SUNITA DUBEY On May 13, individuals and groups from from Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Romania and the us gathered at Luxembourg for ArcelorMittal

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.

Sunita Narain India thrives on a cheap and dirty industrialisation model.

Human waste overflows, fertilizer runoff and floating propane tanks are raising concerns in the flooded Midwest but should not cause severe or long-term environmental problems, health officials say. Serious chemical pollution from factories and chemical plants "aren't concerns because we don't have many reports, just isolated cases and leaks," said Karen Timberlake, Wisconsin's secretary of Health and Family Services.

Missile man and former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, in the role of an environmentalist, has called upon Delhites to be involved in cleaning of the city's lifeline, Yamuna river. The ex-president is a man of his own stature and thinks very deeply. These days Dr Kalam is busy in social works. As regards the river Yamuna, it has been polluted from whereever it is flowing, near Kanpur, Allahabad and Agra by industrial units established there as also the people living there. Near Kanpur Dehat, the dirty water from leather factories is drained in the river.

The residents of Khrew and Khanmoh in Pampore Tehsil have expressed serious concern over the increasing number of cement manufacturing factories, which they said have become major source of pollution in the area. Demanding that the factories should either be closed down or shifted to some uninhabited areas, the residents maintained that cement plants continue to affect the growth and production of saffron fields and other vegetations badly.

"Engineers like me can't help marvel at the Agaria's skills,' says Vinay Mahajan of the Ahmedabad-based independent research institute Sandarbh Development Studies. Mahajan has co-authored a paper,

While the Agarias wage a constant struggle with the forest department, the government has allegedly turned a blind eye to pollution by two soda ash-making units run by major industrial groups. At

At the Tata plant in Mithapur, effluent is taken to huge mud trenches, effluent-settlement ponds, which cover about 243 ha. The liquid is supposed to go to the sea from here after suspended solids in

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