Page 46 - Environment
Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat meets Union Minister Nitin Gadkari
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Saturday said Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has assured him Centre's help in the construction of the Chardham Highway."There were some issues related to the Chardham Expressway which begins from Rishikesh. There were some issues related to Rishikesh which we wanted to get sorted before the Kumbh in Haridwar, especially the construction of a ring road. The minister assured us that the Centre will support us in every way," he told reporters here.Char Dham Highway is a proposed two-lane express National Highway in the state of Uttarakhand. The proposed highway will complement the proposed Char Dham Railway by connecting the four holy places in Uttarakhand states includes Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri The project includes 900 km national highways which will connect whole of Uttarakhand state.Rawat thanked Gadkari for being fully supportive from the start and said that almost 84% percent of ...
No water to fall back on for farmers in Ujani's backwater area
Narayan Lawand, a 45-year-old farmer in Pune district, died of electrocution while using a submersible water pump to irrigate his fields last month. His death has brought into focus the plight of people living in the area around Ujani dam in western Maharashtra because of the terrible drought this year. Rui, Lawand's village in Pune's Indapur tehsil, falls in the backwater region of Ujani dam across the Bhima river. As the backwater spreads through hundreds of small inlets and streams in the area, it is common for farmers to draw water from them using submersible pumps. But the water level in the reservoir has depleted to such a precariously low level this year that small rivers and streams which flow off the main waterbody have gone dry. Submersible pumps and pipes which draw water from them, thus, lie exposed. In many places, farmers, who mainly grow sugarcane, have pooled money to dig trenches or shallow wells alongside the parched streams. The water that percolates ...
Greenland loses over 2 bn tonnes of ice in a day
In a sign that this year could once again set records for loss in Greenland ice, researchers have found that the island's ice sheet lost more than two gigatonnes (a gigaton is equal to one billion tonnes) of ice in just a day this week due to a widespread melting event.
Indonesia returns five containers of waste to the US
Indonesia has returned five containers of rubbish to the United States and will not become a "dumping ground", officials said Saturday, the latest Southeast Asian country to return imported waste. The containers were supposed to contain only paper scrap, according to the customs documents. Instead they were loaded with other waste including bottles, plastic waste, and diapers, said senior environment ministry official Sayid Muhadhar. "This is not appropriate and we don't want to be a dumping ground," Muhadhar told AFP. The five containers -- owned by a Canadian company -- were shipped from Seattle in the United States to Indonesia's second biggest city Surabaya in late March, Muhadhar said. It was not immediately clear where the rubbish originated from. Indonesia is currently examining several other containers in Jakarta's port and the city of Batam on the island of Sumatra. It is the latest country to return imported rubbish after neighbouring Malaysia vowed to ship back hundreds of .
K'taka CM seeks Centre's early nod for Mekedatu project on Cauvery river
Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Saturday met Union Water Resources Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and sought early nod for the proposed Rs 5,912-crore reservoir in Mekedatu on the Cauvery river. Kumaraswamy, also asked the Centre to notify orders issued by both the tribunals on usage of its share of water from Mahadayi and Krishna rivers. "In the meeting, the Union minister has assured that a gazette notification on Mahadayi and Krishna river water will be issued after discussion with state governments concerned," an official statement said. The Krishna River Water Disputes Tribunal-II has allocated 166 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water to the state for irrigation and other purpose, while the Mahadayi River Water Disputes Tribunal has allocated 13.2 TMC of water to Karnataka. Kumaraswamy said the state has not been able to use the allocated Krishna water in the absence of a gazette notification. He said the state has not been able to take up a project to build a ..
Guj CM meets Union Agriculture minister, discuses farmers' issues
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani Saturday called on Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to discuss issues relating to farmers' welfare such as the Kisan Kalyan Nidhi Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. A delegation led by Rupani, Gujarat Agriculture Minister R C Faldu, Chief Secretary J N Singh, Chief Principal Secretary to CM K Kailashnathan, Additional Chief Secretary (Agri) Sanjay Prasad and officers of the agriculture department met Tomar, according to an official statement. Union Minister of State for Agriculture Shri Parshottambhai Rupala was also present at the meeting. The issues on pending claims of interest subvention of crop loan advance by banks of the state and extension of date to purchase of mustard in the Price Support Scheme were also discussed in the meeting, the statement read. It was decided in the meeting that the last date for purchase of mustard under the Price Support Scheme shall be extended up to June 30. The government also decided to
Nipah scare over, says Kerala Health Minister
After one positive case and over 300 suspects, the scare of the second attack of Nipah virus in Kerala is over, state Health Minister K.K. Shailaja told the media on Saturday.
Punjab to prepare water management plan with Israel
To prepare a comprehensive master plan for the conservation and management of water resources to tackle declining ground water in Punjab, Water Resources Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria on Saturday met a three-member team of experts from Israel in Amritsar.
Zero elephants poached in a year in top Africa wildlife park
One of Africa's largest wildlife preserves is marking a year without a single elephant found killed by poachers, which experts call an extraordinary development in an area larger than Switzerland where thousands of the animals have been slaughtered in recent years. The apparent turnaround in Niassa reserve in a remote region of northern Mozambique comes after the introduction of a rapid intervention police force and more assertive patrolling and response by air, according to the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the reserve with Mozambique's government and several other partners. Monitoring of the vast reserve with aerial surveys and foot patrols remains incomplete and relies on sampling, however. And despite the sign of progress, it could take many years for Niassa's elephant population to rebuild to its former levels even if poaching is kept under control. Aggressive poaching over the years had cut the number of Niassa's elephants from about 12,000 to ...
