Page 603 - Environment
Seminar on business opportunities in India's solar sector held in China
More than 110 Chinese companies attended a seminar here on business opportunities in the solar sector in India aimed at wooing Chinese manufacturers to invest in India, an embassy statement said today. The seminar organised by the embassy of India in Beijing in association with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) was aimed at promoting Request for Selection Documents (RfS) project floated by SECI among prospective Chinese investors. It was attended by more than 150 delegates from more than 110 Chinese companies, financial institutions and banks. China New Energy Chamber of Commerce (CNECC) and China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) participated as co-organisers of the event, said a statement from Indian embassy in China. Prashant Lokhande, Counsellor (Economic & Commerce) said that the RfS was an immediate opportunity for Chinese solar manufacturers to invest in India. Through RfS, a unique opportunity is offered to global solar companies for setting up 5 GW ...
NGT notice to Centre, Uttarakhand on plea seeking muck disposal plan for Chardham project
A plea seeking a time-bound muck disposal plan for the Chardham highway project, which aims to provide all-weather connectivity to four shrines of Uttarakhand, led the National Green Tribunal today to seek replies from the Centre and the state government. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel issued notices to the Environment Ministry, Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways and Uttarakhand government on a plea moved by an NGO alleging illegalities in procurement of environmental clearances. The matter will now come up for hearing on August 26. The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by NGO Common Cause seeking directions to submit a time-bound muck disposal plan at the earliest and bar the project proponent from constructing a road until proper disposal of muck already generated was undertaken. "The respondents in the Chardham highway project, which entails road widening and construction of approximately 900 km of national highways, have bypassed the legal ...
Farmers to hold meetings in 2500 Jaipur villages
Farmers in 2500 villages in Rajasthan's capital Jaipur will hold a 'Kisan Sabha' (farmers' meet) tomorrow to highlight the issues concerning them. Being organised by the group of farmers that had protested in Jaipur's Nindar village against land acquisition in October last year, the meetings will be a part of the 'Khet Bachao Kisan Bachao' (save farms save farmers) movement. According to its convenor Nagendra Singh Shekhawat, after holding meetings in Jaipur villages over the next two months, a Mahapanchayat will be organised to put pressure on the government. We want to unite Jaipur farmers so that they can raise their voice strongly. Meetings will be held in every village and after all the districts are covered, a Mahapanchayat will be held," Shekhawat said. Farmers have so many issues but due to lack of a proper platform, they cannot effectively press for their demands. They are not organised therefore their voices are unheard, he added. Shekhawat said that land acquisition, prices
Khandu seeks NEC help to develop connectivity in Arunachal
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu has sought help from North East Council (NEC) for developing connectivity, especially roads, in the state. Attending a two-day 67th plenary session of NEC at Shillong in Meghalaya yesterday, Khandu said that Arunachal has been lagging behind in most of the socio-economic indicators as compared to the rest of India and even within the Northeast region due to historical neglect, an official release said. "I request the NEC to give more emphasis on connectivity, especially the roads sector," Khandu said in his address. Pointing out that Arunachal Pradesh has the lowest density of road network in the North Eastern Region, the chief minister said, on the lines of Central Road Fund, NEC could explore the possibility of forming a separate fund focusing on big road projects in the region. Pointing out that construction of the Trans-Arunachal Highway project was progressing at a sluggish pace, Khandu urged the ministry to expedite ...
10,000th wildlife conflict claim in Karnataka
US-based Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Wild Seve programme, which helps farmers living around Karnataka's two national parks recoup crops or livestock losses caused by wildlife, this week filed its 10,000th claim since the launch of the programme in July 2015, it was announced on Tuesday.
Vadodara airport to switch to solar power soon
The Vadodara airport will soon switch over to solar energy for its everyday operations to cut down its electricity cost, a senior airport official said. "The airport is all set to start using clean and green energy for its day to day operations, as its ground-mounted grid-connected solar plant is ready for commissioning," Vadodara airport director Charan Singh told PTI. The solar plant will meet 50 per cent requirement of the airport, he said. The power will be sourced from a plant located in the airport complex, having a capacity to generate 675 kilowatt (kw) of power, which will help the airport save around Rs 60 lakh every year on its electricity cost, he added. "The Airports Authority of India (AAI) hasinstalled thissolar plant for which the contract worth Rs 3.5 crore was awarded to a private company. It will generate 675 kwof electricity, and also cut the annual electricity cost by around Rs 5 lakh per month," said Singh. He said while the Mumbai and Delhi airports .
