And thus we moved on to Nubra, almost alongside the ancient silk route from Central Asia to Punjab, for which Ladakh was a place of rest after crossing the mighty Karakoram. Nubra is the gateway to some of the world’s tallest peaks and glaciers, Siachen being the most prominent one. For the very reason, only some parts of it are open to tourists. Our destination though was Terchey on way to Turtuk (the last village in Nubra open to tourists) from Diskit, the block headquarters of Nubra. Terchay is a small hamlet but world famous in Ladakh. Because it is here that Ladakh’s poison comes from. Chaang, the local barley brew that Ladakhis savour on every occasion, be it marriage or death, owes one of it’s main ingredients to this place. Terchey makes Phaap or the fermentation tablets for Chaang which is then transported to Leh and then all over. When the winters sets in, Chaang and Tsampa (roasted barley floor) keeps the Ladakhis ensconced against dipping temperature.

We went to Terchey in March, the first month of the Tibetan calender, when the entire Ladakh is busy with prayers and religious rituals. The prayers at the village monastry had just got over and the entire village, a population of about 300, was gathered there. Mountain women with wrinkled phases and traditional woolen gowns and head gear swayed to the beats of Daman and Surna (drums and Shenhnai for us!) as they sipped on their Chaang. Intermittently, they would form a large cirlce along with the men and break into an impromptu dance. It was a total sense of freedom: from deadlines, work hours, worry to go tend the fields and animals; yet everything was getting done, as if on its own.

It is this sense of freedom from hassles and the joys of a life close to nature that one should come to Ladakh for. Somebody has said and very rightly, if you are not working in Ladakh, the place works on you. Even a die-hard urbanite won’t remain immune to Nature’s surprises in Nubra: sand dunes and a flowing river in a flat valley at the same time, and that, after one has crossed Khardung La.

The Tuberculosis (tb) bacteria kill two people every three minutes. The bacteria uses iron from the human body to survive. But the mechanism by which they source the iron was not known. Researchers from the University of Hyderabad have recently cracked the mechanism. Their research paves the way for new medicines to treat the disease better.

The tb pathogen sources its iron through molecules called siderophores, which have high affinity for iron. First, the pathogens release these molecules, which extracts iron from human cells, leaving them iron-scarce. The molecules are then transported back to the pathogen, which synthesizes the iron to sustain and grow at the cost of the host. These actions are dependent on two proteins that help complete the transportation cycle of siderophores. Blocking this transportation through medicines can be a breakthrough to cure tb. First, it will stop the iron uptake and secretion. Since there will be no export pathway for siderophores, it will extract iron from the microbe itself.

“A proper pool of iron needs to be maintained because low or even high concentration of iron is harmful to the cell,”

says Aisha Farhana, the lead author of the study published in the May 7 issue of PLoS One. The other concern, she says, is that anaemia is often an offshoot of tb. This is because iron is a major component of blood.

According to K K Chopra of the New Delhi Tuberculosis Centre,

“Till now, the anti- tb drugs that we have been using target protein uptake, not iron uptake. If developed and compared with a placebo, the drug might be more effective than the currently available drugs.”

Treatment at present involves a combination of drugs introduced in India in 1997, according to who recommendations. Also, who surveys in 1997 and 2007 found that multi-drug resistance tb strains were present in 63 of the 72 countries surveyed.

Hemkund, a glacial lake, is situated in the Nanda Devi Biospehere Reserve in Uttaranchal. The tenth Guru of the Sikhs is known to have meditated near the lake before assuming the human avatar. The pilgrimage includes a 19-kms trek after reaching the base camp at Gobind Ghat. But my problem started from Delhi itself as we left with a 150 people strong ‘religious troupe.’ They distributed ice-creams as soon as we started the wrappers of which everybody threw happily out of the bus even as they sang religious hymns. I managed to procure a polythene (for all my hate for the thing!) in which I collected the wrappers that I took from my parents and aunt and brother.

On the way from Shrinagar to Govind Ghat in the third day of journey from where we were supposed to start the trek, the group decided to stop near the banks of the river Alaknanda and prepare lunch. As some elders cooked, all others went down to the river bank to cool their heels; and also took along their soft drink bottles and tin cans. “Such is nature’s paradox. Even as the sun is lashing down on us, there is ice-cold water that provides relief. You do not get to see this ever in Delhi,” said a young man in the group as he sipped from his can of Pepsi. The next moment brought exactly what I dreaded. The can was flowing with the ‘ice-cold water.’ We went up to the road side for lunch. The site was chosen not just because of proximity to the river but also for a hand-pump that was much needed for cooking and washing. An old ascetic lived in a shack near the hand-pump who I am sure was used to the ‘loud’ Punjabis by now. The food tasted good but not the after-affects. The disposable plates were thrown in a pile near the ascetic’s shack along with the leftover food and other vegetable waste. This I could not collect in my polythene and my brother jeered at my obvious misery.

