Industries to pay for pollution study

The Madras High Court, in a recent order, instructed industries in the SIPCOT industrial estate of Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu to pay Rs one lakh each to measure the pollution levels in the estate. At the court’s behest, the study is to be conducted by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). The order came after NEERI told the court that the study would cost about Rs 25 lakh and take three months to complete. The estate consists of about 20 functioning pharmaceutical and chemical industries.    

India gets ready for banana war

IT’S yellow, sweet, large, uniformly sized and firmly textured. For almost everyone the Cavendish variety is the banana. But it was not so until the 1950s when a fungus knocked out its predecessor, Gros Michel, the sweetest variety known so far. The Cavendish, once a littleknown Vietnamese variety, successfully resisted the virus and became the most widely cultivated and traded banana across the world. But towards early 1990s, a virulent strain of the fungus emerged. Called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense, it has destroyed Cavendish plantations in major banana exporting countries in Asia, including China, The Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia.

Rice intensification for increasing productivity

Jai Sri is a common greeting in the Koraput countryside these days. A Paraja tribal woman working in her fields, a passing motorcyclist driving through the rutted lanes, a teacher heading for his school, they all greet each other and visitors with a Jai Sri. It has nothing to do with religious revivalism, but is the new buzzword sweeping the farmlands of Odisha—and large patches of India. SRI is the acronym for System of Rice Intensification, a new technique to grow rice more efficiently using much less water and seeds but yielding far greater quantities of rice.

Non-existent check post

Two months ago, residents of Thervoy Kandigai in Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu were set to take forward the fight to save their land. Despite their opposition, the environment ministry in August this year had given clearance to an industrial park near the village. The residents decided to challenge the validity of the clearance.

Waste plant in Tamil Nadu raises stink

Residents of Kuthambakkam village in Thiruvallur district, 30 km west of Chennai, have started an online campaign against the state’s plan to construct an integrated solid waste management facility on 26 hectares (ha) of grazing land in the village. The project is awaiting clearance from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority.

Overfished

ALL fish are not equal in commercial value. Species like tuna and perch carry high value and are targeted by fishers while smaller fish are discarded. This discard, or bycatch, is gaining importance. A study from Tamil Nadu coast shows the bycatch market has grown so much in the past decade that some fishers have begun to target bycatch species. Though this minimises wastage, it could lead to depletion of small fish along with the commercially important ones.

How safe are indian bats?

There have been sporadic media reports of groups of bats dying, but there is no study to confirm how bats are faring in India. “We don’t know if WNS affects Indian bats because no one here is researching bat diseases,” said Sanjay Molur, executive director of Zoo Outreach Organisation, a non-profit in Tamil Nadu. Even the distribution pattern of bat species in India is not confirmed.

Call to ground airport plan

OPPOSITION to the Tamil Nadu government's plan to construct a greenfield airport at Sriperumbudur near Chennai is growing.

Rags to pads

The Union health ministry launched a Rs 150-crore scheme last month to promote menstrual health among rural adolescent girls.

Villagers dispute elephant corridor

On february 8, shops in Masinagudi town of Tamil Nadu were closed. People in the town were expressing their solidarity with farmers in the area who are protesting their exclusion from public consultations held by the forest department on that day for demarcating elephant corridors in the Nilgiris that pass between villages (see map).