By S Lalitha, DH News Service, Bangalore: To reduce pollution emissions, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) plans to incorporate sophisticated filters and use diesel-ethanol in the 600 buses of the Mysore urban division under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project, an international initiative to preserve the environment. By early September World Bank will sanction Rs 14.3 crore for implementation of the project.

Villagers of Bjemina, approximately 25 km from Thimphu, are hoping their health and harvest will improve with the dzongkhag yargay tshogdu (DYT) having discussed the issue of air pollution and crop damage caused by the dust from stone crushing machines in the area.

Ozone is one of the highly reactive gases, which is photo chemically active. It is composed of three atoms of oxygen (O3) and its role depends on its location in the atmosphere. This gas plays a different role in the lowest two layers of the atmosphere, known as the stratosphere and troposphere. In the stratosphere, above the tropopause about 90 percent of the ozone protects life on earth from the sun's dangerous ultraviolet radiation.

With no let-up in pollution by ash let loose after burning rice husk by industrial boilers the State Pollution Control Board has served notices on 15 units in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial area to switch over to alternative fuels like furnace oil, diesel or petrol for all boiler operations within a month. These units which comprise textile and paper mills have been directed to submit an action plan about switchover to an alternative fuel.

The government should get into discussions with the world's leading car manufacturers, almost all of whom have now set up (or are setting up) shop in India, to encourage the local production of cars that run on dual fuels or even entirely on fuel cells. The benefits will be seen not just through reduced consumption of hydrocarbons but also through a reduction in automobile emissions. While Honda has just introduced its hybrid Civic in India, more such cars are being produced overseas (like Toyota's Prius).

MUMBAI: Shweta Kumari is waiting impatiently for the new Nano by Tata Motors to hit car showrooms here later this year.

With a price tag of about $2,500, the Nano will cost about half the price of the least-expensive car on the market, easily affordable for Kumari, who works as a software developer.

The traditional lifestyle of the Appalachian peaks of West Virginia is under threat from mining companies who blow the summits off mountains to reach the coal deposits that lie beneath the surface. "They are killing off the culture of the mountain people," said Maria Gunnoe, who lives on a hillside which has had its insides dug out to expose a huge mine called Jupiter. "We are fighting not only for now but also for yesterday and tomorrow," she said. Mountaintop removal mining, or MTR, is not only affecting traditions, but also polluting drinking water and air in the region.

Residents of Shivsorem and Colomba in Rivona panchayat on Wednesday strongly opposed the renewal of a mining lease in the village. At a public hearing, organized by the Goa Pollution Control Board (GPCB) at Rivona VKSS Society, Rivona, residents feared that the mining activities would destroy the ecology in the village. Criticizing the environment assessment report submitted by the mining company, Gurudas Gaonkar of Shivsorem claimed that though Shivsorem ward has a population of 400 villagers located barely 25 metres from the mining pit, the ward was not shown in the report.

A mobile court of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority on Tuesday filed 12 cases and realised Tk 11,500 from 12 CNG-run bus companies in Dhaka for taking excess fare. The court, led by BRTA executive magistrate (deputy secretary) Abdur Rashid, filed the cases during the drive conducted at the National Press Club, Motijheel, Kamalapur and Khilgaon. The court checked tickets at different counters of the bus operators and found that they were charging Tk 3 to Tk 10 more than the government-fixed rate announced recently after the CNG price hike.

Consumers Association of Bangladesh (Cab), the country's only watchdog body that promotes and protects consumer rights, yesterday demanded the government to re-fix the fares of CNG-run buses. They also demanded the authorities to include representatives from customers to re-fix fares at reasonable rates, and called for stopping the present system of collecting fares of the CNG-run buses. Cab in a press release urged the government to keep the list of road distance of all metropolitan cities at different bus stands in the city.