Everyone, deep in their hearts, is “waiting for the end of the world to come,” said Murakami. If not the end, then at least a good showdown’s definitely expected. Sarnath Banerjee‘s latest graphic novel envisions a similar war in the near future. Fittingly, the war’s going to be fought over something as elemental as water….
Read More about Graphic novel: The beginning of Delhi’s water wars
Common Dreams reports: A new analysis, published in Science Advances journal, reveals that global water scarcity is a far greater problem than previously thought, affecting 4 billion people—two-thirds of the world’s population. Previous analyses looked at water scarcity at an annual scale, and had found that water scarcity affected between 1.7 and 3.1 billion people….
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Dongria Kondh protest against the Vedanta mine appeal.
Bikash Khemka/Survival
Ashish Kothari & Pallav Das write in State of Power report: People are recognizing that the current power dispensation is frozen in an intellectual paradigm defined by free-market orthodoxy and will change only if confronted by worldviews such as swaraj or Radical Ecological Democracy. India (and the world) needs that change in order to continue to thrive….
Read More about Power in India: radical pathways to local self-ruleAn alarming new study has shown that the world’s forests are not only disappearing rapidly, but areas of “core forest” are vanishing even faster. A tsunami of new roads, dams, power lines, pipelines and other infrastructure is rapidly slicing into the world’s last wild places, opening them up to fragmentation, poaching and other destructive activities….
Read More about The world’s forests will collapse if we don’t learn to say ‘no’
Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava reports: Groups like JJMP and TSPC thrive on a levy collected from mining. Jharkhand accounts for nearly a third of India’s coal, a quarter of its iron ore and 16% of copper. In return, the armed groups provide protection to mining companies and intimidate villagers to facilitate land acquisition for the companies….
Read More about Video & Report: The jungle gangs of JharkhandSciDev Net reports: India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….
Read More about Map shows India leads the world in ecological conflict
Decision On GM Mustard Deferred *Mining interests and tribal rights on collision course *Former atomic energy regulator says India needs to pause nuclear plans *Lesser water recorded in Indian reservoirs than last year *Sikkim Organic Mission: We Need To Dig Deeper *Hydro dam boom threatens freshwater fish *Radioactive Water From Fukushima Leaking Into the Pacific…
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A Guarani family mourns the death of a member
Survival international
According to a new report published by Survival International, the rate of self-inflicted deaths within the Guarani tribe is 34 times the Brazilian national average, and statistically the highest among any society anywhere on earth. Suicide rates among many other indigenous peoples such as Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans in Alaska also remain exceptionally high….
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Raiot.in
If there is one book which speaks of all mining blighted societies, then it’s this one. The book by Hartman de Souza breaks all the boundaries of genres and gets its politics and economics right on. At once travelogue, investigative journalism and family memoir, Eat Dust maps the culture, topography and cultural diversity of Goa….
Read More about New Book: Eat Dust – Mining and Greed in Goa, by Hartman de Souza
Columnist Tushar Dhara writes: Environmentalists, urban geographers, social activists and other such critically engaged citizens have consistently been talking about the perils of a development which ignores ecological sustainability and social justice — only to be told that they were against progress. A more damning criticism is “anti-national”, supposedly working on behalf of foreign interests….
Read More about A Message From The Chennai Floods: It’s Not Anti-National To Question ‘Development’
Chris Mooney reports: “India is moving to the center stage of global energy,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol says. “All the numbers are indicating that India will be the number one country in terms of coal consumption and oil demand growth worldwide. India will also have more than 20 percent of the solar PV worldwide.”…
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We can have it all; that is the promise of our age. We can own every gadget we are capable of imagining, without compromising Earth’s capacity to sustain us. The promise that makes all this possible is that as economies develop, they become more efficient in their use of resources. In other words, they decouple….
Read More about The false promise of economic growth
India’s energy emission growth at 8.2 per cent, highest globally: PwC Asian Age Buoyed by strong economic activity, India’s energy emission growth was highest in the world at 8.2 per cent last year, says a report. According to the report by global consultancy firm PwC, the sharp rise was on account of double-digit growth in…
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One World University Shyam Balakrishnan is the coordinator of One-World University, a collective dedicated to the study of dialectics and geopolitics. He lives at an organic farm in Wayanad, Kerala, which is also envisioned as one of the campuses of One-World University. On May 20, 2014, Balakrishnan was arrested by the state police on charges of being…
Read More about Towards A Unitive Life: An Interview with Shyam BalakrishnanShankar Sharma, ORF Energy News Monitor Whereas many conventional economic analysts argue that in order to have adequate human development index the country’s economy has to grow continuously at an appreciable rate, a densely populated and resource constrained society such as ours cannot afford to ignore the implications of high energy / material consumption (which…
Read More about High GDP growth centered paradigm and GHG emissionsAzim Premji University Azim Premji University, Bangalore, is holding a non-residential introductory course, Understanding Rural India: Life and Livelihoods at the Base of the Pyramid, aimed at those who are relatively new to the development sector. Dates: Nov 16 – 26, 2015 Venue: Bangalore Rural India is undergoing unprecedented transformations, which have profound impact on the…
Read More about Course: Understanding Rural IndiaSustainable Development Goals: Can we pull them off? Catch News The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The new set has 169 targets. Critics believe these are well-intentioned, but range from grandiose (end hunger) to peripheral (promote sustainable tourism) to flat-out impossible (full and productive employment and decent work…
Read More about Special: Questioning the UN’s Sustainable Development GoalsNitin Sethi, Senior Associate Editor, Business Standard DATE: September 02, 2015 SUBJECT: Should India distance itself from China on its climate change policy? ASKED BY: RANJEET KUMAR The biggest hurdle in tackling climate change is finance in a developing country. Although, India is ready to adopt the process of mitigation and adaptation, we do not have…
Read More about Journalist Nitin Sethi answers readers’ questions on climate change and IndiaA Discussion on Sustaining the Dynamic Linkages between Renewable Natural Resources and the Economic System Mihir Mathur & Swati Agarwal, TERI In this paper , we have used System Dynamics to test three popular policy options for sustaining Economic Growth, 1) Resource Efficiency, 2) Resource Efficiency and Green Growth, 3) Doubling of Resource Base due to technological advancement….
Read More about Paper: Sustainability Dynamics of Resource Use and Economic GrowthA Discussion on Sustaining the Dynamic Linkages between Renewable Natural Resources and the Economic System Mihir Mathur & Swati Agarwal, TERI In this paper , we have used System Dynamics to test three popular policy options for sustaining Economic Growth, 1) Resource Efficiency, 2) Resource Efficiency and Green Growth, 3) Doubling of Resource Base due to technological advancement….
Read More about Paper: Sustainability Dynamics of Resource Use and Economic Growth
