In a unique initiative to curb noise pollution in the city, Mission Peace, an NGO, has decided to observe ‘No Honking Day’ on 10th of every month. This drive against the increasing noise level has been supported by Karnataka police.

The initiative was unveiled by Justice Manjula Chellur, Justice K Sreedhar Rao, retired Justice A M Farooque and former Justice M F Saldahna along with DG & IGP Ajay Kumar Singh.

The mission of starting ‘No Honking Day’ is to create awareness about unnecessary use of horn and the ill-effects of noise caused by the autos. We will also try to convince the government to bring in laws to control noise pollution,’’ said Sunitha De Sousa, president of Mission Peace.

For the full text of the report in the TOI, click here

A most welcome initiative. I am sure it will have the fullest support of PRAJAGALU.

Muralidhar Rao
    
 

Axe trees, says forest department, by Imran Khan.

BANGALORE: In what could lead to wide-spread and indiscriminate felling of trees, the state forest department has recommended an amendment to the Karnataka Trees Preservation Act of 1976.The civic authorities in Bangalore especially have been crying hoarse for not being able to cut trees for “developmental” activities because of the Act. According to the recommended amendment, one need not seek permission from the forest department before axing trees.The Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, mandates that no person shall fell any tree or cause any tree to be felled in any land, whether it was in his ownership or otherwise, unless a permission was granted by the tree officer.The proposed amendment, which grants permission of felling of 42 species of trees in the state, has been pending with the state government for ....

They have 10 offices in Bangalore alone (isnt that good news ;)
They have a lot of laboratories which are set up for KSPCB for data analysis and data gathering.
  
The site says "Samples collected by the Regional Offices of the Board, Industries, Organizations and from general public are analysed."
When i read this I only get evil ideas (evil because it might not be fun for a lot of people)

They have listed a number of parameter that they analyze.
Industrial waste water has: 41 parameters
Air: 6 parameters
Water: 26 parameters.

They have things like "monthly avg result of national ambient air quality" and "classification of river water quality as per GEMS and MINARS"
The only small, tiny winy problem is they have failed to update any new reports and the last one is of 2007.

The last annual plan has been put up for year 2006-2007.

So I have a simple question, what happened to KSPCB? Does it exist? If it does then where are the reports?
If they have reports then cant we file RTI to get it?