“Oye Environment! if you think too much, you will not be able to enjoy your vacation,” he said.

That is how my family has come to address me as in the last few years.

While talking about the role of religion in Environment conservation, Shrivatsa Goswami, a Mahant in Vrindavan told us last year that the quality of river water in a region talks a lot about the character of people in that region. If the river is pristine, people are still honest and sincere while its vice-versa in places where the river is dirty. I recalled this as we approached Govind Ghat. Parallel to the river, just a little higher, one could see a stream of vehicles, in all hues and sizes. There were more than a lakh pilgrims at Govind Ghat that day. The hoardings stating the presence of an eco-development committee were re-assuring but only for a short time. The claims that garbage is sent down to the plains for processing was trashed soon when I saw the sweepers off-loading their trolleys on the hill side, straight down into the river. I don’t know how long will the river remain pristine there.

Having reached the Gurudwara before my family, I was waiting outside when the organizer of our group came by. Trying my best not to sound like an ‘activist’ I asked him if it was possible that the pilgrims brought their own steel utensils for the food served on the way. “We tried doing this, but people are not admitting at all. They think it is extra luggage. We even tried carrying it for them but they are not happy even washing them,” said Bubble, as he was called by all of them. I wondered how people managed before “disposable plates” were invented.

Soon, I saw my mother and aunt who proudly showed me their shopping for the next day’s trek: five wooden sticks and five raincoats, costing Rs 10 each and made of polythene. “They are so cheap, one can even throw them after use,” said my aunt. Yeah! I glared at her. The next day, I was to see a lot of them covering bushes as we climbed the mountain.

19 kms of trek might not be an easy feat for all age groups. But more than the strength, I realized it was the religious drive that was edging most people when I looked back at the stream of humanity climbing up. Apart from the mules and piggy backs and ‘Palkis’ carrying those who could afford them, there were also people as old as 80 and kids as young as 4-5 who climbed uncomplainingly, with a prayer on their lips. I made some friends amongst these fellow Moksha seekers who were surprised like a child at every glacier, stream and unusual looking bushes and fruits. I also made a few friends who wondered why can’t there be a road from Govind Ghat to Hemkund. “Afterall, lakhs of people go up every year. The government should think on these lines,” said a professor from Punjab. “Moksha is not so easy, Prof,” I said to myself but dreaded the idea of blasting the mountains for the road.

Well, the trek did not turn out to be as difficult with the Dhabas at every turn selling all sorts of things, from raincoats to Glucon-D to packaged drinking water. Infact, I received a piece of advice as I filled my bottle from a stream on the way. “This water might be polluted, you will fall sick,” said one elderly lady. I recalled the ads of Himalaya and Ganga bottled water that claim the water to be especially “packaged from the mountain streams.” I wondered if that was safer because it was sold for Rs 15 a litre and not free like this stream. Here, I had another tussle with my family as they bought bottles of Limca. “They have sweepers all along the way to take the garbage down and recycle it,” my father said. One such sweeper was lighting a pile of garbage with his ‘beedi’ on my way back. I had become an old-fashioned cynic; I slapped myself on the head.

My mother, whose last trip to Hemkund was 30 years ago, said that things used to be very different back then. “There were not so many shops. Very few people went up because we had to walk on the glacier after the first 4-5 kms of the trek. The Hemkund ‘sarovar’ itself had little water as the rest was frozen and it was a challenge to take even a single dip in the ice-cold water, a ritual around which the pilgrimage is based,” she said. Well, we did not get a chance to walk on the snow but I was amazed to see the blue lake. The water was chilly but felt calming after the long trek.

As the atheist me sat there wondering how the Guru managed to find such a beautiful place to meditate, I heard the statutory announcements from the Gurudwara behind the lake.

“This is the Guru’s abode, all the pilgrims coming up should take care that they do not soil the surroundings. Please do not eat and throw chips packets and bottles around,” said the Granthi.

I wondered if anybody was listening.

The 10-year-old tiger – they usually life for 14-15 years in the wild-in Corbett National Park killed Bhagwati Devi of Dhikuli village in the buffer zone of the park on February 6 when she went into the forest to collect firewood. The villagers said the tiger attacked the 50-year-old from behind as she sat collecting wood. Following protests by people, the chief wildlife warden of Uttarakhand issued orders to kill or catch the “man-eater”. The forest department trapped the animal and sent it to a zoo in Nainital on February 10.

