Packing of groceries, food items and other products in polythene bags, which is harmful to the environment, is a common scene.

Neither the people are ready to use conventional bags nor the City Municipal Council is creating awareness among the people about avoiding use of plastic, resulting in plastic garbage dumps along roads and in vacant sites in residential areas. Although the use of plastic products lesser than 40 microns have been banned in district, the CMC is least bothered about its implementation.

Equating the serious health hazards wrecked in the district due to the indiscriminate exposure of endosulfan pesticide for over two decades with that of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, acclaimed environmental activist Sunita Narain has said that the major task before the administration was to bring hopes and cheers back to the life of the hapless victims of the “killer” pesticide spraying.

“Assuaging the hurt feelings of the hundreds of victims of aerial spraying of the endosulfan pesticide in the state owned cashew estates in the district is the most important task before the administration and the State government and the local Member of Parliament had played critical role in partially assuaging the hurt feeling of the ill-fated victims and their families”, the Padmashree award winning environmentalist said.

Say over 90 acres of wetlands converted in the last one decade

The controversy over the proposed private international airport project at Aranmula has taken curious turns with the Cabinet decision to regularise conversion of paddy fields and wetlands that have taken place prior to 2005 as well as the clearances reportedly given by various government agencies for the project, allegedly violating prevailing laws, rules and regulations.

Central Pollution Control Board accused of failure to keep the June 4 deadline

Environmentalists have accused the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of failure to keep the June 4 deadline for filing a report on groundwater contamination caused by Dow Chemical Company’s Union Carbide Corporation plant in Bhopal, despite its assurances and the need for compliance with the Supreme Court Orders dated March 28 and April 19, 2012.(In one of the world’s industrial catastrophes, thousands of people died and were injured following the leak of toxic methyl isocyanate at the UCIL pesticide plant on the night of December 2-3, 1984.)

Forest officials warn State of an environmental catastrophe in Nelliampathy

The Forest Department has warned the State government of an environmental catastrophe in Nelliampathy, leading to disasters such as landslips, from destruction of forests by people and ecological factors. Giving the warning, a report, titled “Environmental catastrophes await Nelliampathy,” sent to the State government by the Additional Chief Conservator of Forest, Kozhikode, on June 25, 2011, said: “Last year, the Nelliampathy Hills suffered more than 10 landslips over a stretch of 1,000 metres. During 2007, there were more than three landslips over a stretch of 500 metres,

Three years after 16 people died from drinking contaminated water, the government has not relocated the hazardous industries from Bholakpur in Musheerabad.

The AP State Human Rights Commission had directed the authorities to shift the industrial units, particularly those dealing in the animal skin business, plastic and scrap outside city limits after the May 2009 tragedy and representations were made, pointing to the pollution-causing units. Though a high-level committee, comprising district collectors of Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy, GHMC and HMDA commissioners,

The controversy over the granting of forest clearance to Arunachal’s 1750 MW Demwe Hydro electric power projects by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has deepened following the National

Hundreds of pro-dam activists left Srinagar (Garhwal) in buses on Monday to take part in a one-day dharna by Uttarakhand Minister for Drinking Water & Education Mantri Prasad Naithani at Jantar

River water to meet drinking water needs of Chikkaballapur, Tumkur

The State government on Friday finally gave administrative approval for the Yettinahole project that proposes to draw water from the Yettinahole River in Sakaleshpur to meet the drinking water demands of Chikkaballapur and Tumkur districts and some parts of Bangalore Urban. Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Vishveshvara Hegde Kageri said the project proposes to harness 24 tmc ft from Yettinahole in Hassan district for the drought-prone regions of the three districts at a cost of Rs 8,323 crore.

Even as he accepted Punjab’s case for enhanced allocation to augment the rural water supply system, as it faces the problem of presence of uranium, arsenic, and heavy metals in ground water used for drinking, Union Rural Development and Panchayats Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday advised the State government to introspect and analyse its performance record on utilisation of previous grants for the purpose.