Pollution contents were 300 to 1,000 per cent more than the norms The Gujarat Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, a voluntary organisation working for environmental protection, has come out with startling facts on how the badly treated industrial effluents are being dumped in the major rivers in the State and in the sea. The rivers include the Narmada, Mahisagar, Sabamarti and Damanganga and the sea outlet is in the Gulf of Cambay. Samiti convener...

A year after the World Health Organisation declared an Influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, a joint investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has raised “troubling questions about how WHO managed conflicts of interest among the scientists who advised its pandemic planning, and about the transparency of the science underlying its advice to governments.” The open access findings are published in the journal (“Conflicts of interest:...

Government officials who came to carry out soil testing for a proposed atomic power plant in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district had to go back due to resistance and demonstrations by local villagers. The 8,000 MW capacity plant, a joint venture of the Central and State governments with the support of the United States, is to be set up close to the Alang ship-breaking yard in coastal Saurashtra. The people of five villages fear...

The Supreme Court on May 7 ruled that natural resources were national assets that belonged to the people and were ideally exploited by public sector undertakings. This obviously implies that local communities, including tribals, living on mineralised land, enjoy entitlements but not prescriptive ownership rights to such national assets. This is an important reiterative clarification defining mineral rights in Fifth Schedule areas that are currently in contention. Whether PSUs should...

Officials who came for soil testing sent back Government officials who came to carry out soil testing for a proposed atomic power plant in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district had to go back due to resistance and demonstrations by local villagers. The proposed 8,000 MW capacity plant, a joint venture of the Central and State governments with the support of the United States, is to be set up close to the Alang ship-breaking...