Bangladesh on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Netherlands to prepare the "Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100" in order to build up a 50-100 years water management system.
Under the deal, Bangladesh will conduct about 20 studies of different types at the main rivers and adjoining areas with the Dutch help. Planning Minister AK Khandker and Dutch Minister for Development Dr Ben Knapen signed the MoU on behalf of their respective sides at the Prime Minister's Office. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina witnessed the signing of the deal.

In a move to address the lack of strategic roads abutting the India-China frontier, India will bring in a legal provision to do away with self-created hurdles which are holding back progress on the much-needed roads used for movement of troops and equipment. Even as India struggles to construct roads along the India-China frontier, such desolate places in eastern Ladakh have been designated as wildlife reserves.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)-organised international conference on Himalayan glaciers concluded in the capital today.

The five-day gathering, ‘Cryosphere of the Hindu Kush Himalayas’, brought scholars and practitioners from across the globe together to discuss recent research on snow, glaciers, glacial hydrology, and capacity building in cryospheric research in the Himalayan region.

Himalayas are warming about three times faster than the global average temperature during the last 25 year period, says a new study.

The report made public on Wednesday states the average annual precipitation during the same period has increased by 6.52 millimetre per year in the region. Authored by Uttam Babu Shrestha, Shiva Gautam and Kamaljit Bawa, the study

was published in the recent issue of ‘PLoS One’ journal.

Union Minister of Environment and Forests, Jayanthi Natarajan, came under attack from the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, for failing to save the Ganga and the Himalayas, but Speaker Meira Kumar reposed faith in her.

During the discussion on the steps taken by the government to protect the Ganga from pollution, and the Himalayas from ruthless exploitation, most Opposition members attacked the Congress, and were critical of the Environment Minister.

India-born professor Kamal Bawa has donated the entire prize money of one million Norwegian Kronor (about Rs.10 million) from the world's first major international sustainability award to the Indian organisation he founded in 1996. Bawa, distinguished professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is the 2012 winner of the Gunnerus Sustainability Award from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and letters (DKNVS).

New Delhi: Climate change will be an additional stress on Indian forests, especially in Upper Himalayan stretches, which are already subjected to multiple challenges including over-extraction, livestock grazing and human impact, a government report said here on Wednesday.