SC clears mill land sale: The Supreme Court (SC) has cleared the sale of mill land in Mumbai, setting aside an earlier Bombay High court order. The SC has upheld the Maharashtra government's amendment to the rules for development of the 'open lands' of mills. The ammendment had clarified that 'open land', as defined in the 2001 amendment of Development Control Regulations for Greater Bombay, does not include lands accruing after demolishng mills. But the HC had struck this down. (see 'More public good', Down To Earth, November 15, 2005).
Relocating glaciers: The world's largest gold mining company, Barrick Gold Corp of Canada, is set to relocate three huge glaciers for high up gold extraction on the spine of the Andes Mountains. Ignoring concerns of environmental groups, a regional Chilean environmental agency has approved Barrick's us $1.5 billion project on the condition that "the ice remains untouched while they dig up the gold. But the company hasn't explained how it will accomplish that.
Enquiry into obesity:<.> A parliamentary committee in New Zealand has voted for a public enquiry into obesity. Ten per cent of New Zealand's children and 21 per cent of its adults are obese. The enquiry will look into causes behind such epidemics, their effects on children's health, the costs to the health system, and also examine solutions.
GM fund: French farmers growing genetically modified (GM) crops will have to contribute to a fund to compensate any contamination claim from neighbouring farms growing traditional varieties, suggests a proposed legislation of the French research ministry. The proposed law, many fear, will dump all responsibility on farmers using GM seeds, relieving biotech giants such as Monsanto and Syngenta.
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