Maharashtra: Fadnavis to expand Cabinet tomorrow
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said the expansion of the Maharashtra cabinet will take place on Sunday."We will do the Cabinet expansion and will tell about that in detail at the appropriate time", Fadnavis told media.Earlier on Tuesday, Minister for Finance and Planning in the Maharashtra government Sudhir Mungantiwar said the cabinet expansion will be done by Chief Minister before the assembly session. He also said the cabinet expansion would help fulfil the expectations of the Shiv Sena and other NDA allies.On being asked about his meeting with Union Cabinet minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Fadnavis said, "We discussed on making Maharashtra a drought-free state. We discussed how, through river linking projects, we can use river water that flows into the sea. We also informed him about water conservation projects in Maharashtra. He assured of the Centre's help in the projects.""In Niti Aayog meeting, drought situation and the issue of water management ...
Bountiful cherry crop in Himachal brings cheer to farmers
A good, sweet cherry crop -- largely organic as less pesticides are used in its cultivation -- has brought cheer to its growers in Himachal Pradesh, with production expected to be over 520 tonnes this season, up from 225 tonnes last year.
Chhattisgarh CM meets PM; urges to resolve pending issues related to tribals, poors
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel Saturday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here and urged him to resolve at the earliest long pending issues related to 70 lakh tribals and 58 lakh poor families in the state. Baghel said the Congress government in the state has purchased paddy from farmers on minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2,500 per quintal due to which paddy procurement in Chhattisgarh has increased. He urged Modi to keep the interest of farmers in mind and allow sufficient stock of rice in central pool, in addition to the requirements under public distribution system (PDS). He asked the prime minister to provide 100 per cent grant for a scheme providing drinking water through tap connection to each household in the state. He said there was a need to put extra efforts at national level to provide drinking water facility to each household similar to the efforts made by the Centre to ensure cent per cent electrification of villages across the country. Referring to ...
Bangladesh's coal-fired power plants puts Sunderbans on 'natural sites in danger': report
The official advisory organisation on natural World Heritage has recommended putting the Sundarbans on a list of natural sites in danger as Bangladesh has continued implementing a coal-fired power plant project near the forest, a media report said on Saturday. The World Heritage Committee of 21 governments is scheduled to decide on the recommendations by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in its annual meeting in Azerbaijan from June 30 to July 10, the bdnews24.com reported. The Sundarbans mangrove forest, one of the largest such forests in the world (140,000 ha), lies on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal. It is adjacent to the border of India's Sundarbans World Heritage site inscribed in 1987. The recommendation came after the UNESCO in July, 2017, withdrew a plan to inscribe the Sundarbans in the list of heritage sites in danger by 2018 in case of the failure to meet the mission's recommendations. A reactive monitoring
G-20 energy, environment chiefs meet amid M-E tensions
G20 energy and environment ministers gathered in Japan on Saturday for talks likely to focus on energy security concerns following the attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, as well as environmental issues.
J-K administration approves phase 2 of flood management plan
The Jammu and Kashmir administration has approved the second phase of a comprehensive plan for flood management work on the Jhelum river at a cost of over Rs 5,400 crore, an official spokesman said on Saturday. The State Administrative Council (SAC), which met here under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik on Friday evening, accorded in-principle approval to the Comprehensive Plan for Flood Management Works on Jhelum-II at a cost of Rs 5411.54 crore, the spokesman said. He said the project is proposed to be implemented part-wise with Part A amounting to Rs 1,684.60 crore approved under Prime Minister's Development Package (PMDP) and Part B for which source of funding is to be identified. The project has been formulated to achieve short-term goal of mitigating the flood threat at Sangam in south Kashmir's Anantnag district. The SAC directed Public Health Engineering (PHE) and Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) Departments to proceed with the implementation of Part A of ..
Bangladesh risks Sundarbans getting listed as World Heritage
The official advisory organisation on natural World Heritage has recommended putting the Sundarbans on a list of 'natural sites in danger' as Bangladesh has continued implementing a coal-fired power plant project near the forest.
Denmark's Andersen takes over as UN Environment head
Danish economist and environmentalist Inger Andersen on Saturday took up her new role as Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, promising to prioritise greater action on climate change, bio-diversity loss and pollution during her four-year tenure.
Close to $1bn approved for environment, climate action
Countries have approved programmes and projects worth almost $1 billion to tackle growing threats to the environment and to help some of the earth's most vulnerable people adapt to climate change at two consecutive Global Environment Facility (GEF) meetings in Washington this week, it was announced on Saturday.
PM writes personal letter to village pradhans on saving rainwater
Concerned about the water crisis in rural areas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has written a personal letter to 'Gram Pradhans'(village chiefs) requesting them to conserve rainwater during the forthcoming monsoon.
Wild elephant tramples man to death
A 20-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant near Kathalia village in Dumka district on Friday, a forest official said. Robin Tudu went to a hilly area in search of his cow when the incident happened, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Saurabh Chandra said. Agitated villagers blocked the Dumka-Seuri road demanding compensation to the family of the deceased. The DFO said compensation could be given only after post-mortem examination of the body. He asked the villagers not to venture into the hilly area as the lone elephant is still there.