The team will also suggest preventive measures against such incidents in the future, an official release said last week.Other members of the team are Pushpa Kumar, zoo expert, Hyderabad; S K Patnaik, chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Orissa; Ram Kumar, member secretary, Veterinary Council of India; Dr Chakaravorty, Bannerghatta National Park, Karnataka, and Dr. Manoharan, veterinary officer, Vandalur Zoo, Chennai.The team was constituted following Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik's talk with environment and forest minister T R Baalu.

Dye units contaminate Panipat groundwater
The dyeing houses in the handloom city of Panipat have reportedly contaminated groundwater up to a depth of about 100 feet around 5-10 km radius of the town by releasing chemically polluted water in open drains and vacant grounds. This alarming report has prompted Haryana Pollution Control Board to launch a week long survey to find dying houses working in the handloom city in the North India.According to the regional officer of Haryana Pollution Control Board at Panipat, O P Dahiya, the survey will be completed by July 10 and survey report will be submitted to the chairman of the board.Dahiya said the polluted water problem was discussed with the environment department of the central government in a meeting at Delhi a few days back and the decision was taken to install a large scale treatment plant to overcome this problem.He also disclosed that on the basis of survey report, a joint group of Japan and central government would inspect the site earmarked for installation of treatment plant in the town.

There are about 400 dyeing houses, which are reportedly releasing the chemically polluted water in open drains and areas and due its seepage, and the underground water has become contaminated largely unfit for consumption.

`Best before' labels on food products
The government has made it mandatory for all retail packages, manufactured or packaged on or after September 1 to display `best before' labels.The label signifies the date which marks the end of the period, under any stated storage conditions, during which the product will remain fully marketable and will retain the specific qualities for which tacit or express claims have been made about it.

It is the date up to which the product will retain its specific qualities optimally, an official release said.The products manufactured or packaged prior to September 1 and already in the market or sold to trade prior to this date have, however, been exempted.The government had earlier issued a notification on July 9 last year asking the manufacturers to publish best before on all their products and had given them one year to meet the requirement.

However, following representations from the industry it had been postponed and made effective from September 1 this year, the release said.`Best before' details have to be mandatorily displayed on every retail item of packaged food, however big or small the packet, except in the case of confectionery weighing 20 grams or less, those wrapped in twisted paper, infant foods, infant milk substitutes and packages containing aspertame as table top sweetener.

The notification, however, exempted returnable bottles or package containing liquid milk, liquid beverage having milk, liquid beverage having milk as an ingredient, soft drinks, ready-to-serve fruit beverage except sterilised milk from indicating information regarding addition of fruit pulp, fruit juice, coloured flavour and artificial sweetener from the body of the bottle.

New WWF-India chief
Meeta R Vyas has taken over as secretary-general and chief executive officer of WWF-India.pBefore taking over as the WWF head, Vyas, was heading a major US corporation as chief executive officer and vice-chairman of the board of the US-based Signature Brands, a Nasdaq company with sales approaching $300 million. She is the first Indian women to have headed a major US corporation.

Earlier, she was a senior executive with General Electric Co, in various positions. These included general manager of cooking products in GE Appliances, with sales exceeding $1 billion and general manager of Corporate Business Development, where most recently she was responsible for setting up GE's software development operations in India and integrating GE Capital's global strategic plan.

Mumbai-born Vyas has a BS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a MBA in finance from Columbia University.

Community participation must for water harvesting: experts
WATER harvesting may be the new buzzword for officials caught off guard by this year's severe drought in several states, but experts caution that community participation is a must for its success and funds sanctioned for these projects should not be left in bureaucrats' hands.

``It is important to learn lessons, the foremost among which is that drought-proofing is a local matter. Water harvesting should not become only a fashionable slogan,'' says former senior bureaucrat and renowned water expert Ramaswamy Aiyar.

Stating that the water famine witnessed in parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states was a result of faulty policy planning by government officials, Ashish Banejree, member-secretary, INTACH, says that people's participation is a must in the management of renewable natural resources like water and forests.

``In the government, the left hand often does not know what the right hand is doing. In India, we do not have a shortage of water, but of proper management systems,'' he adds.

The experts were sharing their thoughts on the occasion of the release of a report Pani Ghano Ammol (Water is invaluable) by Charkha and the National Foundation of India recently.

The report, based on a pani yatra (water voyage) undertaken by a group of Charkha activists, documents the successful implementation of the age-old techniques of water harvesting by several villages in Gujarat and Rajasthan.Not only did these villages escape the scourge of drought but presented a picture of contrast with their green fields, flowing rivers and tanks and wells brimming with water, says journalist Dushyant Sharma, a member of the team.

India draws up disaster mitigation plan for Himalayan belt
INDIA has drawn up a comprehensive natural disaster mitigation plan to design prompt mitigation measures for the earthquake-prone Himalayan belt.The proposed technology mission project will provide a sharp focus to some selected aspects of study of earthquakes and landslides, the 1999-2000 annual report of the Department of Science and Technology said.

"Considering the earthquake vulnerability of the Himalayan terrain, priority is proposed to be given to upgrading the database on weak and strong ground motions," the report said adding specific earthquake resistant design and construction codes for civil engineering structures will be laid down.

Demonstration houses based on improved building designs are also proposed to be constructed in three villages with the help of a local NGO. An effort will also be made to develop indigenous geo-instruments required for earthquake and landslide monitoring, it said.

A proposal to provide V-Sat based communication facility to link the Seismological Observatories and National Seismological Data Centre (NSDC) at India Meteorology Department (IMD), Pune, is also under approval, it added.