INDIA

The Supreme Court has called for more powers to be given to the National Environment Appellate Authority to enable it to handle environment cases expeditiously.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed forest and police officials to arrest all those involved in the slaughter of protected birds in the state's Kolleru wildlife sanctuary

The World Wide Fund for Nature-India plans to launch a hunt for the elusive Himalayan Quail, presumed to be extinct for the last 100 years.

According to officials of the Delhi government, the Delhi Zoological Gardens will be shifted to the outskirts of Delhi to free the land for more high-rise buildings, as envisaged by the government's housing plans.

Former Union minister of state for agriculture Arvind Netam has charged the Orissa government with violating a 1975 inter-state agreement by constructing four dams on the Indravati river. Netam said that, due to the construction, the river had changed its course in Bastar district and its flow had been reduced.

A high-level delegation of the Indo-German watershed development team is visiting Andhra Pradesh to hold consultations with the state government and non-governmental organisations to start watershed projects in four districts of north Telangana and Medak at an estimated cost of Rs 25 crore.

The Delhi government will soon introduce a legislation to ban the use of plastic bags in the city, chief minister Sheila Dikshit told the state Assembly, while discussing the fire in Yamuna Pushta. The blaze left 29 people dead and destroyed around 2,800 jhuggies. The fire was fuelled by heaps of plastic bags and junk stored in the cluster.

The Orissa government has declared 1,668 more villages belonging to the districts of Balasore, Ganjam and Kendrapara as drought-affected taking the total number of such villages to 10,353, according to an official state government release.