You don't have to visit the Kanha National Park or the Sunderbans to catch a glimpse of the royal tiger any more. The Sanjay Gandhi National Park at Borivali, as part of its Rs 5-crore five-year scheme to promote eco-tourism in Mumbai, is displaying two of its newly acquired yellow Bengal tigers on its tiger safari trails.

The ambitious plan to decentralise the garbage disposal at four different places in the city received a boost with the forest department finally giving its approval to set up a garbage disposal plant in Punawale. This will enable the city to have four garbage disposal plants in different parts of the city as against the present system of the lone dumping ground at Urali Devachi village.

The state transport department is planning to phase out "old and unfit' autorickshaws and taxis and will soon be starting a campaign to cancel the permits of the old vehicles. Transport Commissioner, Shyamsunder Shinde said, "The transport department will soon start phasing out unfit autorickshaws and taxis from the city. The old vehicles also cause pollution levels to rise.'

First notification as Tadoba Sanctuary: 1931 (116.55 sq km) Upgradation as Tadoba National Park: 1955 Andhari Tiger Sanctuary notified: 1986 (509.27 sq km) Tadoba Andhari

At least 31 people have been killed by tigers from Tadoba since April 2005, according to forest department records. But only two of these killings took place inside the reserve. The rest occurred

Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, Vidarbha's star tourist attraction, is buzzing with activity. Inside the 625.40 sq km reserve, excavators are hard at work, digging up earth for an ambitious road-building project. Strips of forest, several metres wide, have been cleared alongside existing roads.

UP, Maharashtra, Gujarat And Bihar In Line Of Fire NREGA laggards could face an intrusive Centre as it emerges that a handful of states are pulling down the national average. Rural development ministry is contemplating "monthly monitoring' for Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Bihar, after a performance review found that these states were falling short of their potential for job guarantee scheme. It would be an embarrassment for the four states as the RD ministry holds a quarterly NREGA monitoring for all. The officer-incharge from state comes for discussions with his

In a rare victory to the residents, the BMC's tree authority has backtracked from hacking hundreds of trees for the Powai Lake beautification, settling to move just 30 trees in a new proposal. The authorities have also agreed to plant 300 more trees around the jogging track to make the area lush. In February, the tree authority had put notices on 150 trees that would be uprooted to lay a two km jogging track as part of the Rs 12-crore beautification project. However, after three months of incessant protests by residents, the tree authority last week reconsidered their proposal.

In view of the emergence of the avian influenza epidemic in South East Asia region, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) will host a meeting on strengthening influenza diagnosis and networking in South East Asia in Pune from May 13. Dr A C Mishra, Director, National Institute of Virology said that the meeting was being conducted by the World Health Organisation-SEARO to improve diagnostic capacity of laboratories in the South East Asia region. National Influenza Centers are the cornerstone of global influenza surveillance.

Kathewadi village in Baramati taluka, hometown of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in Pune district, will soon become the only village in Pune to switch over to compact flourescent lamps (CFL). In two months time, the entire village will do away with the sodium vapour lamps and tubelights and switch over to the energy conserving CFL.