A cruel joke has been played out at the expense of the Bhopal victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster. The Supreme Court had ordered the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to file a report on the status of the ground water contamination at the Union Carbide plant site in Bhopal by June 4, 2012.

The CPCB has treated this entire exercise in a rather lackadaisical fashion and from the six samples tested by them, five were taken from the drinking water supply of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation. The sixth sample was taken from a borewell dug in Street No. 8 and being used by the Ayasha Hotel at Arif Nagar in Bhopal.

The spurt in tiger poaching in India is being directly attributed to the increasing demand of tiger parts especially in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Indonesia.

India has been vociferous in demanding that both China and Vietnam end all tiger farming as these are known to be fronts for a thriving illegal market in tiger parts. Vietnam has 11 registered tiger farms while China has 20 large farms, which are breeding nearly 5,000 tigers in captivity. The US also has an estimated 5,000 tigers in captivity (owned largely by individuals) and it is well known that captive tigers are easy targets for black market sales.

A major step to make India open defecation free was taken on Thursday with the ministry of rural development headed by minister Jairam Ramesh joining hands with the ministry of defence under defence minister A.K. Antony to set up bio-digester toilets in 2.4 lakh gram panchayats in India.

The technology for these eco-friendly toilets has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and was originally used for human waste disposal for armed forces personnel deployed at high altitudes. But the technology has now been extended to suit all climates and biodigesters have been installed in various locations in J&K, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

Environmentalists are demanding greater environmental management of religious tourism.

The death of 98 pilgrims in the Amarnath Yatra has highlighted the need to ensure better man-management in these ecologically-fragile regions. Already, three lakh pilgrims have visited the Amarnath shrine while the number in 2011 was around 7.5 lakhs. Environmentalist Prof. Vikram Soni of the Jamia Milia University points out that such large numbers of yatris are unsustainable given the high altitude and the danger of landslides hitting this area which could result in heavy loss of life.

Ninety travel operators under the banner of Travel Operators for Tigers (TOFT) have expressed their unhappiness at the Supreme Court order disallowing tourism activity in core areas of tiger reserves.

Expressing his anguish over the judgment, Dr Goverdhan Rathore, a lodge owner and son of the legendary conservationist Fateh Singh Rathore, expressed surprise that the Supreme Court has chosen to disregard clear evidence that “wildlife tourism in Indian tiger reserves was not harming tigers”

The ministry of environment’s decision to get Prof. Madhav Gadgil’s report reviewed by a separate panel has drawn up criticism from unexpected quarters.

Tim Badman, heading the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) World Heritage Programme, has issued a statement that international monitoring took place to ensure that the 39 bio-diversity hot spots in the Western Ghats be preserved in their entirety.

Prof. Madhav Gadgil, who authored the first report on the impact of mining on the Western Ghats, has blasted the government for their decision to set up a second panel to review its findings following criticism by Kerala and Karnataka state governments.

The move, Prof. Gadgil believed, could not have come at a more inappropriate time especially since, after much delay, the report was put up on the ministry of environment & forests (MoEF) website with public comments sought up to the middle of this month.

An independent fact-finding team led by Sikkim Chief Justice S.N. Bhargava (Retd) has accused Tata Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP), located in the ecologically-fragile area of Kutch, of destroying livelihoods of the local communities living in that area.

Releasing a report titled “The Real Cost of Power”, the team warned that “large stretches of mangroves, dry-land forests and bio-diversity creeks have been destroyed for the construction of the project’s inlet and outfall channels”.

When the 16th President is sworn in at Rashtrapati Bhavan in July-end, he can feel proud that his residence has under a unique business partnership, succeeded in bringing down energy costs by almost 25 per cent.

The sprawling President Estate’s baseline energy consumption used to be over `70 lakh annually. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) offered to help bring the energy costs of Rashtrapati Bhavan down with no additional cost to the exchequer.

Making a frank assessment of the recently-concluded Rio+20 summit, a team of environmental experts from Teri maintained that despite not coming up with specific commitments, the meet did help re-focus on the issue of sustainable development.

Nitin Desai, former UN deputy secretary general and distinguished fellow Teri, emphasised India’s stellar role in ensuring that the Obama administration “did not whittle down the principles of equity that had been accepted by the former Bush administration”.

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