Bhagwati Devi’s husband B C Nainwal, however, does not blame the tiger. “It is the policies of the government that made the tiger a victim of public ire,” he said. “The tiger was roaming near Dhikuli for four-five months. The main reason was elephant safaris by resorts here. They are known to throw meat in front of the tiger to increase the sighting of the big cat.”

A forest official admitted the resort operators’ role was suspicious. “They conducted elephant safaris in the area though it is not a tourist zone,” he said. Thirty-six resorts line the state highway in Dhikuli, on the other side of which is the park boundary. The department has now banned elephant safaris in the buffer zone. The forest department says the tiger was observed in the area for more than a year. “We warned the villagers not to go inside the forest but they did not heed the warning,” said Umesh Tiwari, the Bijrani range officer.

It is believed to have been lured out of Deoria forest range in Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh in November 2008 while chasing a wild boar, which ran into adjacent sugarcane fields that mimicked the tiger’s natural habitat, grassland. On November 9, it attacked a farm labourer in the sugarcane field in Pareba village when he was cutting sugarcane. The next day it attacked Kishan Pal Gangwal in nearby Dammupura village but the teenager survived. “The first victim was in a hunched position, so probably the tiger mistook it for an animal,” said Pradeep Tyagi, a forest guard in Deoria.

The first incident happened 3 km from the forest and the second one about 5 km. The forest is continuous with sugarcane fields. The tiger was around three years old and was probably trying to set up its territory and found the adjoining sugarcane field a good habitat, said P K Gupta, divisional forest officer, Pilibhit.

The tiger was next spotted in Shahjahanpur, some 60 km from Pilibhit. On December 21, a teenager’s flesh-eaten body was found 150 km away in Barabanki district. This was when the chief wildlife warden of Uttar Pradesh B K Patnaik declared the tiger a man-eater. “The boy had been missing for three days, so it is difficult to say if he was a victim of the tiger,” said an official in the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). The chief wildlife warden countered this, saying a tiger’s pugmarks were found near the body.

The district magistrate announced an award for shooting the tiger, but the decision was soon reverted because it was against the NTCA guidelines. By now a frenzied mob was chasing the tiger. Four elephants, trackers, forest guards, tranquillising experts from the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun and wildlife NGOs from Delhi, were on the hunt. Some NGOs even set dogs on the trail of the big cat. Scared, the dogs hung close to the elephants’ legs.

The tiger wandered around human habitations in Lakhimpur, Sitapur, Barabanki and Lucknow before reaching Rudauli forest range of Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. It covered about 300 km. On January 10 and 14, it killed two more people in Kumarganj range of Faizabad. Except for the first kill in Pilibhit, the three other victims were killed inside forest. This shows the tiger did not come to the village to make a kill-a characteristic of a man-eater.

On February 24, it was shot between the eyes by Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, a shooter who came from Hyderabad. NTCA guidelines do not permit a non-forest services official to shoot a man-eater unless the forest department is not equipped to do so. To forest officials’ embarrassment it turned out to be a tigress though all the while they inferred from the pugmarks it was male.

A tiger, not more than two years old, killed its first human prey on January 4 outside the Kishanpur sanctuary in Dudhwa National Park close to the border with Nepal. Since then it has killed four more people and injured one. It claimed its last victim on February 19. The chief wildlife warden issued orders to shoot it.

“It did not eat the first two victims but only the third kill. It had lost the fear of humans. The last time we saw it, the tiger refused to move away when he saw a crowd,” said Mudit Gupta, senior project officer of WWF at a camp set up by the forest department near Kishanpur.

“The tiger was getting used to feeding on cattle carcasses thrown outside villages in the critical tiger habitat. Only once in the past two months it tried killing a wild animal in a wheat field. But the marks of struggle – badly damaged crop – show it was very young not trained in killing a wild prey,” said Anil Kumar Singh, coordinator, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a non-profit.

Here also sugarcane fields served as a good habitat for the tiger, where it got enough prey too. “The tiger was weaned early from its mother. When the sugarcane crop was cut, it took to killing humans,” said Anjan Talukdar, a veterinary doctor with the trust who tranquillised the tiger on March 1. The tiger was sent to the Lucknow zoo.

The Uttar Pradesh forest department is still on its toes. A tiger is roaming around Basti in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It probably wandered out of Valmiki sanctuary in Bihar and entered Ghazipur across the Bihar-Uttar Pradesh border.