Patnaik bans plastic use in parts of Odisha from Oct 2
Moving towards its target of making Odisha plastic-free over the next two years, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today announced a complete ban on use of plastic in several places from October 2, this year. Patnaik made the announcement while participating in the "Ama Mukshya Mantri, Ama Katha" (Our Chief Minister, our talk) programme), a video confecencing initiative to connect with the people in every nook and cranny of the state. Patnaik said the plastic ban would be imposed in municipal corporation areas and Puri town from Gandhi Jayanti on October 2. The major cities where the ban will be imposed in the first phase include Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Samalpur and Rourkela. The ban will be made effective all over the state over the next two years, Patnaik said. The Housing & Urban Development department and Panchayati raj department have been mandated for executing the order in urban and rural areas, respectively. The Forest & Environment department will ..
Switzerland investigates six for suspected bribery of foreign officials in 1MDB probe
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Switzerland is investigating six people on suspicion of bribing foreign officials and other offences, as part of a money laundering investigation into Malaysian state fund 1MDB, the Swiss attorney general's office said on Tuesday.
Scientists find 'world's oldest' biological colours
Australian researchers have uncovered the world's oldest biological colour in the Sahara desert, in a find they said today helped explain why complex life forms only recently emerged on earth. The pink pigments were produced by simple microscopic organisms called cyanobacteria more than 1.1 billion years ago, some 500 million years older than previous colour pigment discoveries. That makes the samples around "fifteen times older" than the Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur species, according to senior Australian National University researcher Jochen Brocks. Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old and researchers said the latest find shed light on why more sophisticated plant and animal life only came into existence 600 million years ago. Previous research argued that low oxygen levels in the atmosphere held back the evolution of complicated life forms, but the discovery of cyanobacteria at such an early date suggests that the organisms crowded out more plentiful food sources such as ...
Leopard kills man near Rajaji Tiger Reserve
A man-eater leopard killeda person at a village in Raiwala area near Motichur range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve (RTR), an official said. The half eaten body of 56-year-old Surat Singh Negi was found this morningfrom a forest surrounding Pratit Nagar village, adjacent to Motichur range of RTR, he said. It seems the man was killed after being dragged into the forest late last night by the big cat, Director, RTR, Sanatan Sonkar said. According to Sonkar, Negi is the 21st victim of the leopard which has unleashed terror among residents of the area killing one person after another over the past three years. The same leopard had killed a 5-year-old girl in Thakurpur village of Raiwala area on June 14 after ambushing her in the courtyard of her home, he said.
Smartphones emerging as main farming tools in China
Beijing, July 10 (IANS/Xinhua) With 96 per cent of China's villages connected to the Internet and each rural household having on an average three mobile phones, the sickle and hoe have been replaced by the smarphones and apps as the country's emblematic farming tools.
Rains batter Mumbai for fourth day
Road and rail traffic was disrupted as heavy rains continued to batter Mumbai, its surroundings areas and large parts of Maharashtra for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, officials said.
Concrete weighs heavily on the Mediterranean coast
Across the Mediterranean, from an illegally-built hotel in a Spanish nature park to a holiday complex encroaching on Lebanon's salt flats, a tourism boom is threatening precious coastal ecosystems. With 46,000 kilometres (29,000 miles) of coastline spread across 21 countries, the Mediterranean hosts over a quarter of global tourism -- but that comes at a cost to the planet. "The current tourism model is highly unsustainable," says Plan Bleu, a UN-affiliated body for environment and development in the Mediterranean. It estimates that arrivals have surged from 58 million in 1970 to 324 million in 2015, and could rise to 500 million by 2030. The body has warned that future growth will exacerbate "already critical environmental pressures... in coastal and marine ecosystems". The region's population is also growing, surging from 32 million in 1970 to 75 million in 2000 on the Mediterranean's southern and eastern shores. While legislation in some countries has improved coastal protection, ..
