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Culture/Cognition

An urban Adivasi’s perspective on ‘Newton’, India’s Oscar entry

25th October 2017

Nolina Minz writes: Critics have described ‘Newton’ as ‘brilliant, subversive and one of the finest political satires we have seen in recent years.’ But watching Newton left me deeply annoyed; as an urban adivasi I felt that the quintessential element of the movie was the unfailing poverty, backwardness, and marginality of adivasi communities in India….

Conflict/Dispossession

Salil Tripathi: The real cost of big development projects

23rd September 2017

It’s been said that the Sardar Sarovar dam would provide many with access to water and power. But there’s no such thing as a free thaali, as Gujaratis, of all people, must surely know. Someone has to bear the cost, and that cost, as with all major development projects, has been borne by the poor….

Development/Growth

What exactly is a smart city? The Indian government does not want you to know

18th September 2017

From Scroll.in: How does the government define a smart city under its much-publicised Smart City Mission? This may never be known. An exercise to set clear benchmarks to assess when exactly a city is delivering a high enough quality of life to be declared a smart city was shut down by the urban development ministry….

ALTERNATIVES

Aseem Shrivastava: Who killed Swaraj?

5th September 2017

Nehru’s grand illusion was to imagine that the ‘good’ in the modern world could be somehow magically preserved while allowing the ‘evil seed’ (gluttony of power?) to flourish into a ravishing rainforest of destructive avarice, an inevitability our times are having to face, as barbarism knocks on every door. Gandhi’s fears are globally vindicated today….

Urbanization, the new frontier for conservation - a presentation by course instructor Harini Nagendra

ALTERNATIVES

Module 6: Exploring Sustainability in the Indian Context

28th August 2017

Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….

Representative pic

ENERGY

A window into coal workers in India: The history of Raniganj Coalfield

18th August 2017

From Sanhati: A history of the 240 year-old Raniganj Coalfield– the story of its workers –the many lives that have been spent in its shadows, displaced by coal and depending on it for survival –would be a tale every bit as expansive as the Mahabharata. This two-part article gives a short glimpse of this history….

ALTERNATIVES

Limits to growth: policies to steer the economy away from disaster

17th August 2017

From The Conversation: If the global economy grows by 3% till 2100, it will be 60 times larger than now. The existing economy is already environmentally unsustainable, so we simply cannot“decouple” growth from environmental impact. This paper looks at policies that could facilitate a planned transition beyond growth–while considering the huge obstacles along the way….

Development/Growth

Indian Independence: Made in U.S.A.?

15th August 2017

Colin Todhunter writes: At a time when India commemorates the end of British rule, it finds itself under siege from international capital. Its not only on course to become an even weaker and more hobbled state permanently beholden to US state-corporate interests, but it is heading towards environmental catastrophe much faster than many may think….

An aerial view of Welspun's giant solar park in Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh

Conflict/Dispossession

India’s dispossessed confront a new threat: solar parks

10th August 2017

Frontline reports: Across the country, large tracts of land are being earmarked for exclusive solar power parks. The rocky terrain of Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch district has emerged as the largest solar power-generating hub in India, but the nomadic communities that have lived there for generations find themselves dispossessed of land and reduced to abject poverty….

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature, by Jairam Ramesh

3rd August 2017

Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh tells IndiaSpend about his latest book ‘Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature’, why you can’t leave the environment to market forces, the current government’s policies, the erosion of the National Green Tribunal’s autonomy, the recent commercial approval for GM mustard and the poor implementation of environmental laws in the country….

AFP

Bookshelf

How govt policies are recklessly threatening India’s wildlife reserves

29th July 2017

From Scroll.in: While the UPA government had been steadily weakening safeguards for India’s environment, forests and wildlife, the present NDA government is carrying forward this agenda in an even more aggressive and systematic manner. A new book by Prerna Singh Bindra details how ‘ease of doing business’ has become an excuse to ignore wildlife protection….