“It doesn’t seem to be a man-eater. One person it killed was in self-defence. It is a 10-year-old tiger who is probably dislodged from its territory. It may reach Sohelwa Wildlife Sanctuary in Balrampur district,”

said Patnaik. These incidents have provoked a debate among wildlife managers and experts on whether the tigers were man-eaters and what compelled them to kill human beings. “Most of these tigers killed their first human prey in an accidental meeting. None of them considered humans their sole prey and in that sense they could be called problem tigers, but the term man-eater is for a tiger that learns to kill and subsist on humans in an efficient manner. The tiger then almost exclusively subsists on humans and actively seeks them out as prey,” said Y V Jhala, scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India. “None of these tigers fit into this category.”

In the three cases, the first victim was in a hunched position. “If surprised or cornered, a tiger can mistake human beings as a prey species and kill them. This is not man-eating,” Jhala added.

In two of the cases, tigers entered sugarcane fields. According to NTCA guidelines, tigers killing humans in sugarcane fields can be declared man-eaters only when they start living in the fields and attack people regularly. “All big cats venture into fields. This happened in the 1980s too, but then there was no 24×7 television,” said Vidya Athreya, a research associate with the Pune-based Kaati Trust that works on leopard rescue.

The Corbett tiger was captured in a hurry after what seemed like an accidental attack and the Faizabad tiger was chased around, pushed to make attacks, said Jay Mazoomdaar, journalist and filmmaker who broke the news about the absence of tigers in Sariska in 2005.

Hunter-turned-conservationist Billy Arjan Singh said tigers now have to live close to humans because there is no prey left in Dudhwa and forest mafia have destroyed the forest. More herbivores are now found in the buffer area of Corbett than in the core, added Iqbal Hussain, former sarpanch of Dhikuli.

It is not always out of compulsion that tigers move out of the forest. Experts say young tigers are expected to go out. “Usually they come back to the forest but sometimes they go too far and lose track,” said conservation biologist Raghunandan Singh Chundawat. Search for territory is a major reason for tigers moving out of forests. “Most tiger reserves are too small to contain a viable population of tiger for a long period. The prime habitats are occupied by dominant tigers. Sub-adult and old tigers are forced to use marginal habitats or disperse to other forests,” said Jhala.

However, today there are no connecting forests between tiger populations and when tigers disperse, they have to move through human habitats searching for a forest patch to settle in. Not finding any forest, they are forced to kill livestock and humans, said Jhala. “Till the 1960s, there were grasslands between the forest and agricultural fields in Pilibhit. Now the fields have extended up to the forest,” said P K Gupta.

The authorities in Corbett said they were forced by public ire to shoot the tiger or send it to a zoo. Chundawat questions the logic of sending tigers to zoos when there are very few tigers in the wild. “They need to trap the animal and take it back to a suitable habitat. When this can be done in Sariska, why can’t it be done in terai?”

Tiwari of Corbett said it is not easy to rehabilitate every tiger in the wild, especially a male who is not readily accepted by tigers in their territories. But there are forests like Rajaji National Park, which can accommodate tigers.

Wildlife experts also point out it is crucial to take quick action in case of a wandering tiger because if it adapts to eating humans, rehabilitating it in the wild becomes difficult. The authorities are then forced to take extreme steps like shooting. “We need a special team to deal with such situations.

The forest department should start monitoring tigers as soon as villagers report their straying. They do not have to wait for a kill to happen and then people to get angry and the politicians to pressure on them to act,” said Chundawat.

Athreya suggests tracking through GPS collars, though it is expensive-one collar costs Rs 2-3 lakh-and will require capturing tigers. The long-term solution to avoid such conflicts, point out wildlife experts, is better training of forest officials in pugmark identification and arms handling, and better habitat management, like ensuring a gradual, not abrupt, decrease of forest cover.

OVER 120 nations have agreed to have legally binding measures to control the pollution by mercury, a neurotoxin. Formal negotiations for the treaty will begin in 2010.

The agreement, reached at the 25th session of the Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme (unep) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is a change from previous years, when major powers, including the US, China and India, sought voluntary reductions. On February 18, they agreed to consider the binding treaty.

Some countries, including India, had earlier said a legally binding agreement is not necessary for unintentional mercury emissions. It was supported by China and Indonesia.

“Switzerland agreed that different mechanisms were necessary for unintentional and intentional emissions, but stressed that all mercury emissions must be addressed under the legally binding measures,”

said Prashant Pastore of Toxic Link, Delhi-based non-profit, who attended the meeting.

A consensus was reached after the US supported the call to ban mercy use worldwide. Changing its stand, the new US administration under President Barack Obama wanted a legally binding international treaty to reduce the toxic pollutant’s content in the environment. Till now, the US had supported only voluntary and partnership measures.