Early Earth's oxygen levels rose, fell several times: Study
Earth's oxygen levels rose and fell more than once hundreds of millions of years before the planet-wide success of the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago, a study has found. The finding, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may have implications in the search for life beyond Earth. Coming years will bring powerful new ground- and space-based telescopes able to analyse the atmospheres of distant planets, the researchers said. The work could help keep astronomers from unduly ruling out "false negatives," or inhabited planets that may not at first appear to be so due to undetectable oxygen levels, they said. "The production and destruction of oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere over time was a war with no evidence of a clear winner, until the Great Oxidation Event," said Matt Koehler, a doctoral student at the University of Washington in the US. The Great Oxidation Event was the biologically induced appearance of oxygen in the Earth's ...
Uttarakhand: Landslides block Rishikesh-Gangotri NH
The Rishikesh-Gangotri National Highway was on Tuesday closed due to landslides in Bemund in Tehri Garhwal district.On Monday, the Indian Meteorological Department had predicted that "heavy to very heavy rain" would continue at "isolated places" over Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Konkan and Goa.Meanwhile, heavy downpour continued to batter Mumbai and adjoining areas.
400 kg sea cucumber worth Rs 8 lakh seized in TN
Nearly 400 kg of sea cucumber worth Rs 8 lakh, meant to be smuggled to Sri Lanka was today seized from Thoppukaadu in this island town, coastal marine police said. Fifty eight bags of sea cucumber was confiscated, they said adding the smugglers managed to escape after seeing them. Sea cucumbers are classified as endangered species and their harvest is banned under the Wildlife Protection Act. These are in great demand in South-East Asian countries.
Monster crocodile caught in Australia after 10-year search
Park rangers in Australia's Northern Territory (NT) have caught one of the region's biggest crocodiles after a decade-long hunt.
World's oldest colours discovered
Scientists have discovered the oldest colours in the geological record - 1.1 billion-year-old bright pink pigments extracted from rocks deep beneath the Sahara desert in Africa. The pigments taken from marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania, West Africa, were more than half a billion years older than previous pigment discoveries, said Nur Gueneli from The Australian National University (ANU). "The bright pink pigments are the molecular fossils of chlorophyll that were produced by ancient photosynthetic organisms inhabiting an ancient ocean that has long since vanished," said Gueneli. The fossils range from blood red to deep purple in their concentrated form, and bright pink when diluted, according to a study published in the journal PNAS. The researchers crushed the billion-year-old rocks to powder, before extracting and analysing molecules of ancient organisms from them. "The precise analysis of the ancient pigments confirmed that tiny cyanobacteria dominated the ...
Sterilised mosquito trial slashes dengue-spreading population
More than 80 per cent of a dengue fever-spreading mosquito has been wiped out in an Australian town during a landmark trial scientists said today offered hope for combating the dangerous pest globally. Researchers from Australia's national science body CSIRO bred millions of non-biting male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in laboratory conditions at James Cook University (JCU) in a project funded by Google parent company Alphabet. The insects were infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which renders them sterile. They were then released into the wild at trial sites around the Queensland town of Innisfail where over three months they mated with females who laid eggs that did not hatch, causing the population to plummet. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is one of the world's most dangerous pests, capable of spreading devastating diseases like dengue, Zika and chikungunya. It is responsible for infecting millions of people around the world each year and JCU's Kyran Staunton said the successful trial ..
Win for wildlife as krill fishing restricted in Antarctica
Five major krill fishing firms today agreed to halt operations across huge swathes of the Antarctic to help protect wildlife in a move hailed as "bold and progressive" by conservationists. The vast frozen continent is home to penguins, seals, whales and other marine life with krill a staple food for many species. But a combination of climate change and industrial-scale fishing has been hitting populations of the small crustacean, with potentially disastrous impacts on larger predators. Now the five companies that make up the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting (ARK) -- from Norway, Chile, South Korea and China -- have agreed to stop fishing in sensitive coastal areas. They also threw their support behind a planned network of marine protected areas (MPAs) throughout the Southern Ocean, including in places where they currently operate. "Our members agree that the industry must develop sustainably to ensure long-term viability of the krill stocks and the predators that depend on .
