• The ministry of environment and forests has banned setting up of new units to manufacture aerosols products using ozone depleting substances (ODS). Aerosols use ODS such as Chlorofluorocarbons as propellants to spray chemicals or fragrances.
• Two of the three artificially reared Siberian cranes that visited Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur in Rajasthan, during the last winter, have suddenly disappeared.
• Greenpeace, a non-governmental organisation, has accused India of exporting about 0.5 million kilograms of highly poisonous pesticides such as DDT, BHC, Aldrin and Lindane to several countries, which include the US, Australia, European countries and Brazil.
• In order to check increasing levels of flyash in the environment, the ministry of environment and forests has brought out a notification that prevents clearance of a new thermal power station without flyash utilisation plan.
• The decline in the population of the Indian crane, saras, has caused concern among experts who attribute the fall in numbers to increasing fragmentation and encroachment on its breeding ground.
• The Delhi Environment Authority has suggested phasing out all pre-1990 autorickshaws and taxis, among other things, to combat pollution.
• Even as Madhya Pradesh risks losing lakhs of sal trees due to extensive damage caused by a beetle, sal borer, the state government has sought the intervention of the Union ministry for environment and forests on disposal of timber from these trees.
• The use of oral polio vaccine has been suspended in several Uttar Pradesh districts after it was confirmed that some vials of the vaccine used in Ghaziabad district were ineffective.
• Alarmed at the rapid increase in HIV and AIDS cases in Bihar, the state government in collaboration with the National AIDS Control Organisation has chalked out a Rs 200-crore scheme to combat the disease.
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