“This came as a surprise,” said Pastore. “Several non-profits said they were floored during the US announcement,” said a press release of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (enb), a news service for environment and development negotiations. “The US said the measures should address all significant sources of mercury, especially sectors with the greatest global impact including coal combustion,” said the press release.

The treaty would mandate signatory countries to follow measures to phase out the toxic pollutant.

An Inter-governmental Negotiating Committee will begin formal negotiations on the treaty in 2010, which will be wrapped up by 2013. The committe will devise modalities for phasing out mercury in terms of addressing the anthropogenic sources of the chemical, capacity building and technical and financial assistance to countries.

On behalf of developing countries, India called for a committed financial assistance to introduce mercury-free technologies. The EU rejected the proposal initially, but after consultations delegates agreed that developing countries and transition economies should be provided with technical and adequate financial assistance to help them implement the legally binding obligations effectively.

Widely used in chemical production and small-scale mining, mercury is also known to affect the cardio-vascular system. It persists in the environment once released and can travel long distances. Thus even countries which release little or no mercury and areas far away from industrial activities are at the risk of being contaminated. The Arctic, for instance, has high mercury levels, although it is far from major release sites. Its toxic forms such as methylmercury can cross the placental and blood-brain barrier affecting foetuses and children.

ENVIRONMENTALIST G D Agarwal has managed to stall the controversial Loharinag Pala power project coming up speedily on the Bhagirathi, a tributary of the Ganga. On February 20, the Ministry of Power assured him work on the dam would be suspended immediately. Following this, Agarwal who was into the 37th day of his hunger strike, broke his fast.

This was the second time Agarwal, former member secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board, went on a hunger strike demanding a ban on hydropower projects on the crucial 125 km stretch of the Ganga between Uttarkashi and Gangotri and to allow the river to flow naturally (see ‘Myth of power’, Down To Earth, September 1-15, 2008).

In June 2008, he had called off his nine-day fast after the Uttarakhand government suspended work on two hydropower projects at Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati, upstream of Uttarkashi district. However, work on the Loharinag-Pala hydropower project, being executed by the National Thermal Power Corporation in Uttarakashi, did not stop. Agarwal resumed his hunger strike on January 14.

To pacify him, the Union power ministry sent him a letter on February 5 promising to keep a minimum flow of 16 cubic metre per second (cumecs) at the Loharinag-Pala dam site during the lean season in winter. The ministry assured no other project would come up on the Bhagirathi.

In his reply to power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Agarwal said he had been “duped” by the ministry. Citing a similar letter written by the ministry on June 30, Agarwal said he was led to believe the ministry was committed to conserving the Bhagirathi.

“I broke my annshan (fast). But now, I have realized where the commitments of your ministry lie,” said Agarwal. He was referring to the report of the expert committee, set up by the ministry, which said only four cumecs water flow can be maintained at the site once the dam comes up.

“I doubt the power ministry’s credibility and do not plan to enter into any contact or communication with it until all work on Loharinag Pala has been completely stopped,” the environmentalist said.

Managers for Ganga
The Centre has notified the Ganga River Basin Authority, which will be responsible for comprehensive management of the Ganga river basin. It will be headed by the prime minister. The authority will have chief ministers of the five Ganga basin states—Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal—on board. The ministers of water resources, environment and forests, finance, urban development and science and technology will also be members.

“The body will see that development requirements (such as construction of hydropower projects) are met in a sustainable manner while ensuring ecological flows,” said a press release issued by the prime minister’s office (pmo) on February 17. The body will not be a separate additional clearance mechanism. Rather, it will develop a management plan for the river basin and address pollution abatement measures by ensuring adequate ecological flow in the river. Specific interventions for sewage treatment have also been planned.

Environmentalists have been quick to criticize the notification.

“The term ‘ecological flow’ is tricky,” said Pavitra Kumar, a close associate of Agarwal. “Ecological flow means maintaining adequate water flow in the river just for its ecological health. The authority should have used the term ‘environmental flow’ which also accounts for human needs such as groundwater recharge potential of the river,”

said Kumar.

Others said the notification is just another political ploy.
“Announcement to set up a new authority ahead of the elections is merely a move to prevent the (opposition) Bharatiya Janta Party from cashing in on the Ganga controversy,” said Vimal Bhai, head of Matu People’s Organization, an environmental group active in Uttarakhand. The matter will be dragged on till the elections and then forgotten because even the Congress is not against the dams, Vimal Bhai said.

