At 1,706, India's tiger count up 12 percent

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who released the All India Tiger Estimation Exercise for 2010, said that "the mid-point range" of tigers in the country is 1706.

The previous census in 2006 did not cover Sundarbans.

"...That is why I am comparing 2006 and 2010.... When you compare the like with the like, 1411 in 2006 increases to 1636 in 2010. But if you include 70 estimated population in Sundarban, the total estimated population--there is a lower limit and there is an upper limit--the mid-point range is 1706 tigers," the Minister said.

Ramesh said when the Sundarban figure is excluded, the total estimated tiger population figure stands at 1636.

"This figure at 1636 is a 12 per cent increase of 1411 and is welcome news," Ramesh said.

Admitting that there have been higher than normal tiger mortality figures in 2009 and 2010, he said, "But we don't report tiger fertility.

"Tiger mortality is headlines. But when it comes to tiger fertility nobody bothers about it. And remember, this camera trap method has captured 615 photographs of tigers which are more than one-and-a-half years old," Ramesh said.

He said tiger occupancy has fallen in tiger reserves in Central India especially in northern Andhra Pradesh and in part of Madhya Pradesh corridor.

"The most positive news has been reported from Naxal-affected Nagarjuna Sagar Tiger Reserve in Andhra Pradesh. We have estimated the number of tigers there to be 60," the Minister said.

He also said there is positive news from other Naxal-affected reserves including Indravati (Chattisgarh), Simlipal (Orissa), Valmiki (Bihar), Palamau (Jharkhand).

The census, which was the most comprehensive and scientifically conducted exercise so far, used cameras installed at strategic points like water bodies in forests, as also in respective territories of big cats.

Computers were used to analyse and collate the data.The 2006 Census had shown a sharp fall in the number of tigers in ‘protected areas’ - reserves, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries - in 19 states across the country

Source: Deccan Herald, 28-3-2011

Continuous leak at Japanese plant

SINGAPORE: The radiation crisis at the quake-and-tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi atomic energy plant in Japan deepened on Sunday, prompting a protest march in Tokyo by several hundred activists opposed to the generation of electricity by nuclear means.

Japan's nuclear safety regulators expressed the view that “there is a continuous leakage” of radioactive substances.

And, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the plant and is responsible for managing the crisis, indicated that “there is a breach in the reactor” at Unit 2.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said, in a televised press conference in Tokyo, “a certain amount of radioactive materials has melted” at Unit 2 in the multi-reactor plant.

“I believe that fuel rods inside the reactor [at Unit 2] were exposed above water for some time,” causing a high degree of radioactivity at the site, said Mr. Edano, without referring to the alarming figure that the plant officials had first put out.

By nightfall on Sunday, TEPCO withdrew its earlier estimate that extreme level of radiation, as detected in stagnant water inside the turbine room of Unit 2, was caused by radioactive substances which exceeded their normal density at the site by 10-million times.

But such a dangerous degree of radiation was said to have been fully contained within the reactor site itself. However, the workers engaged in a variety of tasks aimed at bringing the plant under control were promptly withdrawn.

Mr. Edano later said “it would take some time” for these workers to return to the plant site.

At the same time, it was “a welcome sign” that the workers, who were hospitalised for exposure to intense radiation at Unit 3, would now be discharged soon, he said.

Until Sunday, officials were describing the situation at Unit 3, designed for using mixed fuel, as very “precarious” and “unpredictable” because of the extensive damage caused there by the March 11 temblor and tsunami.

Following the unabated alarm since then about the radioactive pollution of air, water, food and dairy produce, and seawater, the government had now advised a careful analysis of the soil at the power plant premises.

The investigation would focus on the possibility of plutonium leakage as well, said Mr. Edano.

The concerns, articulated by the Tokyo protesters, were less specific but no less intense.

One protester said he was always opposed to nuclear power but he could raise his voice louder now.

Source: The Hindu, 28-3-2011

Jairam meets Sheila, Hooda over Yamuna pollution

NEW DELHI: Delhi and Haryana on Sunday agreed to keep their end of the bargain by deciding to take remedial measures for curtailing pollution in the Yamuna. At a meeting presided over by Union Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh, Chief Ministers of Delhi and Haryana were handed over the to-do list for ensuring that untreated effluents are not released into the river.