ALTERNATIVES

Medha Patkar: Politics over Narmada, once again

28th July 2017

From The Wire: As the Gujarat government rushes to close the Sardar Sarovar dam gates ahead of elections, 40,000 residents of the Narmada valley are facing a nightmare of submergence. It’s this injustice and violence, and the development paradigm debate –development for whom and at what cost– that makes Narmada a litmus test for India….

Save Western Ghats group/Facebook

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: A mountain and a movement: the Save Western Ghats March

23rd July 2017

From The Hindu: Straddling six states, the 1600-odd kilometre-long Western Ghats is home to an astonishing diversity of life and supports innumerable communities and cultures. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the remarkable 100-day ‘Save Western Ghats March’, a landmark event in Indian environmental activism, which became the model for numerous campaigns to follow….

Busting apart this aging dam in Connecticut opened up 27 kilometers of salmon habitat

Lia McLaughlin/USFWS

ALTERNATIVES

Dam busters! The nascent green movement liberating rivers and freeing fish

From Hakai Magazine: For almost 15 years, Harold and Gephard have removed five dams from Connecticut waterways. They spend most of their time meeting owners whose ties to their dams can go back centuries. “It’s about trying to get dam owners to do something that they can’t quite decide. You have to basically say, ‘trust me.’”…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The Dirty 120: Urgewald exposes world’s biggest coal plant developers

19th July 2017

From Mining Review Africa: Environmental NGO Urgewald has revealed companies that are at the forefront to expand the world’s coal-fired power by 42.8%. The report identifies the 120 companies that are planning about 850 new coal plants in 62 countries–including Indian coal majors Adani, Tata, Lanco and Coal India, which are driving the biggest plants….

Development/Growth

From Bangalore to Srinagar, India’s lakes are dead in the water

18th July 2017

From Hindustan Times: The NGT has repeatedly criticised Bengaluru’s civic authorities this year for letting the city’s water bodies become toxic waste dumps. The central body could find similarly mistreated lakes in countless Indian cities, where wetlands are being lost due to urbanisation, changes in land use and pollution. What lakes have survived are shrinking….

Conflict/Dispossession

Three times rise in killings of India’s land, eco-defenders: Modi govt blamed for “stifling opposition” by any means

15th July 2017

From Counterview/Global Witness: A just-released global report has revealed that the number of land and environment defenders killed in India has almost trebled, from 6 in 2015 to 16 in 2016, blaming it on “a disturbing trend” of increasing police brutality, indicating the Modi government’s determination “to stifle opposition to ‘development’ by any means necessary.”…

Conflict/Dispossession

A grain of truth: RCEP and the corporate hijack of Indian agriculture

13th July 2017

Colin Todhunter writes in Countercurrents.org: A combination of debt, economic liberalisation, subsidised imports, rising input costs and a shift to cash crops (including GM-cotton) has caused massive financial distress to small farmers in India. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade deal now being negotiated by 16 countries across Asia-Pacific, could accelerate this process….

Untreated effluents dumped into Sabarmati downstream of Vasna barrage, which is the dead-end of Sabarmati Riverfont

Amruta Pradhan/SANDRP

Conflict/Dispossession

Sabarmati riverfront, inland waterways, Mahanadi dispute, are all newer forms of onslaught on rivers

11th July 2017

From Counterview.org: The Sabarmati River Front has been in the news lately as a model of “river beautification”. When in reality, it is a dead river, filled with effluents and sewage. It was “rejuvenated” with Narmada water, which came at a great cost of the displacement of lakhs of people and destruction of the environment….

ALTERNATIVES

Finally, a breakthrough alternative to growth economics – the doughnut

7th July 2017

George Monbiot writes: We cannot hope to address our predicament without a new worldview. We cannot use the models that caused our crises to solve them. We need to reframe the problem. This is what the most inspiring book published so far this year – Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth of Oxford University -has done….