Sahil yaduvanshi, 4, loves airplanes. He does not have to go far to look at one. He just has to peer out of his play school window and look up every few minutes to see one. “This is Cattie…,” he shouts out to his friend Pushpesh as he looks out. Sahil enjoys the sight of the planes, and wants to become a pilot when he grows up. His only complaint is to do with the roar of the planes. “I cannot hear my teacher and my friends because of the noise,” Sahil said. He studies in Aadyant pre-school in Vasant Kunj in Delhi. Most of his friends find it difficult to concentrate after a third runway—Runway 29—became operational at the Indira Gandhi airport in September 2008. “The children get disoriented as there is an airplane flying by every few minutes. We have to repeat lessons and even raise our voices to be heard,” said Bhavina Bembi, a school counsellor.

In flight path The problem of noise disturbance is not restricted to the school but the entire residential area from Andheria Modh, east of the airport, to Bijwasan to its west. These localities are in the airport flight path. “We got the noise levels in Vasant Kunj area checked privately and found it varies between 75 and 100 decibels,” said Anil Sood, president of the non-profit Chetna.

This is much more than the limit of 55 dB during the day and 45 dB at night set by the Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) for residential areas. Before the runway was built, the noise level varied from 59-65 dB, according to studies carried out by the cpcb in areas around the airport in 2004 and 2007. Environmental clearances were also given a go by. Sood said he had filed an RTI application and found no environment impact assessment was carried out before constructing the third runway. The Delhi International Airport (Private) Ltd (dial), the company that manages the airport, has now agreed to undertake noise abatement measures. This was after a meeting with the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (epca) on January 10 to discuss noise abatement measures.

Measure noise “We are interacting with resident welfare associations of Vasant Kunj and other localities. We will take corrective measures,” a dial spokesperson said. dial has promised to install six aircraft noise monitoring systems (anms) by June this year. This conforms with cpcb guidelines for monitoring noise pollution around airports, issued in June 2008. “Right now airports hire contractors to measure noise pollution.

They use a simple sound level meter. An anms is a complete set of sound level meters along with software connected to the air traffic control room and measure the noise of each aircraft that lands or takes off,” said a cpcb official. He said this would help compare data of aircraft. These instruments cost Rs 50 lakh each and would have to be imported. “Class 1 sound level meters, made as per international specifications, cost about Rs 10 lakh and come with their own software. An anms will have three or four of these devices, said Piyush Kumar a sales engineer with Josts Engineering Company Ltd, an importer. As per the minutes of the epca meeting, the airport managers have proposed closing Runway 29 during the night and switching off one or two engines at the time of landing to lower noise levels. Phasing out old noisy aircraft and using only one runway during off-peak hours have also been proposed. Once that happens Sahil has better chances to work towards his desire to fly.

A cpcb official said it is difficult to maintain the noise standards in residential areas near airports at par with other localities. New standards are being worked out, he said. In most countries, noise limits in the airport vicinity vary from 57 dB to 90 dB with a night curfew in many of them. Residents around the airport want a ban on flights at night with immediate effect.

About 30 hours ago, two men on a bike sped by me, snatching my paper shopping bag on their way. besides the sunday shopping, the bag also had my wallet which contained my driving license, atm cards, 5k in hard cash besides other “hardly important” things as said the ‘fine’ police officer filing my complaint. Now the later word in quotes was me quoting myself.  Soon, i gave a call to the PCR who instead of going after the bikers, came to me and stood consoling me because they soon got to know that this women is a “presswallah”, and then came another police bullet and then the Station House Officer’s car. Imagine the solidarity with a press reporter! They all took details of the incident from me seperately and the SHO even tried to tell me his media contacts and how they keep coming to his office without realising Goddamn u, I am not bothered about anything else right now but my wallet. However, in all this, they forgot only one thing, that they should be sending somebody on the road where the bikers fled. When I insisted, I was told two bikes are already after them. Yeah, I believe u sir!! Obviously the bikers knew that the area police has grown their ponches with much effort and would not give up on it easily. “Posh areas mein yeh sab hota hi rehta hai, ab police har samay toh nahi reh sakti na,”  the fine SHO tells me. The point to be taken is that the police check post is just 2-3 minutes away from the spot where already 4-5 snatching incidents have already happened.

After a two hours’ drama on the spot when I insisted that I want to file a formal first information report instead of just a complaint on a plain sheet of paper (even that was tattered and they procured a blank one with great difficulty) they tried their best to persuade me not to do it. “Madam, kuch ho toh sakta nahi isme, fir kyon aap apna time kharab kar rahe ho?” So that is the punch line Boss!! Nothing can happen, the police admits it. To hell with u and your safety! Nothing can happen! Now its your wish whether u want to fight your way or just rest your mind at peace and do not just go out of your house, as I said earlier.

