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In the wee hours of January 28, two cargo ships collided in the off suburban Ennore near the city of Chennai. The accident took place when ‘M T BW Maple’ of Isle of Man was leaving the Kamarajar port after emptying Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and M T Dawn, Kanchipuram, loaded with petroleum oil lubricant (POL) was on its way to Ennore. Scale of the problem Four days later, hundreds of Coast Guard men, engineering students and fishermen were seen using their hands to clear the oil spill in the sea. They resorted to manual cleaning after Chennai Metro Water’s super suckers failed to pump out the thickening sludge. On February 2, at least 1,000 volunteers were employed for physically removing blobs of oil deposited along the beaches. Besides iconic Marina Beach, the oil spill spread some 34 km till Vettuvankeni in the south due to wave action and the southern current. Loss of marine life and livelihood According to reports, about 40 tonnes of oil sludge has been removed from ...

Many journalists have been asking the question: What will India's environment look like in the 21st century? Since India is already one of the most polluted countries in the world, an important question is: Will India ever be able to control pollution and, if so, when? Most of the Indian rivers, especially the smaller ones, are today toxic drains: Sabarmati, Bhadar, Yamuna, Damodar, Chaliyar, Betwa, Noyyal, Bhawani, to name just a few. Groundwater, a major source of drinking water, is also becoming polluted and most of it is drunk without any treatment. But lets talk in some detail about air pollution. Air pollution in Indian cities is also growing by leaps and bounds. The Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) has just released the air quality data for 1997 for 70 cities and what does it show? That Shillong is the only town in India where the air quality in terms of suspended particulates -- the most threatening air pollutant in Indian cities was clean round the year and ther...

A UN Environment report says people are at great risk every time they travel due to the lack of investment in safe transport options. Some 1.3 million people die each year on the roads and almost half of them are pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Investment in walking and cycling infrastructure can save lives, reverse pollution and reduce carbon emissions, the report adds. “People are risking their lives every time they leave their homes,” Erik Solheim, the head of UN Environment, said. “But it isn’t just about accidents. Designing transport systems around cars puts more vehicles on the road, increasing both greenhouse gas emissions and deadly air pollution. We must put people, not cars, first in transport systems.” Compared to high-income countries, more people die in low-to middle-income countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America due to road accidents. As the global population is heading towards nine billion, there is a need to design mobility for people instead of...

Scientists have confirmed the existence of a “lost continent” under the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius that was left over by the breakup of the supercontinent, Gondwana, which started about 200 million years ago. The piece of crust, which was subsequently covered by young lava during volcanic eruptions on the island, seems to be a tiny piece of ancient continent, which broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica split up and formed the Indian Ocean. “We are studying the breakup process of the continents, in order to understand the geological history of the planet,” said Prof. Lewis Ashwal from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. By studying the mineral, zircon, found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions, Prof. Ashwal and his colleagues have found that remnants of this mineral were far too old to belong on the island of Mauritius. “Earth is made up of two parts — continents, which are old, and oceans, whic...

Indian part of team that generated very high frequency current in solid material A researcher from India has taken the first definitive step to produce high-speed electronic devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics. At the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, Manish Garg and other researchers used laser light to generate very high frequency electric current inside a solid material. The electrons were found to be moving at a speed (frequency) close to 1015 (one million billion) hertz; the best achievable speed in modern transistors is only 109 (one billion) hertz. The results were published in Nature. Conventionally, the motion of electrons (conductivity) is achieved by applying voltage. But Dr. Garg and others controlled the motion of electrons inside the solid material by using laser pulses. “Light waves are electromagnetic in nature and have very high oscillation frequency of electric and magnetic fields. This ultra-hi...

The pressing urgency of post-Brexit trade agreements is forcing the British government into a closer embrace of the Trump administration despite protests The visits of U.S. presidents to Britain have often been accompanied by public protest. In 1982, when Ronald Reagan visited, tens of thousands of people gathered to protest against his nuclear policy. In 2003, thousands turned out against George W. Bush, reflecting strong public opposition to the war in Iraq, and the strategy of the U.S. President and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Still, the public outcry being seen since the extension of an invitation for a state visit to President Donald Trump is unprecedented. At the time of writing, nearly 1.8 million people — U.K. residents and citizens — had signed a petition calling for the state visit not to take place, while thousands took part in demonstrations across the country to oppose the visit, and stand against the travel bans and halting of the refugee programme brought ...

It’s time for a comprehensive, open dialogue between India and China to promote communication and connectivity in diverse spheres and preserve the peace on our shared borders The Chinese Ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, recently put forward some suggestions for improvement of bilateral ties between China and India. The suggestions are timely since relations between the two Asian giants have looked tired and worn in recent months. The voices from the gallery have been worrisome. China’s obduracy on India’s Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) bid, its incomprehensible stand on the listing of known terrorist-progenitor Masood Azhar under the U.N. Security Council’s 1267 Committee, the deployment of Chinese military and engineering assets in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are all pointers to a complex and tension-riddled relationship. Absence of trust On the CPEC, the Prime Minister himself, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue i...

There are disconcerting signals from the Trump White House and Capitol Hill of likely changes to the H-1B non-immigrant visa programme in the U.S. for skilled workers in tech jobs. Indian IT firms have been among the top recipients of the 65,000 such visas made available annually via a lottery system, in some years garnering well in excess of 80% of them. However, President Donald Trump, driven by his campaign promise of “Buy American, Hire American”, now has this “specialty occupation worker” visa in his crosshairs. Shares in Indian IT majors took a nosedive last week when an unconfirmed draft executive order leaked to U.S. media houses appeared to call for reform of immigration rules for skilled foreign workers that would raise the salary eligibility for such visas to $130,000, reverse the extensions granted by the Obama administration to the Optional Practical Training programme for foreign graduates in the U.S., and institute a rigorous monitoring system for companies employing L-...

