Purity check

Plotting progress

Relief may be in sight for Nepal's landless people, as the government gets ready to launch its new land reform programme. Under this, the government will purchase tracts and resell them to landless people on an instalment basis. Buyers will be given 15 years to repay the amount at low interest rates. A 'land bank' would be set up to implement the programme efficiently.

Illusive relief

in the wake of strong protests by community forest user groups (cfugs) and conservationists, the Nepal government has reduced the controversial forest product fee -- a tax on the sale of forest products introduced last year -- from 40 per cent to 10 per cent.

Caught in the crossfire in Nepal

The Bankariyas, a forest-dweller community of central Nepal, have been uprooted from their traditional habitat and are living like refugees in their own country. Several other indigenous groups have suffered the same fate. The eight-year-old war between the Royal Nepal Army (rna) and Maoist rebels that has ravaged the country's environment is responsible for their plight.

Stalagamite weather report

Global warming and its impacts on climate have made climatologists study climate patterns of the past so that they can reasonably predict the weather of the future. Tree-ing analysis (dendrochronology), ice-core studies and historical records, lake sediments and speleothems (cave deposits) are used the world over to understand past climatic patterns. But, compared to other techniques, the information provided by the speleothems is proving to be more reliable and precise.

In Short

unearthed: Thought to be extinct, the lizard Barkudia insularis has been sighted in Orissa's Chilika lagoon after more than 85 years. Ajit Kumar Patnaik, chief executive officer of the Chilika Development Authority revealed that the limbless skink was rediscovered by a team checking out soil conditions for a threatened mangrove species on the island. The skink was first found by Stanley Kemp, then director of Zoological Survey of India, and N Anandale in 1917.

Power pangs

Nepal's ministry of water resources has threatened the Bhote Koshi Power Company (BKPC), the first privately funded US power project in the country, with punitive action. Responding to the findings of a probe committee investigation, the ministry has decided to penalise BKPC for exceeding the authorised limit on installed capacity.

Remedial resolve

The Nepal government has joined hands with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and health institutions to combat the threat arising from unscientific disposal of medical waste. The recent adoption of 'The Kathmandu Declaration' would chart the future course of hospital waste management in Nepal.

Blind entrustment

Conservationists are up in arms at the Nepal government's new policy of handing over management of some national parks, as well as other protected areas, to non-governmental organisations and private institutions. The forestland in question comprises 79 per cent of the country's total protected area. The perception is that only private interests would gain from such a step.

The debate on interlinking rivers in India

India plans to develop its water resources by interlinking its Himalayan rivers with those in the peninsular region through 30 interlinking canal systems. Already, the project has raised controversy and debate. Interlinking rivers is now a matter of South Asian proportions. It had to be. After all, India's rivers pass through neighbouring countries as well.