Act I, Scene 2: Vikaspuri Police Station.

we reach there 30 minutes after the last encounter with our fine cops, blocking my atm cards in the time between. The officer was still writing something on the plain sheet on which I gave them my rough FIR draft. we were told that we will have to wait for about 1.5 hours, so why don’t we come the next day. We too refused to budge,s aid theres office tomorrow, lets finish everything today. After about half an hour, I went inside the police station to check and found the poor cop struggling with the keyboard. obviously, they are supposed to catch theives, not operate keyboards!! He had managed only one paragraph out of the four written by me. I really felt pity for him and offered to help. And i ended up TYPING MY OWN FIR.  Still, I could not get it the same night. Guess the reason: the paper on which print out was to be taken was locked up by another constable in a cupboard and he had gone for a raid to Ghaziabad!

Act II, Scene I: Vikaspuri Police Station

Monday Morning. Before rushing for the office meeting, it is the police station today. I am met with two ‘fine’ female constables in the duty room. They ask me when the case happened. Even as they are about to note down the details for the fourth time, I tell them that I have already lodged my FIR. They tell me since the case happened just yesterday, it will take time to register an FIR. And that is where I cannot take it anymore. I tell them that I filed it myself last night and just a minute ago, I saw a copy of it in the hands of the SHO outside. Thankfully, the point is well understood and here begins another struggle with the rickety old computer Dabba. This time, I go inside the duty room to take out a printout of my FIR. And then begins the hunt for the duty officer who filed the report last night but did not obviously sign it. So, the fine female constable fakes up his signature. However, in my morning rush, I am supposed to forgive her for this.

The grand finale: we are met by the same fine officer whom we met last night walking around with a sten gun. I tell him how I was forced to come in the morning for lack of paper last night. “Ab police hai na madam, kya karen,” this was his parting remark to me. Now, I will begin another new act with the Regional Transport Office tomorrow, the Delhi Police’s siblings, where I will have to go to get my driving license made anew.

The settlers were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They grew vegetables, flowers, wheat and rice on the land rented from people who once held land lease given by the irrigation department. Pappu of Kaimur district in Bihar had rented about 6 ha at Nayabaans close to the Okhla Bird Park and DND flyway for Rs 6,000 per hectare for a year. While he farmed, his younger siblings studied in a makeshift school. He lost his month-old vegetable crop and has nowhere to go.

“They just came in the evening and trampled all over the vegetables and flooded the fields. Had they at least given us a notice we would not have sown crops. I had invested Rs 15,000-20,000 on wheat.”

said Sauraj Singh Kashyap of Hapur in Uttar Pradesh. H C Malhotra, a member of literacy organization Gyan Jyoti Vidyalaya, which set up the makeshift school in the area, said “These people have not made permanent structures on the riverbed. They were merely making a living out of agriculture.”

The irrigation department said it had cancelled all leases in 1999 but people continued to possess the land. “About seven people had pattas over this 25 ha. They filed cases in court and the hearing is on,” said a department official. “This was not a demolition exercise, so a court order was not needed. We just removed people who had encroached upon the department’s land,” added the official.

Sohanpal of Dallupura village in Noida does not agree.

“The land was given to us in 1948 when the British left, and ever since my family has been cultivating it. My case is being heard in the sub divisional magistrate’s court in Dadri,”

he said.

What development?

The Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department got some land in the National Capital Territory along the Yamuna Pushta road in 1956 for its maintenance. It is now transferring 362 ha of it in Delhi and 32.5 ha in Noida to the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, also called Noida authority. The places where the land is being transferred are Madanpur Khadar, Sarita Vihar, Jamia Nagar and patches between Chilla Regulator and the Shahdara railway bridge. About 55.5 ha in Madanpur Khadar and 128 ha in Sarita Vihar and Jamia Nagar have been transferred.

The Noida authority said the land is being transferred for development but refused to specify the kind of development.

“The irrigation department is unable to do any development there because it does not come under its purview. We will take up development in accordance with the Masterplan of Delhi 2021. I cannot comment on the land in Noida,”

said Rajpal Kaushik, senior town planner of the authority.

Kaushik also said the Noida authority would request the Delhi Development Authority for change of land use, deepening people’s suspicion that it plans commercial development on the floodplain. Under the Delhi master plan most land near the Yamuna is for greenery and recreation.

An official of the irrigation department said the Noida authority would develop a green belt on the land. “Why can’t the department do so? By next year, I am sure there will be construction near the Okhla Bird Park,” said Anand Arya, a bird watcher who regularly visits the park.

A fire at Ankleshwar forced India to rethink how it handles hazardous waste. Drums carrying dangerous industrial sludge flew amid leaping flames and burst in the air at a waste storage at the industrial complex in Bharuch district of Gujarat on April 3 last year. Ash fell all around. People in nearby villages were told to evacuate; many suffered coughing, headache, nausea and burning sensation in the nose and throat.

