Page 486 - Environment

Should a man-eating tigress be tranquilized or shot dead; SC leaves it to forest dept

Should a 'man eater' tigress be tranquilized or shot dead? This peculiar question has come in the way of the forest department which has been finding it tough to catch the big cat that has already claimed at least nine lives in the Ralegaon forest area of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra. The forest department has claimed that the six-year-old tigress, identified as T1, along with two of her nine-month-old cubs, have consumed 60 per cent of a human corpse, that has led it to declare her a 'man-eater'. The question whether the tigress, which claimed three lives last month, should be tranquilized or shot and killed reached before the Supreme Court Tuesday. The apex court heard the petitions challenging the Bombay Hight Court's recent decision giving a go-ahead to the forest department to implement its order to tranquilize or shoot the tigress. While the petitioners claimed that it has not been established that the corpse was eaten by the tigress and her cubs, the forest department ...

Spice up your office desk this festive season

You probably spend more than 40 plus hours in a week at your office desk, so personalising your space with things that make you happy and inspire you will surely help you boost up that productivity.

Ruckus in Odisha Assembly over non-clearance of NTPC project

The Odisha Assembly was adjourned for an hour Tuesday as BJP MLAs resorted to a noisy protest over non-clearance of a power project. As soon as the Question Hour started, the saffron party MLAs rushed to the Well of the House, protesting the state government's delay in clearing an NTPC project at Talcher, the application for which was filed 15 months ago. The legislators also sought to know the benefits of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's scheduled tour to New Delhi tomorrow for an investors' meet. Unable to run the House, Speaker P K Amat adjourned the proceedings for an hour till 11.30am. When the House reassembled, BJP legislature party leader K V Singhdeo said the state may lose a big-ticket investment if the Rs 9875-crore project is not cleared soon. Talking to media outside the Assembly, a BJP MLA said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to visit Talcher on September 22, may lay foundation stone for the project if it gets clearance from the state ...

Climate extremes 'key driver' behind rising global hunger: UN

Extreme weather events were a leading cause of global hunger rising last year, with women, babies, and old people particularly vulnerable to the worsening trend, a UN report said Tuesday. Increasingly frequent shocks such as extreme rainfall or temperatures, as well as droughts, storms, and floods, helped push the number of undernourished people to 821 million in 2017, it said. That figure, equivalent to about one in nine people globally, was up from 804 million in 2016, according to the annual report "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World". "The number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to levels that prevailed almost a decade ago. Equally of concern is that 22.2 percent of children under five are affected by stunting in 2017," said the document. Low- and middle-income countries, in particular, were harshly impacted by ever-more frequent climate extremes. "Africa is the region where climate shocks and stressors had ..

Exclusive: Water shortages to cut Iraq's irrigated wheat area by half

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq, a major Middle East grain buyer, will cut the irrigated area it plants with wheat by half in the 2018-2019 growing season as water shortages grip the country, a government official told Reuters.

Power employees held hostage for third straight day in Bihar's Aurangabad

The employees of Bharatiya Rail Bijlee Company Ltd in Aurangabad, Bihar, and their family members were held hostage by around 300 villagers for the third consecutive day Tuesday, said officials. The 150 employees of the state-run electricity company and their family members are being held hostage in the township since Sunday evening by people of Surar and neighbouring villages demanding supply of power, Vishwanath Chandan, NTPC manager (public relations), Patna, told PTI. The 1,000-mw power plant located in Aurangabad is a joint venture between the NTPC and the Railways. "We are making efforts for an amicable solution with the help of the local administration," Chandan said. The BRBCL unit of the NTPC Executive Federation of India (NEFI) has also urged the company management to end the impasse by this evening, failing which the NEFI said it would relocate its employees out of the township. Around 300 people from Surar and neighbouring villages are camping outside the main gate of the .

UN to hold Climate Summit in Sept 2019

Asserting that climate change is pushing the world towards "the edge of the abyss", UN chief Antonio Guteress has said that he will convene a meeting in September 2019 to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda. The UN Secretary General also announced the appointment of Luis Alfonso de Alba, a former Mexican diplomat, as his Special Envoy to lead the preparations of the summit. The summit, he said, will focus on the heart of the problem - the sectors that create the most emissions and the areas where building resilience could make the biggest difference - as well as provide leaders and partners the opportunity to demonstrate real climate action and showcase their ambition. "I am calling on all leaders to come to next year's Climate Summit prepared to report not only on what they are doing, but what more they intend to do when they convene in 2020 for the UN climate conference and where commitments will be renewed and surely ambitiously increased," Guterres said in .

EU carmakers' lobby calls proposed 45 percent carbon dioxide cut target 'unrealistic'

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European carmakers' lobby on Tuesday called a stricter carbon dioxide reduction target proposed by EU lawmakers unrealistic and a threat to jobs and growth.

