-The Hindu Operation Blossom Spring first taken up at Periye Authorities started the process of detoxifying endosulfan stocked in three warehouses of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala here on Sunday. Operation Blossom Spring was first taken up at the warehouse at Periye, transferring 914.55 litres of the pesticide in six corroded barrels to high-density polyethylene barrels. A team of personnel from Hindustan Insecticide Ltd. and the Kerala State Pollution Control Board and medical experts...

An expert panel has blamed the increase in commercial plantations for destroying forests, erosion of soil and water bodies in the Western Ghats. According to a Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by its Chairman, Prof Madhav Gadgil, water guzzling crops and monoculture plantations such as tea, coffee, and cardamom are responsible for depleting forest wealth. “These crops have aggravated the...

-The Hindu A group of tribal workers of the Priyadarshini Tea Plantation, under the aegis of the Congress Vythiri Mandalam Committee, encroached on plantation land at Lakkidi on Sunday morning and erected huts demanding two acres of land for each tribal family and job opportunities for them. T. Nazar, president, Vythiri Mandalam Congress Committee, said the tribal workers in the Lakkidi unit of the plantation had been leading a wretched life since...

-The Hindu Adivasi Kshema Samiti to intensify stir for land A group of tribesmen under the aegis of the Adivasi Kshema Samiti (AKS), a feeder organisation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), encroached on vested forest land at two places in the district on Monday and claimed their rights on the land by erecting huts. As part of an ongoing agitation, 115 tribal families from different parts of the district occupied a...

-The Economic Times Going by the latest report on deforestation in India, we have lost forest area equivalent to more than half of New Delhi or as big as a tier two city between 2007 and 2009 alone. The study conducted by a team of forestry researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore for "Current Science" journal says that massive deforestation has been masked by Forest Survey of India's afforestation...