In A significant move ahead of the upcoming Shimla Municipal Corporation elections, the government on Wednesday cleared the decks for relaxing the ban on new constructions in the town’s green belt. However, the relaxations will only be limited to those who were denied the “right to property” for constructions after the imposition of ban in 2000.

After facing criticism on the issue of illegal mining in the state, Minister of Industries Kishan Kapoor today claimed that steps taken by him to check the illegal mining had caused loss to the mining mafia that was siphoning off the state revenue. He claimed that the mining mafia, which was making crores in the garb of illegal mining, had started lobbying against him through various vested interests.

The hill state of Himachal Pradesh known for its scenic beauty has emerged as one of the popular destination to foreign tourists, mainly form the US, UK, France and Australia with the state recording the arrival of nearly five lakh tourists from these countries last year.

Since foreigners love adventure tourism, the rugged terrain of Himachal Pradesh offer them a large number of such events like mountaineering, mountain biking, paragliding, vintage car rally, skiing and river-rafting, being organised with active support of the government agencies, state’s director tourism Arun Sharma said.

Despite the slowdown, hill stations of Himachal Pradesh attracted nearly 5 lakh foreign tourists in 2011, an increase of more than 30,000 than the previous year. A total of 4.85 lakh foreign tourists visited Himachal in 2011 as against 4.53 lakh in 2010, an increase of 32,000 tourists, according to the data released by the Himachal Tourism Department.

Animal rights protection bodies have taken a strong notice of the horrific details of deaths of hundreds of monkeys at the Gopalpur sterilisation centre in Kangra and demanded a judicial probe into the programme to contain the simian population. They have also called for a review of the programme and demanded that till that time there should be no more sterilisation of monkeys.

Contrary to expectations, the number of birds visiting Pong Dam wetland, one of the largest manmade wetlands in North India, has declined by about 10 per cent this year.

During a two-day census of the waterfowl species (birds that depend on water bodies for roosting and feeding), 119,500 birds of the 103 species were spotted in the wetland in Kangra district, wildlife officials said on Thursday.

A cultivable mycorrhiza-like fungus discovered by scientists of Amity University may prove to be a boon for vegetable growers of Himachal Pradesh as it has tremendously increased the crop growth and productivity. The scientists found that the fungus named Piriformospora Indica (PFSI) increased both the growth and productivity of cauliflower, capsicum and tomato vegetable crops in hill areas of the state.

Palampur: The entire Dhauladhar range and the Chhota and Bara Bhangal areas of the Palampur region experienced the heaviest snowfall of this season in the past 24 hours. Lower reaches were lashed by heavy rain, paralysing normal life in the valley. Power supply and road transport were the worst affected by the rain and the snow. The entire Chhota and Bara Bhangal valley has been cut off from the rest of the world as all roads leading to the valley were blocked at different points because of the heavy snowfall. The valley is without power supply and drinking water.

Dharamsala: The recent spell of snow in Kangra district has exposed the disaster preparedness in the area. Kangra district falls in zone 5 category of seismic probability which makes it as one of the most earthquake prone areas of the country. The earthquake that struck the area in 1905 lead to the death of about 80,000 people and destroyed almost the entire infrastructure in Kangra district.

Dharamsala: The green cover in the McLeodganj area in Dharamsala is being threatened by illegal dumping of solid waste along the hill slopes. People carrying out construction work in the Dharamsala area are posing a threat to the hills by throwing muck of dismantled buildings. Many such constructions are coming up in the tourist places of McLeodganj and Bhagsunag.