Addressing media persons after the meeting held at Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's residence, Mr. Ramesh said: “There are three decisions that have been taken. The first is that a monitoring unit will be set up by the Central Pollution Control Board to keep a check on water quality.”

The real-time online water monitoring system installed at Wazirabad will test the water quality on a real-time basis and put out the report online for the stakeholders. Two more monitoring units will be subsequently set up at Palla and Badarpur to check the quality of water entering Delhi and released from Delhi.

The monitoring system is expected to end squabbling over pollution levels in the river. “This will end the daily controversy on the quality and whether or not the ammonia levels are high in the water. Both Haryana and Delhi will get the reports and take action,” said the Minister.

The second measure is to augment the sewage treatment capacity in Haryana. Following the CPCB inspection of Haryana's industrial sector Panipat from where the untreated effluents are allegedly released into the river, it has been decided to set up a sewage treatment plant at the outfall of Panipat drain to stop all untreated effluents from entering the river.

“The effluent treatment system in Haryana is not running to its full capacity, the Common Effluent Treatment Plant in Panipat has to have 512 units connected to it, whereas there are only 35 so far. The Environment and Forests Ministry has offered financial assistance under the National River Conservation Plan to strengthen their effluents treatment system so that no untreated effluents infiltrate into the river,” the Minister said.

Finally, to arrest the flow of untreated effluents from Delhi into the river, the Minister proposed that under the Yamuna Action Plan-III, a Rs.1,650 crore will be assigned to modernise the existing sewage treatment system in Delhi. “YAP-III will focus only on Delhi. We will soon get the Union Cabinet clearance for allotment of Rs.1,400 crore that is the Centre's share and comes as assistance from Japan to be used for modernising the sewerage network in Delhi. It is a big challenge to ensure that the effluents from 26 drains are not allowed to mix with the river,” the Minister said

Source: The Hindu, 28-3-2011

Heavy rain due to manmade warming: Study

NEW DELHI: Human beings may be partially to blame for the increasing intensity of rain and snowstorms, says a new climate study published on Thursday.

This is the first time human-induced rise in greenhouse gases has been directly linked to intensity of extreme rain and snow. The study in Nature journal examined data from across the northern hemisphere, including India, and found that the intensity of extreme rainfall and snow had gone up in recent years.

The authors studied the most extreme episodes of rain and snow from 1951 to 1999 and found their magnitude on the rise towards the end of the century. They then compared the actual observations with predictions in various climate models.

It was found that natural variability alone could not account for the intensity of storms, but when the models factored in greenhouse gases, they showed intensity increases similar to those observed — indicating that global warming effects were kicking in.

''Our results provide the first formal identification of a human contribution to the observed intensification of extreme precipitation,'' the paper by scientists in Canada and Scotland said.

This rise held true at scales no smaller than a continent, said the study. That means it is not possible to link single events — like the severe floods in Pakistan last year or the cloudburst at Leh — to climate change, but the trend shows up over a large geographical area in course of time.

''Our results also show that the global climate models we used may have underestimated the observed trend, which implies that extreme precipitation events may strengthen more quickly in the future than projected and that they may have more severe impact than estimated,'' the study warned. The same issue of Nature carries another study by British researchers on flooding in England in the autumn of 2000. It says global warming had doubled the likelihood of the event occurring.

Source: Times of India, 19 -3-2011

Green sludge can protect groundwater from radioactivity

LONDON: Neptunium, a radioactive waste product from uranium reactors, can be captured now. It could pose a serious health risk should it ever seep its way into groundwater -- even five million years after it is deposited in a dump.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have shown the hazardous waste can be captured and contained with the help of a particular kind of green sludge that occurs naturally in oxygen-poor water.

Bo C. Christiansen, geochemist at the University of Copenhagen who specializes in "green rust", explains how it contains neptunium, the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta reports.

"Our study shows that even the safest encapsulation of radioactive waste could be made safer if radioactive waste canisters are buried in a place where green rust will form," explains Christiansen, according to a Copenhagen statement.

For years green rust was perceived as a problem. The substance was investigated primarily by material scientists who wanted to know how to avoid green rust formation in reinforced concrete.