It could have turned into a disaster worse than the Bhopal gas tragedy but for the change in the wind direction away from other factories (see ‘Bhopal to Bharuch’, Down To Earth, April 30, 2008).

Fire at Ankleshwar exposed careless handling of waste
Photographer:Ravleen Kaur

The fire burnt 250 tonnes of toxic industrial waste at the treatment, storage and disposal facility or tsdf in Ankleshwar. This waste had been sent there for incineration at 1,100°C because it was too dangerous to reuse or dump in a landfill. And burning it under ordinary conditions could release pollutants like cancer-causing dioxins and furans.

Waste oil and sludge—all paid for by industries—were leaking from barrels at Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Ltd (BEIL), the tsdf that caught fire. Though BEIL —of which pesticide giant United Phosphorous is a major equity holder—cannot incinerate more than 50 tonnes of waste a day, it had crammed over 12,800 tonnes in sheds with narrow passage in between.

Prompted by the accident, the Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) in April 2008 set up a committee under its former adviser R K Garg to stipulate detailed and explicit guidelines for storage of incinerable hazardous waste at captive incinerators and tsdfs, which are landfills with or without incinerators. In November, the board announced new guidelines (see Storage guidelines). Till then tsdfs were not bound by any time limit for storing hazardous incinerable waste, though being reactive and inflammable, the waste is risky to store— BEIL and the factory inspector in Ankleshwar believe the April fire occurred due to a reaction between the waste and the steel drum in which it was stored. Only industries were told not to store such waste for more than 90 days on their premises.

The committee decided that a tsdf should not store hazardous waste for more than six months. It noted sampling, analysis and mixing of the right kind of waste before incineration could take three months, but considering the time an incinerator requires for repairs, which is an annual affair, six months’ storage time is appropriate.

BEIL had waste lying there for up to two years, even though the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (gpcb) had allowed it 90 days’ storage time.

Industries in India produce hundreds of tonnes of waste every day that cpcb classifies harmful to our health and the environment. It can be toxic, flammable, corrosive, radioactive or reactive. Of this inflammable organic waste produced by industries like pesticide, pharmaceutical and refinery has to be incinerated. These are mostly synthetic chemicals that, scientists say, do not easily break down in the environment and deposit in human bodies through the food chain. They interfere with our biochemistry that affects our intelligence, immunity, behaviour and reproduction. Benzene used in bulk drug factories, for example, is a carcinogen. Exposure to it for a long time can be fatal.

Ten months after the fire—and despite orders to do so—neither gpcb nor the factory inspector of the area nor BEIL itself knows the nature of the waste burnt and the company it came from. On July 8, cpcb issued directions to BEIL regarding safety—like installing smoke and fire detectors, water sprinklers, providing ventilation, labelling drums to identify waste—under the Environment Protection Act 1986. The facility was asked to submit an action plan for incinerating the 12,800 tonnes of waste lying on its premises, and not to accept fresh waste till it had done so.

BEIL was given three months to act upon the directions. It trimmed the size of some sheds to create a wider passage between them, laid the storage areas with concrete flooring, installed fire hydrants and smoke detectors and labelled the drums.

“We have spent over Rs 7 crore on upgrading. Each drum has been painted and labelled as per the categories in hazardous waste rules,” said P N Parmeswaran, vice-president (environment) of United Phosphorus.

However, 4,000 tonnes of waste was still lying at the facility in December end. According to cpcb, 7,000 tonnes remained to be treated on October 13. So in more than six months, the company could take care of only 5,800 tonnes. Of this 1,000 tonnes were sent to another tsdf, Gujarat Enviro Protection and Infrastructure, in Surat, according to the documents obtained from gpcb under RTI. As per BEIL’s stated capacity at least 7,500 tonnes should have been incinerated in six months.

Environmental activists in Ankleshwar are now angry over the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s order in December allowing BEIL to incinerate 350 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) plant in Bhopal. “When they are not able to manage the waste of this industrial area, how can they take care of the waste in the Union Carbide factory?” asked Zia Pathan, a lawyer in Ankleshwar and member of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, a non-profit active in Gujarat.

Will BEIL be nailed? No criminal case is filed against it (see Where is the punishment?). Pollution control boards can act against the BEIL director under section 15 of the Environment Protection Act in case of loss of health or vegetation, for which the culprit can get jailed for five years. But they have not done so. Proving impact on health and vegetation is not easy. “If people have breathing disorders how can one know it is because of BEIL?” asked Pathan.