Pradhan seeks early approval of NTPC project in Odisha

Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday requested Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to expeditiously approve the setting up of NTPC's 1320-MW project at a cost of Rs 9,785 crore in the state.

Meet Bhubaneswar's dancing traffic cop

Traffic cop Pratap Chandra Khandwal has an interesting way of making people obey traffic rules.The 33-year-old home guard, who is currently deployed as traffic police personnel here, controls traffic with his dance moves. He is famous among commuters for his distinctive style of controlling the traffic.Talking about his method, Pratap told ANI, "I convey my message through dance moves. Initially, people didn't obey rules, but with my style people got attracted and started obeying rules."Pratap, who is working with the traffic police for four years, added that he created the moves through experience and practice.

NASA decodes hazards of human spaceflight to Mars

In a bid to make an organised effort to overcome the obstacles that lie before a human journey to Mars, NASA has decoded some hazards that astronauts can encounter on a continual basis on the Red Planet.

Rice farming twice as bad for climate as thought: Study

Rice farming across the world could be responsible for up to twice the level of climate impact relative to what was previously estimated, according to a study conducted in India. The study, published in the journal PNAS, found that intermittently flooded rice farms can emit 45 times more nitrous oxide as compared to the maximum from continuously flooded farms that predominantly emit methane. According to a global analysis by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in the US, methane and nitrous oxide emissions from rice farms could have the same long-term warming impact as about 600 coal plants. "The full climate impact of rice farming has been significantly underestimated because up to this point, nitrous dioxide emissions from intermittently flooded farms have not been included," said Kritee Kritee from EDF, who led the study. The researchers investigated greenhouse gas emissions from rice farms across southern India. They found that nitrous oxide emissions from rice can contribute up to ..

Exclusive: China may let provinces set own winter output curbs for heavy industry - source

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is considering allowing its northern provinces to decide individual output cuts by heavy industry to rein in emissions during the winter, ditching an earlier plan for blanket cuts, a source said.

Navy sailors save man from drowning in Arabian Sea

A man was saved from drowning in the Arabian Sea near the Marine Drive here by sailors of the Indian Navy. Three Navy sailors noticed people gathered at a spot near the Marine Drive on Sunday. On seeing a man drowning in the sea, the sailors jumped into the waters and pulled him out, a Navy release said Tuesday. The man was administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation and after he regained consciousness, the sailors handed him over to the local police, the release added.

Can the trapped Paris Climate Agreement be rescued? (Comment)

Two months ago, all 12 boys and the coach of a Thai football team were rescued after being trapped in a cave in northern Thailand for 18 days. Many termed their rescue against heavy odds a miracle.

AAI shelves water aerodrome project in Chilika Lake

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has dropped the proposed water aerodrome project at Chilika Lake in Odisha, according to a senior official. Susanta Nanda, Chief Executive of the Chilika Development Authority (CDA), told reporters Monday that the AAI has cancelled the seaplane project in the lake which, if implemented, would have negatively impacted the ecosystem and the surrounding human population at the world's second largest brackish water lake. The AAI has decided to shelve the project following stiff opposition from environmentalists and the CDA, according to Nanda. The Odisha government has been informed by the aviation body about the decision, the officer told PTI. Earlier, the CDA in its report to the state government had said that the water aerodrome project would seriously jeopardise the habitat of Chilika's nearly one million avian visitors which come from the Arctic and Eurasian regions. "Operation of seaplane and water aerodrome at Chilika is likely to cause ...

Factbox: China's Hebei orders steel mills to relocate in anti-smog drive

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hebei, China's top steelmaking province, has ordered mills in almost a dozen of its smoggiest cities to shut, move to one of four industrial parks on the coast, or relocate by 2020.

China may let provinces set own winter output curbs for heavy industry: source

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's government is mulling allowing northern provinces to set their own requirements for output cuts across heavy industry during the winter, ditching an earlier plan for the central government to impose blanket rates, a source said on Tuesday.

Project to clean up Great Pacific Garbage Patch gets underway

An ambitious project to clean up the ocean's plastic pollution got underway as members of The Ocean Cleanup project began towing their system out to sea, a media report said.

Protests erupt in PoK against exploitation of resources by Pakistan

Massive protests have erupted in different places across Pakistan occupied Pakistan (PoK) demanding an end to the exploitation of natural resources by Islamabad.In Muzaffarabad, the residents hit the streets to demand Pakistan to stop diverting the waters of the Neelum River to Punjab province.Pakistan is depriving the people of Muzaffarabad from their water lifeline -Neelum River - through an elaborate scheme, which has changed the flow of the freshwater from the mountains to Punjab province and in the process drying up the River even in the middle of the monsoon season.Protests are taking place all across Muzaffarabad against this latest move by Islamabad to take away even the most basic right from the Kashmiri people who live under its occupation.The Neelum River passing through Muzaffarabad now appears as a storm water drain filled with sewage waste after the construction of Neelum-Jhelum hydro power project.A resident who joined the protest said, "Depleting water resources will ..