In recent years, however, a group of chemists, physicists and geologists at the Copenhagen University Chemistry department's Nano-Geoscience Research Group have been studying the substance's beneficial properties.

The results have exceeded all expectations. "Neptunium is a relatively exotic problem. Not a lot of people need to safeguard a radioactive waste depot. But green rust appears to be effective against nearly any kind of pollution," says Christiansen.

Source: Times Of India, 18 -3-2011

Scientists unearth largest ever plant-eating dinosaur

LONDON: Scientists have unearthed what they say are the remains of one of the largest ever plant-eating dinosaurs that roamed the world some 90 million years ago

An international team of researchers, which found the fossils of the giant animal from a region in Angola, believe the creature was a long-necked plant eater and could be bigger than T.rex -- the largest land-based carnivores of all time.

Dubbed the Angolatitan adamastor, or Angolan giant, it is believed to be part of a previously unknown dinosaur, the Daily Mail reported.

The skeletons of the creature were found in an area that would have been underwater when the dinosaur was alive 90 million years ago, the researchers said.

It is believed that the remains, found with fish and shark teeth, might have been washed into the sea and torn apart by ancient sharks.

Matthew Bonnan, a sauropod expert at Western Illinois University, said he believed the team's claim to have discovered a new dinosaur is genuine.

"I think they've been very careful," he said, adding the find could add to knowledge about how sauropods, or the lizard-hipped dinosaurs, adapted to different environments.

Dr Bonnan said it was "really cool" to see research coming out of Angola and the "neat thing about dinosaur paleontology is that it's becoming more global".

"The more people and places that we involve in science, the better off we all are," he added.

Angola has witnessed a long anti-colonial war followed by a civil war since its independence from Portugal in 1975. The fighting ended in 2002.

Dr Octavio Mateus, of Portugal's Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Museum of Lourinha, who led the excavation project in Angola said lack of money has been the greatest barrier to research.

The findings were published in the journal Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Science.

Source: Times Of India, 17 -3-2011

BP oil spill offers clues on air pollution: Study

WASHINGTON: The BP oil spill that sent 4 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico last year also created air pollution, and studying this pollution gave scientists clues into how these contaminants get into the atmosphere.

BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 people and spewing oil from the underwater well that rose to the surface. It also created a plume of air pollution downwind of the spill, researchers reported in the journal Science.

The lightest chemicals in the oil evaporated within hours, as scientists expected them to do. What they didn't expect was that heavier compounds -- the ones with more carbon atoms per molecule -- in the oil took longer to evaporate, spread out much more widely and contributed most to the formation of air pollution particles.

"We were able to confirm a theory that a major portion of particulate air pollution is formed from chemicals that few are measuring, and which we once assumed were not abundant enough to cause harm," Joost de Gouw, a scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a co-author of the study, said in a statement.

To measure the pollution above the Gulf, NOAA sent a "hurricane hunter" plane equipped to monitor air quality to make two flights over the area in June 2010, while oil was still spilling.

The plane, a Lockheed WP-3D Orion, was fully loaded with instruments designed to measure different types of air pollution particles, including organic aerosol and the chemicals from which they form.

But the plane did not measure the heavier compounds that ultimately contributed most to air pollution, because most air quality monitoring equipment is designed to look at the conventional contributors to poor air quality, which are the lighter, more volatile materials.

Aerosols are microscopic particles suspended in the air, the same size particles as in spray deodorant or hair spray. Organic aerosols come from organic material and are linked to asthma, cardiovascular disease and even premature death.

They make up about half the air pollution particles in polluted US cities. But scientists have identified only a small fraction of the organic aerosols.

To figure out where where all this organic aerosol came from, de Gouw and his colleagues ran computer models of how various weights of oil -- heavy, medium and light -- spread across the Gulf and how long it would take each to get into the atmosphere.

The heavier compounds were the clear culprit, the researchers found.

Air pollution particles also can affect climate, with some particles, including organic aerosol, counteracting greenhouse warming by reflecting sunlight. Other particles have the opposite effect, increasing warming by letting the atmosphere absorb more sunlight.

There was about the same amount of organic aerosol in the plume above the Gulf as there is in US urban air.

"This chemistry could be a very important source of aerosol in the United States and elsewhere," de Gouw said. "What we learned from this study will actually help us to improve air quality understanding and prediction."

