Environment / Northeast

SHILLONG, Aug 23 ? Social activists in the North East are up in arms against the construction of mega dams in the region claiming it would bring ?untold suffering and land alienation among the indigenous poeple,? reports PTI. The Citizens Concern for Dams and Development (CCDD), a forum of people movements, NGOs, professional associations and leading citizens here said that the respective governments proposed to construct 168 large hydro-electric projects in the region and 28 of them were at the implementation stage and some others were also being developed.

Talking to media after its three...

SHILLONG, Aug 23: Going by the past experience of adverse economic, social and cultural impacts of dams, a serious review of the proposed plan to convert the north-eastern region into a power-house of the country by building 168 dams, is not only called for but imperative to prevent a massive disaster. The view was expressed at a two-day meeting of the 2nd Consultation on Dams in North east India, which concluded at Youth Hostel here yesterday. The Government of India has identified 168 sites as possible sites for dams, of which 26 projects have already been cleared.

About 50 participants from...

GUWAHATI, June 24 – The State Government has teamed up with the Meghalaya Government to solve the problems of erosion and flash flood caused by the Basistha-Bahini river in the city. As a result, an inter-State committee with the officials of the Forest, Soil Conservation and Public Works Departments of the two States has been formed and the State Soil Conservation Department has been working on two projects involving the river in the city areas.

Disclosing these, J Malakar, Divisional Officer of the South Bank Soil Conservation Division, Guwahati told media men today that 80 per cent of the...

NEW DELHI, June 18 — The major hydroelectric projects in the north-eastern region have been held up because of the delay in environment and forest clearances, and threat from militants. The ambitious plan of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) to generate bulk of the promised 50,000 MW of additional hydel power from the North-East is under threat of getting derailed in the face of the hue and cry raised by various NGOs.

Work on the 2000 MW Subansiri (Lower) Hydroelectric Project in Arunachal Pradesh was about to start when an objection over the environment clearance stalled it...

GUWAHATI, June 13: New-age construction methods, structural stability and earthquake-resistance are lifting up the image of bamboo from just a cheap building material to a viable one. Now, teaming up with steel and concrete and glass, bamboo will be seen in modern constructions across the city and the rest of the region.

"Bamboo has been used by the people here for ages, but had acquired the image of a `poor man’s timber’, unfit for large stable and modern houses," remarked Kamesh Salam, project co-ordinator of the Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre, which has put up these structures for...

SHILLONG, JUNE 10- A bamboo technology ‘mother park’ will be set up in the North East to exploit the immense but untapped potential of the bamboo sector in the region. A memorandum of understand-ing(MoU) has been signed between the NEC-sponsored Cane and Bamboo Technology Centre(CTBC) and the Building Materials Technology Promotion Council(BMTPC), Ministry of Urban Development , Government of India to set up the mother park, NEC sources here said.

As per the MoU, the two organisations will work together to achieve the objective of promotion and sustainable development of bamboo resources of...

Guwahati, May 30: Powerful cameras aboard Indian remote sensing satellites are zooming in on the Northeast to find out the wealth hidden in its bamboo grooves. It is for the first time that remote sensing satellites are being used to assess and quantify the bamboo resources of the seven states of the region. The idea is to help these states utilise the stock before the debilitating phenomenon of bamboo flowering occurs.

Bamboo flowering usually occurs once in every five decades. Two-thirds of the country’s growing stock of bamboo is in the Northeast. The raw stock is estimated to be worth Rs 5...

GUWAHATI, May 30 – India has 130 million tonne of bamboo resources that has been exploited only partially. Covering an area of ten million hectare, bamboo has a huge commercial potential. It is to translate this potential into reality that the Centre had set up the National Mission on Bamboo Applications (NMBA) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The Northeast produces two-thirds of the country’s total bamboo. Naturally, the NMBA has focused on this area. Since it was set up some two years ago, the Mission has initiated several steps to bridge the gap between the latest...

Silchar, May 27: In village after village in south Assam’s Cachar district, when people think of clean drinking water, they look at the skies. Not for rain-bearing clouds, but for the sun. A project modelled on a successful exercise implemented in countries like Columbia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Nigeria, is being experimented with gusto by volunteers of some NGOs in south Assam, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

Welcome to the future, when one can be guaranteed micro-biologically safe drinking water by just embarking on the innovative method of using solar radiation to kill pathogenic microbes...

NEW DELHI, May 26 – The controversy over the demand for greater Nagaland is sought to be settled with the United Progressive Alliance likely to endorse a demand for maintaining territorial integrity of the north eastern states, even as the NDA Government’s much-touted River Inter-linking Project faces an uncertain future. The UPA Government is all set to examine the techno-economic feasibility the project. But good news is in store for the north eastern states particularly the oil producing Assam, as due to pressure from the Left allies, a clause to review the crude royalty is under...