According to new data from the World Health Organization, India now ranks in the top ten of the top 50 most polluted countries on earth, although it does rank better than many of its closest neighbors. Meanwhile, data from NASA show parts of the Indo-Gangetic plain to be some of the planet’s most polluted places….
Read More about India now among the world’s top ten most polluted countriesAvant Garde Innovations, founded by siblings Arun and Anoop George from Kerala, has come up with a low-cost wind turbine that can generate enough electricity to power an entire house for a lifetime. The size of a ceiling fan, this wind turbine can generate 5 kWh/kW per day— with just a one-time cost of US$750….
Read More about Video: This wind turbine costs as much as an iPhone, powers an entire house
Elephants raiding a banana plantation near Bannerghatta, Karnataka
Nishanth Srinivasaiah
Peter Smetacek writes: Culling wild animals that have come to depend on agriculture for sustenance is only a short-term measure. This was portrayed as a man-animal conflict rather than what it actually is: the conversion of our forests from rich storehouses of bio-diversity to green deserts by a combination of mismanagement, political expediency and ignorance….
Read More about The culling of wild animals herald future water wars in India
CoalSwarm’s new report details how India has a total of 243 GW of coal plants under development, threatening to derail its renewable energy ambitions, leading to either locked-out renewables or stranded coal plants. It would push the country towards more expensive and underutilized coal plants at the expense of lower cost and cleaner renewable energy….
Read More about Collision course: The incompatibility of India’s coal and renewable strategies
Osama Manzar writes: As part of a digital literacy project in Maharashtra, rural students identified the following major consequences of drought— lack of water for basic needs, irregular supply of drinking water by government authorities, supply of unhygienic water, shortage of fodder for cattle, unemployment, health issues and lack of awareness about water conservation schemes….
Read More about Digital story of drought and death
Jay Mazoomdar reports: Three-quarters of the Environment Ministry’s Environment Supplement Plan — 2,900 words of the 3,850-word draft — is directly lifted from a similar US government document. The draft notification proposes to allow those who go ahead with project work without prior environmental clearance. Under existing laws, these are criminal offences punishable with imprisonment….
Read More about Environment Ministry’s rules for polluters in India, copied word for word from the US
Chethan Kumar reports: The recently Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas, is a first-of-its-kind attempt to present the latest research and raise awareness on the role of soil organisms. Bangalore-based scientist D.J. Bagyaraj, the only Indian contributor to the Atlas, talks about the vital role of soil biodiversity for sustainable food production and prevention of land degradation….
Read More about Interview: DJ Bagyaraj – India’s only contributor to the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas
Representational pic
Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava reports: Massive plantation drives over the past decade have not translated into any significant increase in India’s green cover, an analysis of government data shows, putting a question mark over the money-guzzling schemes and the government’s recent move to distribute Rs 41,000 crore to the states for plantation and regeneration of forests….
Read More about Ghost Plantations: The 17 million hectare hole in India’s green cover
Representational pic
Ritwick Dutta writes on the Environment Ministry’s new draft notification, which if finalised, will sound the death knell for the crucial process of Environment Impact Assessment of developmental and industrial projects in India, and thus legitimise all violations of environmental law. The notification holds serious consequences, for the environment, and for ‘Rule of Law’ itself….
Read More about Red alert: The Centre’s new law spells doom for the environment
Nitin Sethi scoops the latest instance of cronyism: The environment ministry has withdrawn a Rs 200 crore fine from Adani Ports for damaging the environment imposed by the UPA government, the biggest penalty for green violations on record, and also extended a 2009 environmental clearance for the company’s waterfront development project at Mundra in Gujarat….
Read More about Scoop: Govt cancels Rs 200-crore green fine on AdaniSayantan Bera reports: The sorry state of India’s farm movement is inextricably linked to the non-viability of farming now, said Vijay Jawandhia, a farmer leader from Wardha in Maharashtra. “Land holdings have become smaller and farmers everywhere are struggling to run a family and survive. Where is the time or resource to invest in a movement?”…
Read More about Why rural distress is not triggering organised farmer unrest
A view of the Athirapilly falls
Countercurrents.org
Neha Miriam Kurian writes: The Left-Front government in Kerala is reviving the Athirappilly Hydro Electric Project against stiff resistance from local tribes and environmentalists. If implemented, it will displace the ancient hunter-gatherer Kadar tribe and submerge the only remaining low elevation riparian forests left in the Western Ghats, one of the world’s eight biodiversity ‘hotspots’….
Read More about Athirappilly: Kerala’s destructive dam project that refuses to die
The Economic Times
Soumya Aji writes: They have no formal structure and operate in village level groups in Karnataka. The motto for the effort, as of now, is “green socialism”. And they are slowly gathering heft, showing by example and by spreading awareness that there can be an alternative way of living, one that is self-sustaining and satisfying….
Read More about These green socialists want to see a ‘hundred flowers bloom’Catch News reports: In a new initiative by Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, proceedings for the day at the Delhi Assembly were kickstarted by a lecture series. The first lecture was delivered by veteran journalist P. Sainath, who spoke on ‘Water and Farm Crisis in India’, which he said were the defining crises of our times….
Read More about Video: P. Sainath at the Delhi assembly: Water and farm crisis are the defining problems of our time
Planning Commission
Dr. Manmohan Singh was a World Bank employee before he became finance minister and later prime minister. As PM, he nominated Montek Ahluwalia from the IMF as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. The present RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan, was Chief Economist in IMF. This is how the neoliberal agenda has been imposed on India….
Read More about S.G.Vombatkere: Neoliberalism: Its reality exposedArchana Mishra writes: Authorities failed to use MGNREGA and NFSA provisions meant for relief in difficult times. Even delayed wage payments forced downtrodden farmers to migrate towards cities. The national average of MGNREGA wages delayed beyond the statutory limit of 15 days is 62 percent of all wage payments for 2015-16, an RTI query revealed….
Read More about A calamity bigger than drought
Deaths due to heat waves in India have been in the thousands–in the years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2015 in particular. Numbers, which are how the deaths are usually reported, are class- and gender-neutral. It’s one of the grave ironies of global warming that those least responsible for it are affected the most by it….
Read More about India’s heat waves spell doom for the working poorIrfan Syed writes: After it finished reclaiming land from water and then claiming the air (high-rises), the city of Mumbai, being a financial, marketing, and glamour capital and therefore having ceaseless immigration, has been devouring land, like a super-starved T-Rex. After eating up most of legit land, it’s been turning its attention to… the forest….
Read More about It’s raining big cats on dogged, destructive development
A view of the Vizhinjam fishing harbour
Aneesh/Wikimapia
Job creation for Keralites from the controversial Adani-run Vizhinjam Port project is estimated at around 2,000. Compare that to 50,000 fisherfolk who’ll lose their livelihoods. Anjana Radhakrishnan takes a closer look at a project that already seems a social, ecological and economic disaster in the making, but has so far escaped the national media’s attention….
Read More about How ‘development’ is set to create 2000 jobs, but destroy 50,000 livelihoods in Kerala
Economic development and modernity have transformed livelihoods into deadlihoods. They are wiping out millennia-old livelihoods that were ways of life, with no sharp division between work and leisure; replacing them with dreary assembly line jobs where we wait desperately for holidays… Less visible is the pauperisation of those deprived of natural resources they depended on….
Read More about Ashish Kothari: Livelihoods vs. Deadlihoods