Source: Times Of India, 11 -3-2011

Panel formed to save endangered gharial

LUCKNOW: Gharial is a critically endangered animal today. The recent assessments indicate that not more than 200 breeding adults might be present in the country. MoEF, therefore, has proposed some serious conservation measures for gharials.

The national tri-state Chambal sanctuary management coordination committee has been formed to look into the conservation issues. The first meeting of the committee has took some serious decisions like developing a tri-state management plan for gharial in consultation with experts, local communities, state forest department and others.

The committee is a three tier de-centralised mechanism to look into entire gamut of issues from socio-economic to monitoring and research protocols. It has to devise an institutional framework to ensure proper coordination among all stakeholders and develop better coordination amongst three states and centre for concerted conservation initiatives with focus on involvement of local community.

Source: Times Of India, 19 -3-2011

Global warming was more common 50m yrs ago

LONDON: Periods of intense global warming lasting tens of thousands of years occurred more frequently in the past than previously believed, according to a new study.

A team, led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said that releases of carbon dioxide sequestered in the deep oceans were the most likely trigger of these ancient 'hyperthermal' events.

The hyperthermals took place roughly every 400,000 years during a warm period of Earth's history that prevailed some 50 million years ago and lasted about 40,000 years before temperatures returned to normal.

The majority of these hyperthermals increased average global temperatures by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

"These hyperthermals seem not to have been rare events. There are lots of ancient examples of global warming on a scale broadly like the expected future warming. We can use these events to examine the impact of global change on marine ecosystems, climate and ocean circulation," said Richard Norris, a Scripps geology professor who co-authored the study.

The strongest of them coincided with an event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the transition between two geologic epochs in which global temperatures rose between 7.2 and 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit and needed 200,000 years to return to historical norms.

The events stopped taking place around 40 million years ago, when the planet entered a cooling phase. No warming events of the magnitude of these hyperthermals have been detected in the geological record since then.

Norris and lead author Phil Sexton, now at the Open University in the UK, analysed 50-million-year-old ocean sediment cores gathered off the South American coast.

In the cores, evidence of the warm periods presented itself in bands of grey sediment layered within otherwise pale greenish mud.

The grey sediment contained increased amounts of clay left after the calcareous shells of microscopic organisms were dissolved on the sea floor.

These clay-rich intervals are consistent with ocean acidification episodes that would have been triggered by large-scale releases of carbon dioxide.

The authors concluded that a release of carbon dioxide from the deep oceans was a more likely cause of the hyperthermals than other triggering events that have been hypothesized.

Norris noted that the hyperthermals provide historical perspective on what Earth will experience as it continues to warm from widespread use of fossil fuels, which has increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere nearly 50 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The study appears in the journal Nature.

Source: Times Of India,17 -3-2011

High marine radiation levels cause scare in Japan

SINGAPORE: Japan on Tuesday reported an above-normal presence of radioactive substances in seawater in the vicinity of the quake-and-tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi civil nuclear plant.

The detection of seawater contamination added a new dimension to the continuing crisis over the general safety of the stricken nuclear reactors. And, the latest scare punctuated the unabated concerns over above-normal traces of radiation in the surrounding environment and in some local food products

However, the Japanese authorities said the crisis should be viewed in the overall context of remedial and precautionary measures that were being adopted. In a message on the Facebook page of the Japanese Prime Minister's Office, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: “There have been harmful rumours about Japanese foodstuffs. However, the shipment restrictions in question on some food products of the Fukushima area have been taken as a precautionary measure based on the government's conservative-standard values.”

Noting that “higher-than-normal levels of radioactive caesium in fallout were detected on Monday night in respect of these food products, Mr. Edano said: “Even if a person is exposed to the levels in question for one month, it would be as much as about only 60 per cent of radiation in a round-trip [by aeroplane] between Tokyo and New York. It would be as much as about one-fifth of one-time CT scan.”

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), responsible for crisis management at the multi-reactor atomic energy plant, had earlier said “radioactive materials were detected [in] the seawater around the discharge canal (south) of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.”

At the nuclear complex itself, TEPCO continued its efforts to supply to the reactor sites electricity from outside the plant. The operation was designed to reactivate the cooling systems so that the radioactive discharges from the overheated spent nuclear fuel could be reduced.

