Author and filmmaker Mansoor Khan has been doing a series of short video interviews with experts in various fields from ecology to energy to economics. The interviews take off from the themes covered in his book, The Third Curve: The End of Growth. As We Know It!. Some of the prominent names interviewed so far are…
Read More about Video: The Third Curve interviews by Mansoor KhanIntroducing a new digital pamphlet designed to connect the dots on advanced-stage, 21st Century neoliberalism /The Rules We now all live on a One Party Planet. This is a provocative claim, pregnant with meaning and implication. If it’s true in the way we believe it to be, it means there is an identifiable form of totalitarianism…
Read More about Digital Pamphlet: Do We Live on a One Party Planet?From Oxfamindia.org *In 2014 the richest 85 people on the planet owned as much as the poorest half of humanity. *The net worth of India’s billionaires is enough to eliminate absolute poverty in the country twice over. *A few Indians have enough money for several lifetimes while millions struggle for 1 sq meal/day Even It…
Read More about Oxfam Report on Extreme InequalityExcerpted from the Thrissur Declaration, of 16 October 2014: We are in an era of systemic crisis – of economy, food, energy, climate and livelihoods. In India this is characterised by a deep agrarian crisis, declining social indicators, unemployment and underemployment, environmental degradation, lack of access to basic services and distress migration especially in rural…
Read More about Thrissur Declaration: Alternative technologies and organisational forms for social transformation
Basudev Mahapatra writes: Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, has “delinked forest clearance from clearance by the National Wild Life Board and halved NBWL clearance requirements from 10km to 5km around forest reserves, besides emasculating the Board by replacing eminent experts and concerned NGOs with rubber stamps. He has also relaxed procedures of the Forest Conservation Act….
Read More about Rohini Mohan: The Modi Government’s war on environmentNaomi Klein, author of the groundbreaking books, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, is back with a new groundbreaking work, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. The book resets the debate over global warming by focusing on how it is integrally related to the current economic system that spans the globe. Her new book, This…
Read More about Naomi Klein: Capitalism vs The ClimateTed Trainer, Social Work, University of NSW (Editor’s Note: Below is a summary of Ted Trainer’s ‘The Simpler Way‘, which he defines as “Working for transition from consumer society to a more simpler, more cooperative, just and ecologically sustainable society”. In the web page linked above, Trainer provides more information and an exhaustive set of documents arguing how environmental…
Read More about Ted Trainer: The Simpler Way
Basic protections to safeguard the environment, that were not particularly strong to begin with, are being wiped out. While in general, faster moving transparent government processes are required, the Modi government’s predilection for protecting private corporations at the expense of public welfare, does not bode well for the environment nor the well-being of India’s peoples….
Read More about Modi and the Environment: The 100 day report(Editor’s Note: This 2010 article (full text below) by well-known columnist George Monbiot says provides a summary of Common Cause: The Case for Working with our Cultural Values, a paper by Tom Crompton of the environment group WWF. The paper uses the latest research in psychology as a prism to understand why progressive causes, even the most urgent…
Read More about Report: Common Cause – The Case for Working with our Cultural Values
Jay Mazoomdar writes: Narendra Modi does mean business. So his government has gone about eliminating the policy paralyses that many claimed ailed the previous regime. This meant dismantling roadblocks that hamper economic growth. But here is what also happens to be under fire: laws and rules that safeguard India’s environment, forests, wildlife, and tribal rights….
Read More about 11 environmental disasters Narendra Modi blessed in his first 100 days
This is the concept note for the first ever symposium on ‘de-growth’ in India, held in September 2014 in Delhi. Rajeswari S. Raina (NISTADS-CSIR) & Julien-Francois Gerber (TERI University) It has become common knowledge that GDP is a simplistic and even misleading measure for an economy’s health*. In fact, two-digit GDP growth is in many…
Read More about Growth, green growth or degrowth? New critical directions for India’s sustainability
Papri Sri Raman reports: The new environment minister, Prakash Javadekar, met Defense Minister Jaitley on June 10 and later announced a policy that would enable India’s border states with Pakistan, China and Burma to clear defense projects falling within 100kms of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), without approaching the union government for environment clearances….
Read More about Environment Under Siege in New India
Avay Shukla writes: The most disappointing and worrying aspect of the recent elections, for me, has been the almost complete absence of any debate or discussion on the environment. Some political parties, the BJP included, did make weak proforma noises about it in their manifestos but there was no mention of it in their campaigning….
Read More about Mr Modi and the environment – A green vision or a grey area?
The lion, tiger, turtle, butterfly, orchid, mudskipper and one-horned rhino will need every helping hand to survive the development ambitions of a nation that believes that economic ambitions can be fulfilled at the cost of its wildernesses. We know that’s not possible and hope that you will move us away from the subcontinent’s biological-climate precipice….
Read More about Bittu Sahgal: Narendra Modi’s development plan: Will it hang India’s wildlife?
Jay Mazoomdar writes: In its “classified” report titled ‘Impact of NGOs on Development’ sent to a host of government offices including the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), on June 3, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has named a long list of organizations and activists under its watch, from well-known environmental and anti-nuclear groups to little-known localized outfits….
Read More about IB’s NGO Report: Not a time for intelligence or dissent
