As late as 2008, about 23 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, the state government was still involved in virtual subterfuge. Taking advantage of a curfew imposed in Indore, which was reeling under communal riots in July-August that year, the government smuggled out 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory to an incinerator 230 km away at a site in Pithampur. Apologising for the government's action, Union...

Seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have plunged into a government effort to clean the Ganga, promising to recommend a slew of river management and technology strategies to improve its ecological health. The 2500km Ganga is one of the country’s most polluted rivers laced with sewage and city waste although the government has spent about Rs 900 crore over the past two decades on a clean-up plan initiated in the late-1980s. An...

Even as it pursues its case to make Dow Chemical pay for the clean-up of the Bhopal gas leak site, the Centre has decided to spend about Rs. 250 crore towards complete remediation. The entire process of decontaminating the one million tonnes of toxic waste at the site will be completed in two to three years, according to sources at the fourth meeting of the current Group of Ministers (GoM) on...

In India, of the total cultivated area of around 140.30 million hectares only 60.86 million is irrigated and remaining 79.44 million hectares is rain-fed. Rain-fed crops account for 48 percent area under food crops and 68 percent of the area under non-food crops. Irrigated land accounts for nearly 55 percent of food production while rain-fed contributes just about 45 percent. Rain-fed farming is risk prone and is characterized by low...

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...