Source: The Hindu,23-3-2011

Day shortened, says NASA

Washington: The massive earthquake that struck Japan last Friday was so powerful that it accelerated the Earth's rotation speed, shortening the length of the day by 1.8 microseconds, according to a new analysis by NASA.

According to scientists at the U.S. space agency, the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the way the Earth's mass is distributed, which made the planet spin a little faster, cutting the 24-hour day by an estimated 1.8 microseconds. That is less than two-millionths of one second.

Initial data suggested the quake moved Japan's main island about eight feet and shifted the Earth's figure axis, around which the Earth's mass is balanced, by about 17 cm, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA.

Source: The Hindu, 16-3-2011

Water security under threat

Thiruvananthapuram: Speakers at a workshop organised by the Central Ground Water Board here on Tuesday underlined the need for Kerala to adopt mitigation and adaptation strategies to ensure water security against the emerging threats posed by climate change.

Monitoring of water use, new water-efficient agricultural methods, long-term water-sharing agreements, recycling of water and steps to bring down water loss were some of the proposals mooted by experts participating in the workshop.

In a paper presented at the technical session, K.P. Thrivikramji, Emeritus Fellow, Department of Geology, University of Kerala, warned that climate change could have an impact on the food and water security of citizens in Kerala. He said altered climatic conditions could be ominous for the economy of the State that was heavily dependent on the current agro-climatic conditions to produce cash crops.

The paper said the climate-change phenomenon had the potential to impact agro-biodiversity, rainfall distribution, river discharge and groundwater recharge as well as the formation of mud banks. It could also lead to rising soil temperature and loss of soil moisture affecting agricultural yield.

Mr. Thrivikramji said long warm spells and heavy rainfall would prove detrimental to crops such as cardamom, tea, coffee and rubber, affecting yield. The altered climate could also lead to a spurt in the pest and vector population, affecting crop output.
Power situation
The paper said the power situation in Kerala was likely to turn grim because of the decline in the duration of wet spell and higher demand for air-conditioning and pumping water for irrigation and piped supply. Lower rainfall and lower recharge of coastal aquifers salinity would reduce the volume of freshwater and raise the salinity of wetlands, rivers and canals, adversely affecting aquatic ecosystem. Mr. Thrivikramji called for a renewed thrust on identifying irrigation systems and new food, plantation and fruit crops maturing in short periods.

Nandakumaran P., Regional Director of the board, said climate change was likely to result in greater uncertainty in the reliability of water supply and disrupt the State's ability to meet future demands for potable water. Such a situation might have a profound impact on ecosystems and water resources. Kerala might have to rely more on groundwater in future to balance the larger swings in rainfall and increased demands caused by heat and drought.

Source: The Hindu, 16-3-2011

International Year of Forest 2011

Forests play an integral part in the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people worldwide, supply the habitat for millions of species, and play a critical role in mitigating the effects of climate change. But deforestation continues at a rate of 50,000 square miles per year. Within this mind, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2011 as the International Year of Forests (Forests 2011). Everyone from Governments and the UN system, to major groups and other forest-related organizations are invited to come together to raise awareness on strengthening the sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests for the benefit of current and future generations.

Quick Facts:

• Forests cover 31 percent of total global land area.
• Forests store more than 1 trillion tons of carbon.
• Over 1.6 billion people’s livelihoods depend on forests.
• Trade in forest products was estimated at $327 billion in 2004.
• Forests are home to 80 percent of terrestrial biodiversity.
• 30 percent of forests are used for production of wood and non-wood products
• Forests are home to 300 million people around the world.
• Deforestation accounts for 12 to 20 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
  

Goals

Forests 2011 is a unique opportunity to highlight the key role of forests in our lives. By showcasing success stories and solutions, the year will galvanise greater public participation in forest-related activities.

Theme

“Forests for People” is the main theme of the Year. It highlights the dynamic relationship between forests and the people who depend on them.

Forest management includes eliminating clear-cutting to keep forest environments intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by planting enough new trees to replace the ones felled. While the number of new tree plantations has been growing each year, the total trees grown are still a small fraction of the Earth’s current forested land.

