Recommending scrapping of two controversial hydro-power projects in Karnataka and Kerala that had run into difficulty due to opposition from environmentalists, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) has suggested setting up of a statutory authority to protect the Ghats.

The report of the panel, headed by Madhav Gadgil, formerly with the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, has called for cancellation of Karnataka's Gundia and Kerala's Athirapally hydro-projects, and gradual phasing out of mining activities in ecologically highly-sensitive areas of Goa by 2016.

Horn-shaped loudspeakers used for festivities in violation of rules

Residents of Maramon, Kozhencherry, and surrounding areas are left to bear with the blaring noise from loudspeakers, installed in connection with various public programme and religious festivals. Many local people complained that organisers were using horn-shaped loudspeakers, banned by law, for church and temple festivals in the locality.

Dehradun: Acting on the directive of the Uttarakhand high court, the state government on Wednesday imposed a blanket ban on noise pollution in a radius of 500 metres around the Corbett National Park and declared it a “complete silence zone”. A two-judge bench of the high court gave the directive responding to a PIL filed by a local NGO. The decision will mitigate levels of noise pollution that affect the habitat of many species in one of India’s best known tiger reserve.

Inaction renders garbage disposal by civic bodies ‘illegal'

Aluva municipality is among seven local bodies in Ernakulam district likely to face legal action for not renewing the authorisation under the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 for segregation, transportation and suitable disposal of municipal waste.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today made it clear that the Tata Camelot Housing Project coming up in Punjab’s Kansal village could proceed further only after grant of clearances, sanctions, permissions and fulfillment of other pre-conditions.
The Bench made it clear that the project promoters and other respondents would have to comply with all the requirements spelt out by the Periphery Control Act and the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995.

The manufacturing unit of the State-run National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) now faces a serious threat of being closed down on account of the company's inability to manage massive amounts of fly ash.

In a letter addressed to B.L. Bagra, NALCO's chairman-cum-MD, the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) said it will be forced to close down its 1,200 mw-capacity Captive Power Plant, critical for running a smelter unit at Angul in Odisha, unless the company takes up the disposal of fly ash on a war footing.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is set to give teeth to the Environment Protection Act by increasing penalties against those breaking environmental laws.

Sounding a despairing note, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan told this reporter, “The present `1 lakh penalty for environmental violations is ridiculous. The penalty should be both imprisonment as well as financial penalty.

Magsaysay award-winner ‘Waterman’ Rajendra Singh, who stepped down from National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) along with two others protesting government’s “negligence” of the river, on Sunday criticised the Prime Minister for “not understanding his responsibility” towards the river as head of the body. Singh, addressing a press conference, said he would come out with a Ganga Lok Bill within a week proposing “strong and effective” legislative measures to protect the river.

BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) has slapped Rs 13.77 crore penalty on Hindalco for unauthorised sale and inept handling of anode butts which are generated as waste from the company’s Hirakud plant. Invoking the ‘Polluter Pays’ principle, the Board penalised the Aditya Birla Group-owned company for violation of the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2008, under Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is burning the midnight oil for speedy implementation of the river regulation zone (RRZ).

Environment minister Jayanti Natarajan admitted that the rules of the RRZ are in the process of being framed. She expects that once this notification is passed, a major hurdle to end the operations of land mafia grabbing thousand of acres of land along the Ganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Krishna , Cauvery and Godavari rivers (to name a few) will be halted.