<p>Joint committee inspection report in the matter of Original Application No 02/2023 (Sheikh Shakir Vs Grasim Industries Ltd. Chemical Division & Others).</p> <p>The report was in response to the
with protests against land acquisition spreading across the country, state governments have realized that they cannot do without a dialogue with farmers
the Maharashtra government has given away about 40 hectares (ha) of grazing land to Dow Chemicals for a research and development facility in Shendi village, 30 km from Pune. Villagers say they were
With global pharma companies waking up to technology outsourcing services as a tool to reduce the time to market of their R&D harvest, Accenture is looking at expanding the scope and scale of its life
The eyes of Bakul Das Adhikary told the agony of Nandigram a day after the March 14 firing last year.
After facing road blockade for 40 days, the Dow Chemical Research and Development (R&D) centre took the help of State Reserve Police (SRP) to ferry three trucks to the construction site at Shinde village in Chakan on Tuesday. The villagers of Shinde and Vasuli had dug up the road to protest the setting up of the R& D centre and were preventing vehicles from plying to the construction site. The trucks and a special SRP force van crossed the dug up road at around 4 pm, said Sunil Deukar, one of the villagers. "With only a few villagers at the entry point today, we were outnumbered. Besides with their use of the SRP force we could do little to stop them. But we will not allow the trucks to leave the village,' he said. The members of Lokshashan Andolan, B G Kolse Patil and Vilas Sonawane, who are backing the villagers, said this was the first time that the company had used police support. "Our agitation began with the support of villagers on January 17 and since then construction work has been stalled with no vehicle allowed to pass through the village,'' said Kolse Patil. A State-level committee was appointed to look into the Dow imbroglio under the chairmanship of the environment secretary S K Goel. It met for the second time on Monday and is expected to release its report soon. Meanwhile, agitators from Lokayat submitted a memorandum to the committee expressing their firm protest against the company. Dow Chemical officers were unavailable for comment when contacted.
JUSTICE continues to elude the surviving victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984 when 40 tonnes of the poisonous gas, methyl isocyanate, leaked from a Union Carbide factory in the town and other toxic chemicals leached into the ground. This injustice haunts not only lakhs of victims of the industrial disaster, one of the world's worst ever, but also Dow Chemicals, the company which bought Union Carbide and thereby acquired continuing public hostility to Union Carbide's shoddy response to the tragedy. Legal and bureaucratic delays in estimating the actual number of those affected by the disaster is partly to blame. A mass delegation of gas victims from Bhopal led by the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan (BGPMUS) arrived in New Delhi on Saturday to present a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The gas victims seek support from the Government of India for their application pending before the Supreme Court for fivefold enhancement of the settlement fund, originally pegged at $470 million by a SC order of February 1989. That order estimated the number of the gas tragedy victims to be 1,05,000, including 3,000 dead. However, the Union of India's submission before the Supreme Court on 19.03.2007 has revealed that, as on February 28, 2007, over 5,73,537 victims, (including 5,294 "proven' death cases and 10,007 other death cases, where claims have been converted from death to injury), have been paid compensation. This was no doubt achieved by spreading thin the Settlement Fund meant for 105,000 victims. At the time, the settlement fund was worth Rs 712 crore. Depreciation of the rupee has increased the rupee equivalent amount three-fold. But the number of victims compensated has gone up more than fivefold. And till now, practically no action has been taken for remediation of the poisoning of soil and sub-soil water sources. The cost of these operations has not been determined and no one has come forward to bear these costs. BGPMUS had mobilised over one lakh individual petitions from the gas victims, saying that there is prima facie evidence for reviewing the basis of the settlement.
Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical group, is stepping up the case for use of its experimental pandemic flu vaccine even ahead of a new virus mutation that could trigger a future lethal outbreak in humans. Jorg Reinhardt, head of vaccines and diagnostics, said the company would publish scientific data showing that its H5 vaccine stimulates rapid protection with a second booster jab against pandemic flu strains for at least seven years. Many specialists believe two flu injections may be necessary to provide significant protection from a pandemic, but there is far less current global capacity than supply. Reinhardt said a single flu vaccine shot would normally only offer protection after four to six weeks, but an initial jab would allow a subsequent booster to become effective within two to three days. His remarks come at a time of fierce competition between vaccine companies, which have invested significantly in pandemic flu and are attempting to recover their costs as international concern wanes. Companies including Baxter, Sanofi-Aventis and Solvay are all making arguments for the advantages of their own products, and GlaxoSmithKline raised the profile of its H5N1 vaccine last year when it agreed to donate to a "solidarity' stockpile for poor countries. World Health Organisation officials caution against labelling such products "pre-pandemic' vaccines, because they will only be effective if it is a mutation of the current H5N1 bird flu strain that triggers a pandemic. Others remain cautious about any preventative vaccination because of the cost and strain on public health systems, and concern that widespread use could trigger side effects. Reinhardt stressed it was up to the governments to decide whether or not to buy and use his vaccine. "We will share the data with everyone who is willing to listen and make the scientific argument that it provides protection,' he said. His comments came as Novartis unveiled a new Institute for Global Health at its vaccines research office in Siena, which will attempt to develop non-profit vaccines to protect against three salmonella-based infections that cause diarrhoea, one of the leading causes of disease and death in young children around the world. He said the institute, mirroring its work in Singapore to find medicines to treat illnesses for which there is no commercial market, would employ 50 scientists within three years and seek support from funds such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Institute by the end of this year.
shrimp facility: Three farm-level antibiotic testing laboratories for aquaculture will be set up in Andhra Pradesh next year. The tests will help exporters check if the product meets international
The Tanzania government has put Tata Chemicals's soda ash plant around Lake Natron on hold. National Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the country's environmental watchdog, has recommended a
a flat, 21 km strip of land in the middle of the Haldi river, three metres above sea level and accessible only by motorised boats, is the West Bengal government's alternative to Nandigram for a
