Update

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and the state government have decided not to allow hazardous toxic waste from Bhopal to be incinerated at Ankleshwar. In a press release, GPCB said: "There was some opposition to the proposal of incineration of hazardous waste of Union Carbide India Limited, Bhopal, at the incinerator of Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Ltd at Ankleshwar." After considering all aspects of the matter GPCB and the state government have communicated to the Government of India "not to allow incineration of the said waste in Gujarat and get it

In short

sethu panel receives views: Barely a week after an expert committee was constituted to record all objections and suggestions to the controversial Sethusamudram project, it has already received 11 views--objections, complaints and suggestions. The last date for filing the views in writing is October 31. The committee will then conduct a hearing on the views before considering them. Following this, the committee will prepare a financial report by November 11, as stipulated, which will be submitted to the supreme court. The committee,

New biomass model may help monitor crop damage, health

india suffers considerable losses due to crop damage every year. assocham has pegged this loss at Rs 140,000 crore for 2006-07. Unfortunately, there is no way to ascertain whether this or similar statistics are reliable. But the government might just have come up with a monitoring mechanism.

Kala-azar spreads to Gujarat, MP

It is time ASI stood up to demands of protecting relics

When the French naturalist, Henri Mouhot rediscovered the sprawling Khmer temple complex in Cambodia's rainforest in 1861, he exclaimed, "Grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome." I too was awestruck on seeing the Angkor temples early this year and realised that Mouhot was not exaggerating. The layout of the temples is based on Hindu mythological cosmos with towers representing mountains in the centre, and a surrounding moat representing the sea. Cambodia's Khmer Empire was founded in ninth

House made of thermocol

The 'thermocol houses' have braved three monsoons and stand unaffected even today. "In 2002, we were inundated with a pile of Styrofoam (thermocol) blocks from some sewing machines that we had bought. We decided to experiment with them," says Manubhai, one of the three developers of the thermocol house.

Food coupons for BPL families

in a bid to stop pilferage in the Targeted Public Distribution System (tpds), the Union government plans to introduce food coupons for people below poverty line (bpl). Under the scheme initiated by the Union ministry of food and civil supplies, the coupons worth a fixed amount of cash, instead of food grains, will be issued to bpl families and the beneficiaries can choose what food to buy. The coupons can be exchanged for food grains at the fair price shops.

<i>Blue Lady</i> contained radioactive waste

new evidence has emerged showing that the Norwegian ship Blue Lady sent to India for dismantling may have radioactive material on board. Tom Haugen, former project manager of the ship (formerly known as SS Norway), recently submitted a letter in this regard to the Committee of Technical Experts (cte) set up by the Supreme Court.

WHO's Stop TB partnership programme

the World Health Organization (who) along with its Stop tb partnership programme, announced on June 22 guidelines to curb two forms of tuberculosis multidrug resistant tuberculosis (mdr-tb) and the more harmful extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (xdr-tb).

Regulating living environment for public safety

it is unusual for the powerful real estate lobbies to be brought to their knees in India. But such a thing happened in Gujarat in 2002. The high court was hearing a petition on saving the lakes of Ahmedabad, and it came out that several of the new housing projects sponsored by 'promoters' had come up on the bed of what were once tanks that watered Gujarat's commercial capital. (The city suffers water scarcity every summer and flash floods every monsoon. That's because the new townships, passed by qualified city planners, do not take drainage