THINKING ALLOWED

Anti-mining stir leads to a row, death and persecution ON THE morning of March 19, people of Kalane village in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra were roused by the sound of heavy machinery. Workers hired by mining company Minerals and Metals were building a road at 4 am leading up to the mine in Survey Number 57.

Topics of importance of environment, fallouts of pollution and other environmental hazards should be included in syllabi from primary education till higher and professional education.

The government has decided to do something important about vehicular emissions that have reached highly dangerous levels. Federal Ministry of Environment told the National Assembly on Monday that all petrol-run vehicles would be required to comply with Euro-II emission standards with effect from July.

Developing countries including Pakistan are facing the burden of communicable disease including dengue, fevers, diarrhoea and cholera, which may result in emergencies.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood, one that strikes the poor disproportionately. Up to one-third of children living in inner-city public housing have allergic asthma, in which a specific allergen sets off a cascade of events that cause characteristic inflammation, airway constriction and wheezing.

Air pollution in capital city Dhaka raised higher than Mexico and Mumbai killing thousands of people prematurely each year, health experts say.

According to the Department of Environment (DoE) the density of airborne particulate matter (PM) reaches 463 micrograms per cubic metre (mcm) in the city during December-March period - the highest level in the world.