‘Fresh arbitration notice needed if it were to contest the fine'

After slapping a hefty penalty of over $1 billion on Reliance Industries for failing to meet gas output targets, the Oil Ministry said the company's five-month-old arbitration notice on the issue was not valid and a fresh notice was required if it were to contest the fine.

India's Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia yesterday said a variety of environmental, economic and technical issues need to be settled before implementation of the ambitious inter-linking of rivers.

Referring to the Himalayan component of rivers inter-linking, Ahluwalia said “effective exploitation” of capacity of these rivers is critically dependent on the international agreements.

Against the backdrop of a Supreme Court direction asking the Centre to constitute a committee for rivers inter-linking, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said before inter-basin transfer of water a variety of issues needed to be settled first.

While hoping that the proposed committee under the Water Resources Ministry will strive hard to work on the issue, he said various technical, environmental and economic issues need to be addressed for proposed inter-linking.

BERHAMPUR: The erosive waves of the Bay of Bengal have again started to threaten villages on the coastline of Ganjam district. During past two days, the Podempeta village in Chhatrapur block of the district witnessed the fury of sea waves. The village is inhabited mostly by marine fishermen. On Sunday night, two thatched houses were swept away in the high tides. The houses belonged to PL Appeyya and B Matheyya.

The erosive action of tidal waves has also washed away hundreds of Olive Ridley eggs in the last two days.

Olive Ridley turtles have finally arrived at Gahirmatha beach in Odisha to lay eggs much to the delight of wildlife lovers and forest officials. An estimated 46,000 female turtles were spotted digging pits on the sandy nesting ground for laying eggs, forest department officials said. The number of visiting turtles is on a lower scale given the fact that over 5 lakh turtles had converged at the nesting ground here last year. Gahirmatha beach off the Bay of Bengal coast is acclaimed as World’s largest-known nesting ground of the turtles.

BHUBANESWAR: A team of scientists from Japan arrived here on Monday to study the migratory behaviour of the threatened Irrawaddy dolphins in Chilika lagoon. One of the less-studied cetacean species, Irrawaddy dolphins’ dropping numbers in the brackish water lagoon had prompted Chilika Development Authority to set up a permanent station project at the lake’s mouth to study their pattern of migration.

China denied Friday that a dam it was building on a major river in Tibet was impacting the lower reaches of the waterway in India, despite complaints that water-levels there were plunging.
The Brahmaputra has its source in China’s southwestern Tibet region where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo, and it enters India in the mountainous, remote northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, where it is called the Siang.

Water levels have plunged in a major river in India's northeast that originates in Tibet, local officials told AFP on Thursday, triggering speculation that China might be responsible.
The Brahmaputra has its source in China's southwestern Tibet region where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo, and it enters India in the mountainous, remote northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, where it it is called the Siang.