Among the planned events for 2011 International Year of Forests are tree plantings and the distribution of seedlings. Ethiopia, Georgia, Jamaica, Lebanon and Poland, and some non-governmental organizations all have plans to organize mass tree plantings as part of their International Year activities. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has specifically indicated plans to plant over 1 billion trees throughout the country during 2011.

The challenge of waste management in urban areas

At source:A plant to treat biodegradable waste in Kozhikode. Such decentralised facilities have become imperative now.

The accumulation of solid waste in cities and towns offers a scary prospect. Authorities face the unpleasant task of finding a way to dispose of garbage safely.

Studies reveal that the increase in urban population hastens waste generation by over seven per cent every year. Most of it is biodegradable waste from households, hotels, vegetable markets and slaughter houses. Waste generated from construction sites; recyclable waste such as plastic bottles, cans and glasses, bottles and hazardous materials from hospitals; e-waste; and chemicals and pesticides pose a huge challenge to the civic system.

Government officials say that under the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, the local bodies are primarily responsible for collection, segregation, storage, transportation, processing and disposal of municipal solid waste. However, lately, the Corporations and the municipalities are firm on a decentralised policy to reduce waste reaching the trenching grounds for treatment and later on at the filling sites.

A major provision in the rules is that the municipalities should develop infrastructure for municipal waste management right from collection to safe disposal. The civic body has to make its own facility for setting up a waste-processing and disposal facility, including landfills, to comply with the rules. Kozhikode city has a site for treating garbage but has not acquired a proper site for land-filling. There is a proposal for establishing a properly engineered landfill site away from the city. But the availability of land for the purpose is one of the factors, officials say.
On the other hand, a majority of local bodies do have proper waste disposal facilities. Some of them have not even thought of setting up waste-processing plants within their limits. The rules state that all self-government bodies need to establish their own facilities for waste disposal and landfill sites. The functioning of the entire system should be monitored once in six months and a report produced to the District Collector.

The collection of waste has to done in a systematic manner employing volunteers to collect garbage from house to house. It can be done through various levels in a locality, slums and squatter areas, restaurants and commercial areas.
The waste from slaughterhouses and meat and fish and fruit and vegetable markets should be considered similar to household biodegradable waste. Biomedical, industrial, horticultural, construction or demolition waste or debris should be separately collected and disposed of. Stray animals should not be allowed to move around waste storage facilities or at any other place in the city.
Storage facilities should be established by taking into account the quantity of waste generated in a given area and the population density.
These should be set up by local bodies.
The rules prohibit manual handling of waste. If inevitable, it has to be carried out with due care for the safety of workers. The vehicles used for transportation of waste should be covered. Waste should not be visible to the public and should not be exposed to the open environment. But many of these rules are flouted.
The civic bodies have the option to adopt a suitable technology or a combination of technologies to process waste and reduce untreatable waste. The technologically better Aerated Static Pile (ASP) system has been suggested at Njeliyamparamba in Kozhikode to avoid odour at the dumping grounds. Vermicomposting and windrow composting are considered appropriate for the State.

Now several government agencies are attempting to bring in technologies for conversion of solid waste to gaseous fuel, including the Rotary Kiln Gasification System, and processing of municipal waste in cement kilns.

Importance has to be given to selection of landfill sites. These should be identified on the basis of an examination of environmental issues. They should be away from habitation clusters, forest areas, waterbodies, monuments, national parks, wetlands and places of important cultural, historical or religious interest. Also, they should be away from airports and airbases by at least by 20 km. They should be large enough to last 25 years.

The Hindu 5-3-2011

Project to study energy recovery

KOCHI: The Energy Management Centre (EMC), Kerala, has appointed Energy Efficiency Services Ltd, a joint venture of the Union government-owned power companies, to prepare a detailed project report on waste heat recovery for 20 industrial units in the State, which will also include small and medium-sized industrial units.
Director of EMC K.M. Dharesan Unnithan told The Hindu on Thursday that the units where the studies would be conducted would be identified soon by the appointed agency while EMC asked SMEs and larger industrial units, which want to participate in the study, to send in their expression of interest in the format prescribed by the EMC and available on its website.

The units will be decided after a preliminary screening of the applications received from the companies.

