India. One of the
projects has already begun in Mysore
for the production of air pollution
control equipment.

• To curb a major jaundice outbreak in
Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan,
the Central pollution control board
(PCB) has asked the state PCBs of
Punjab and Haryana to take steps
against industries which are polluting
the Ghaggar river.

• Environment will be integrated with
development in the nine five-star
industrial estates to be established
soon in Maharashtra. The state
industrial development corporation
has decided to promote only non-polluting industries in these estates.

• With only a few cases of guinea worm
disease, dracunculiasis, reported
from Rajasthan last year, India will be
declared 'guinea worm free' latest by
the turn of the century. No case was
reported in 1995 from other affected
states of the country.