Forest officials arrested three persons and detained one Tata Mobile vehicle for allegedly involved in catching frogs at Gaonkarwado-Usgao on June 7 at about 12.30 am. According to reports, arrested ones include Thomas Sebestiao and Patrick Pacheco (both from Raia, Salcette) and Anand Chandwadkar from Bethora-Ponda and recovered 70 frogs from them. They have been arrested under Wild Life Protection Act, 1972. Frogs are in demand in many restaurants and hunting is done specially during the monsoons.

Admitting that garbage was a major issue and was causing immense damage to the environment, Power and Environment Minister, Aleixo Sequeira said the issue could be solved with people's participation. Speaking at a debate titled

Intercontinental the Grand Goa Resort, Rajbagh Canacona recently celebrated the World Environment Day with various activities and programmes on its large property. Besides a beach cleaning drive, where the entire one kilometer stretch was cleaned by about 50 staff and the executives of the resort, a tree plantation drive was also held, where about 500 different varieties of various spice, herbal and fruit-bearing plants were grown.

Incessant rains inundated low-lying areas of Mungul, even as the River Sal was flowing in full spate on Sunday. Large tracts of low-lying areas on the banks of the River Sal, especially at Mungul was flooded with rain water. However, the authorities said there was no need to evacuate the migrants inhabiting the banks of River Sal at Khareband as the rains subsided this evening. Plastic and other saste from the wholesale fish market flowed along the course of River Sal right up to Mungul, indicating that the PDA authority has failed to dispose of the waste before the onset of monsoons.

A half-day workshop on "Facilitating Door to Door Collection of Segregated Waste' was conducted at Hotel Woodlands, Margao on Thursday, to coincide with "World Environment Day' by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Western Regional Centre in Goa. The interactive workshop was designed to sensitize members of Margao Municipal Council to develop a strategy for door-to-door collection of segregated waste in Margao. The workshop was attended the councilors and the staff associated with waste management.

With the Commerce Ministry unrelenting on the demand for cancellation of the Goa SEZs, the Centre and the State got into a fresh face-off on Wednesday. "The notified SEZ issue is over with the Government of India,' Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai told reporters here. But Goa Chief Minister Digamabar Kamat said in Panaji that the state would not go back on its stand and would ask the Centre to review its decision of not denotifying the three Special Economic Zones.

The IMD, on Thursday, issued a cyclone warning to the ports and fishermen on the Maharashtra-Goa coast for a period 24 hours, ending Friday 1 pm. The IMD office website advised fishermen "not to go out in the sea during the next 24 hours'. Explaining that the sea would be very rough with south-easterly waves, the website warned, "Winds will be of speed 45-55 kmph, temporarily reaching 65 kmph in gusts.'

Nationalist Congress Party expressed shock at the stand of the Center on proposed SEZs in Goa and said that it was a direct affront to the sentiments of the people of Goa and termed it as an acid test for the govt in power. In a press note, NCP Spokesman and General Secretary Surendra Furtado said that the attitude of the Under Secretary of the Union Minister for Commerce stating that the SEZ could not be revoked smacked of "money talking.'

After the Special Economic Zones, villagers of Loutolim are bracing for yet another battle, this time against the indiscriminate sinking of bore well in the Verna Industrial Estate. Loutolim gram Sabha members, Sarpanch, and panch members recently called on the IDC Managing Director, A V Palekar and vociferously objected to the sinking of bore wells and asked him to immediately cap all the existing bore wells sunk with or without permission in the Industrial Estate.

Environmentalist and Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan Vice President Nandkumar Kamat is at a loss of words to explain the Government's inefficiency to check whether water supplied in people's homes was actually safe for drinking. Addressing a press conference on the eve of World Environment Day that falls tomorrow (June 5), Kamat lamented, "What we are drinking is actually poison water. There are no quality checks and the Government has not bothered to address the problem in spite of reminders and individual representations.'