LUCKNOW: Three units engaged in dyeing and printing of the famous Banarasi saree in Varanasi came under the hammer of UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) on Tuesday evening. The board served a closure notice to the units for discharging untreated effluent in the sewer which ultimately drained into the Ganga.
Local farmers grow wheat, barley, gram, mustard, chilly, pea, brinjal during Rabi season and bajra, sorghum, paddy, tuwar, moth bean, green gram and groundnut during Kharif. It is also famous for its vegetable market.
The Ganga has been given a new breath of fresh air. Or at least that's the plan. To save the river from further pollution, the city administration has clamped prohibitory orders on both banks of the Ganga under Section 144 of the CRPC. District Magistrate A.K. Upadhyaya says no one can use the banks "as dhobi ghats, to throw corpses and garbage or use soap while bathing".
When documentary filmmaker Sudhesh Unniraman, 38, was approached by a producer from AIM Television to document the plight of the Ganga, he knew there was not much research to be done.
As part of a fresh initiative to check pollution of the Ganga river, the Ganga Mahasabha, a voluntary organisation in Varanasi, has asked people not to immerse Durga idols, painted with artificial colours and chemicals, in the river during Navratri this year.
The Ganga continues to be threatened by environmentally unsustainable development projects, of which the Ganga Expressway is the most recent example. But the campaign to save the Ganga is seemingly caught in recrimination and bad governance.
Governor expedites payments in Jharkhand villagers in six districts of Uttar Pradesh staged a protest in the first week of June. Their protest was against non-payment of wages for works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (nregs). Under the Act, workers should be paid within two weeks of a work
The holy city of Benares in India, or Varanasi, is known for its Ghats, the sites where the River Ganges purifies the bodies of the live bathers and the ashes of the cremated dead. Close to them is the huge square mouth of the city sewerage system, which disgorges its load of blackwater into the river, irrespective of its religious functions.
