Terms environment ministry’s memorandum unconstitutional.

Formation of Kerala Drinking Water Supply Company Ltd.

On April 9, Ponnath Devarajan, city councillor for Marad, a communally sensitive fishing hamlet that faces water shortage, moved a resolution before the Kozhikode Corporation Council against a government order for forming Kerala Drinking Water Supply Company Ltd.
He said the company, described by the Water Resources Department in its December 31, 2012, order as one modelled after Cochin International Airport Ltd., was a sheer effort to commodify water, a natural resource and public asset.

Survey in March records steady depletion

While skyscrapers increase in height and density at the cost of natural water resources like paddy fields, the groundwater level in the district has touched a new low this year. A March-2013 survey by the Groundwater Department of their 54 sample wells across the district show a steady depletion, ranging from 1 m to 20 cm, in groundwater level.

Primary question by apex court about its harmful effects remains unanswered

Formal orders, spanning over a year, passed by the Supreme Court in the public interest petition triggered by the “highly disturbing” photographs of people who may have been affected by the pesticide endosulfan in Kerala show the case has come full circle. The case, Democratic Youth Federation of India vs. Union of India , was first heard on May 2, 2011, by a three-judge bench led by the then Chief Justice of India Justice S.H. Kapadia. Eleven days later, on May 13, 2011, the Bench ordered an “immediate ban” on the pesticide.

Panel counsel says States can prepare site-specific tourism plans considering ecological, social and religious issues

The Supreme Court’s observation that guidelines for protection of tiger reserves will not hamper the movement of devotees to the Sabarimala temple comes after a point-blank submission in court by the Kerala government that any attempt to introduce curbs would primarily affect religion, not tourism. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has framed a set of comprehensive guidelines for Project Tiger and tourism in tiger reserves. The guidelines are proposed to be issued under Section 38-O (c) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

New Delhi The government has been on an acquisition spree of agricultural land since the economy opened two decades ago, seriously affecting basic food security and driving the “small farmer” to su

Pages