Mr. Unnithan said the EMC had completed its LED village project in Palakkad district, where 300 families in Ayakkurissi village were given LED lamps to replace incandescent light bulbs. The project, undertaken with the help of the Central Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), also replaced 50 streetlights in the village with LED lighting system. Mr. Unnithan said the impact of the project would be assessed soon as part of follow-up action.

The results of the findings of an evaluation survey on the impact of Bacchat Lamp Yojana (BLY) are being validated, Mr. Unnithan said. Under the BLY programme, compact fluorescent lamps were distributed to replace conventional incandescent light bulbs through a programme undertaken by the Kerala State Electricity Board with assistance from the Union government.The results are being validated by a Munich-based international agency and the findings will help Kerala claim carbon credits under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The initial estimates said Kerala could have reduced about 30 lakh tonnes of carbon emission through the BLY programme, which was completed in the State towards the end of last year.

The Hindu 4-3-2011

Panchayat takes first step to total solar energy use

PALAKKAD: Perumatty grama panchayat in the district has become famous for its successful fight against groundwater depletion by soft drink giant Coca-Cola. Now, another laurel is within reach. The panchayat in Chittur taluk is set to be the first grama panchayat in the State to run entirely on solar energy.

The pilot phase of the Rs.152-crore ‘total solar panchayat project' was inaugurated by installing solar panels in Perumatty Service Co-operative Bank building by K. Achuthan, MLA, on Tuesday. “If the pilot project succeeds the entire taluk will go green. Each house and commercial establishment will produce solar power and will run on it. Switching to solar power, by minimising carbon emission, is necessary to protect environment,” he said.

In his presidential address bank president K. Krishnankutty said that in this project the house owners would not have to incur any expense. The panels would be put up by implementing agency, Global Grid Power (GGP) Private Limited. This power thus produced would be given to the Kerala State Electricity Board after entering into a power purchase agreement with it. The board would pay for the power after deducting the cost for the power consumed by the house or institution. This would virtually make every household a solar power producer, he said.

Managing Director of GGP Sneha Soman in her report on the project said, “After more than four years of research the company come up with a strategy to help every individual in India switch to solar power without bearing added expenditure.

This scheme was envisaged after a thorough negotiation with various grama panchayats.

The Hindu 2-3-2011

Cloned seeds show promise for crop breeding

HYDERABAD: Seeds have been cloned for the first time, a move which could speed up crop breeding and one day allow farmers to produce their own high-yielding seed.

Most crop varieties are hybrids with a mixture of characteristics from genetically distinct parents. But their useful traits are not passed on to their seeds because sexual reproduction, which involves two parents, shuffles genes.
Now an international team of scientists has forced plants to produce seeds that are identical to themselves genetically (i.e. cloned), rather than containing a mix of genes from themselves and another parent.

The seeds have thus retained all the useful traits of their parent.
Imran Siddiqi, researcher at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India, and one of the authors of the paper, published in Science last month(18 February), called this a "proof of principle" of what has long been only a theory.

The key to what they have done lies in the fact that some plants naturally reproduce asexually, by 'apomixis', where the offspring are identical to the parent. They have managed to make a plant that usually makes seeds sexually do so by this method instead.
Siddiqi said the process involved manipulating 2–4 genes that retain parental genetic material in a seed.
He told SciDev.Net that the process would make it possible to 'fix' desirable traits in crops without going through the several generations of cross breeding that are normally required.
"This is a real boost to the field of plant genomics as a whole," said Siddiqi. "But application is still a long way off."
The method creates clones in around a third of offspring in the model plant species Arabidopsis.
Commercial use would require at least 85–90 per cent of seeds to be successfully cloned, he said.
The publication has generated interest among plant scientists in India but they recognise that this is the first step on a long road.

P. B. Kirti, professor of plant sciences at the University of Hyderabad, told SciDev.Net that demonstrating that the method works for important crops would be a "huge challenge" and reaching field trials would take years of work and considerable financing.

"Getting good genetic material to work on and take this proof of concept further also poses its own challenges, particularly to scientists in developing countries," he added.

Siddiqi agreed: "To take this forward would certainly require a more concerted effort — a greater level of funding, a policy-level commitment and wider collaboration."

He said provisional patents have been filed for the process. "If and when application becomes a reality, the technology should remain accessible to public institutions."

Source:www.scidev.net,4-3- 2011