A new study has attributed the weakening of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) between June and September to changes in land use and land cover. The effect is more pronounced in north and northeast India during August and September. Deforestation results in a decrease in evapotranspiration (transfer of water from land to the atmosphere via evaporation and transpiration), which constitutes the recycled component of precipitation. This component assumes extraordinary significance in north and northeast India during the latter half of the monsoon (August to September), when nearly 20-25 per cent of the rainfall received is recycled. “The recycled component is important in north and northeast India because monsoonal winds in this region are internally circulated due to the presence of the Himalayas,” says Subimal Ghosh, associate professor at the Department of Civil Engineering in IIT Bombay and one of the authors of the study. Moreover, evapotranspiration is less pronounced du...

The fiscal prudence is timely, but the Budget lacks measures to revive the economy The Union Budget for 2017-18 has been presented against the background of a difficult international environment spiced with growing protectionism, poor investment climate in the country due to the stressed balance sheets of corporate and banking sectors, and severe distress caused by the demonetisation move. The quick estimate of national income released by the Central Statistical Organisation showed that even while the impact of the demonetisation is not considered, the growth rate of all sectors except agriculture and public administration were slowing down. The Economic Survey estimates that the decelerating in growth due to the demonetisation is a quarter to half percentage point. With much of the cancelled banknotes returning to the banking system, the hope of a windfall has evaporated and yet, there were considerable expectations that the Budget would initiate measures to revive the economy. A...

The macroeconomic credentials of the Budget are quite impressive. The highlight is a greater than 25% increase in capital spending and a substantial increase in the transfer to the States Stating that the Budget represented the philosophy of his government to ‘Transform, Energise and Clean’ India, the Finance Minister has presented a Budget that is in many ways quite impressive. As the details were not out even on the Finance Ministry’s website at the time of writing, it is not possible to evaluate it fully in the sense of being able to assess whether the Minister’s claims on revenue expectation, and therefore the deficit, are credible. However, the budgetary allocations are intelligent and do add up to a reasonable vision of what the economy needs at the moment. In fact, after having presented three quite lacklustre Budgets in a row Mr. Jaitley appears to have learned on the job. His presentation was businesslike and knowledgeable and specific about the interventions that he had in...

How is the Chite river threatened? We have been involved with the restoration of the Chite river since 2009. The growing population has been encroaching upon the origin as well as the floodplains of this small river. The most disturbing trend is the encroachment near the river's origin. If there is no timely intervention, it could lead to the death of this river. Although the Chite is a small river and not used for irrigation or for drinking water, its importance lies in the sentimental value attached to this river.   Could you elaborate what you mean by sentiment attached with this river? The Chite is the most popular river in Aizawl, capital of Mizoram. In the 1960s and 70s, we as youngsters would bathe in its waters. We didn’t have any other source of enjoyment at that time. Poet Rokunga has composed many poems and songs about this river. According to a legend, a young boy Fiara Tui was often troubled by his cruel step-mother. In the spring one year, water was scarce. Pe...

In 2016, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) created an independent Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) for national applications. This system, NavIC, has seven satellites which provide positioning, navigation and timing service over India and its neighbourhood. However, to expand the coverage to entire earth, efforts are needed. Vibha Varshney talks to Vinod Kumar, deputy project director, AOCS (Attitude and Orbit Control System), control dynamics and simulation group of the ISRO on the sidelines of 104th Indian Science Congress on what can be done to make NavIC a global navigation system. Can you make NavIC a global system? The seven satellites that are part of the system are placed above 35,786 km from the Earth’s surface called geostationary earth orbit. So far, the NavIC signal is available only in India and in its neighbourhood covering 1,500 km. It is proposed that multiple nanosatellites can be launched at low earth orbit which would work in colla...

In the post-Gandhian era, environmental problems surfaced at a breakneck speed with large-scale and indiscriminate industrialisation leading to environmental hazards and degradations. Mahatma Gandhi’s critique of modernity reveals his concern about the emergence of a social order that exploits nature for short-term gains. He had written widely about the need for human beings to exercise restraint with respect to the use of natural resources. His “counter-thinking” is now increasingly becoming a mainstream thought with greater awareness of the environmental problems. Troubled by unrestricted industrialism and materialism, Gandhi had foreseen a time when the resources of the earth will not be enough to meet the growing demands of the people. On the 69th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Down To Earth tries to understand the man and what value his vision brings to the contemporary discourse on environment conservation. Understanding Gandhi -- -- GANDHI's Vision and Valuesi...

Some pollutants travel much farther than what earlier global climate models had predicted. According to findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition online, organic aerosols can amplify global human exposure to toxic particles by proving a shield. Hence, pollutants last longer in the atmosphere, which means global lung cancer risk from a pollutant caused by combustion is much higher than estimated earlier. The study was done by scientists at Oregon State University (OSU), the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Peking University. "This work brings together theory, lab experiments and field observations to show how viscous organic aerosols can largely elevate global human exposure to toxic particles, by shielding them from chemical degradation in the atmosphere," said PNNL climate scientist and lead author Manish Shrivastava. Pollutants released during fossil fuel burning, forest fires and b...