CLIMATE CRISIS
Global Environmentalist writes: Your blog post has given every urban Indian a free pass to continue to devour animals as it pleases their taste buds, all in the name of ‘saving the farmers’. The question is, will these people be able to save themselves when we don’t have enough clean water, air and good health?…
Read More about Meat-eating and the environment: An open letter to Sunita Narain
Extreme speculation in commodities trade can play havoc with food prices
Economy
In a major push to widen the scope of commodity derivatives market in India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently allowed options trading on commodity exchanges. Kavaljit Singh argues that what’s good for financial investors and commodity speculators is not necessarily good for the already vulnerable Indian farmer and small entrepreneurs….
Read More about Commodity derivatives: Playground for speculators, graveyard for farmers?
Conflict/Dispossession
Counterview reports: At a time when indigenous communities are losing access to land, and other natural resources, these activists have been relentlessly fighting for social justice, mostly in schedule five areas and other tribal belts. Here are profiles of some of these inspiring grassroots heroes, who were recently felicitated at an event held in Delhi….
Read More about Spotlight: Activists fighting to protect nature and livelihoods in India’s scheduled areas
Conflict/Dispossession
Scroll reports: Twelve years and several twists and turns later, the South Korean steel major has officially withdrawn from the project. With this development, the net result of the Odisha government’s most ambitious industrialisation dream is lakhs of felled trees, thousands of promised jobs that never materialised, and frustrated villagers staring at an uncertain future….
Read More about As Posco exits steel project, Odisha is left with thousands of felled trees and lost livelihoodsCLIMATE CRISIS
In West Antarctica, a huge ice shelf called Larsen C has developed a rift 175 kilometres long and half-a-kilometre wide, which could soon set loose an iceberg the size of Haryana, at over 5,000 sq. km. We need to pay more attention because it could potentially gravely impact India in the near and long term….
Read More about Why India must heed the cracking of a Haryana-sized ice shelf in AntarcticaConflict/Dispossession
Farmers need options to take care of animals that are not producing milk. Or they will be forced to let them stray, to eat the plastic cities throw away and die. By banning meat we are literally taking away half the potential income the livestock owner possesses. It is stealing from the poor, nothing less….
Read More about Sunita Narain: Why I would not advocate vegetarianism
The Art of Living Foundation event on the Yamuna floodplains blatantly violated green norms
Conserve/Resist
The Wire reports: India’s environment ministry issued a notification that’s a remarkable show of partisan support to projects that have been illegally operating without environmental approvals. The document lays out a process by which illegal industrial units, mines, ports or hydro projects can be granted clearance and “brought into compliance” within the next six months….
Read More about Exposed: The Indian govt’s plan to get environmental violators off the hook
P. Sainath/People's Archive of Rural India
Food/Farming
From Policy Forum: India is now facing a water situation that is significantly worse than anything previous generations ever faced. All water bodies near population centres are now grossly polluted. Interstate disputes over river water allocations are becoming increasingly intense. Surface water conditions in the country are bad. However, the groundwater situation is even worse….
Read More about Pumped dry: India’s accelerating and invisible groundwater crisis
Representative pic
Conserve/Resist
Souparna Lahiri writes: How will forests provide for such high energy demands being put on them, especially in the name of renewables? In the Global South, there’s a rise in monoculture tree plantations for biofuels, or wood. Biofuel plantations have already caused the clearing of rainforests and threatened animals and humans that depend on them….
Read More about Why our approach to World Forests Day is a threat to forests
Sandeep Anirudhan addresses the audience at an Aikyam event
ALTERNATIVES
On the first anniversary of Bangalore’s Aikyam Community for Sustainable Living, founder Sandeep Anirudhan travels back in time to recollect the journey that led to a different approach to building sustainability awareness. ‘The biggest realisation was that there was no isolated solution for any of the problems we face, because everything is connected’, he writes….
Read More about How I became a bankrupt monk: My journey towards building an eco-conscious community
Representative pic
Conserve/Resist
Live Mint reports: The Uttarakhand high court has recognized the Ganga and the Yamuna as so-called living entities, giving the rivers that have seen years of damage, a legal voice. Animals, for instance, aren’t considered living entities by law. It’s the first time a court has recognized a non-human as a living entity in India….
Read More about A first: Indian court declares Ganga, Yamuna as living legal entities
Countercurrents.org
Conserve/Resist
K.P. Sasi writes: Swaminathan along with Mylamma were the initial foundations of the historic struggle at Plachimada, Kerala. The struggle initiated by a small group of these Adivasis with Dalits and farmers forced one of the largest corporate powers in the world to back down and quit Plachimada. Swaminathan passed away on March 14, 2015….
Read More about Obituary: Veloor Swaminathan, who led a legendary fight against Coca Cola that’s finding new resonance
ALTERNATIVES
We scientists, each one of us, should ask ourselves what the agricultural establishment needs to do in order effectively to address our current agricultural crisis. Given our present mechanistic scientific paradigm, we are part of the problem, and thus cannot, be part of its solution. Our first task, therefore, is to change our outlook fundamentally….
Read More about Learning from the past: A new protocol for agricultural education and research in India
Korean steel giant POSCO is among several MNCs that have violated India's environmental norms
Reuters/Krishnendu Halde
Conserve/Resist
Ritwick Dutta writes: India’s Environment minister recently urged his colleagues to be wary of foreign-funded NGOs. Ironically, his own party, the ruling BJP, was held guilty by the Delhi High Court for accepting funds from Vedanta, a UK-based company accused of gross environmental and human rights violations. Other violators include Lafarge, POSCO and Coca Cola….
Read More about Indian govt is wary of foreign NGOs, but not corporations?Conflict/Dispossession
Yesterday, a local court convicted 31, and acquitted 117 of the 148 workers charged with the murder of an HR manager at Maruti-Suzuki’s Manesar plant five years ago. The verdict once again puts the spotlight on the extreme exploitation and structural violence that characterise Indian industry, described by G. Sampath in this unforgettable 2012 article….
Read More about Can India Inc. face the truth about the Manesar violence?Conserve/Resist
Dr George Schaller, considered one of the finest field biologists in the world, and has a close connection to India. His work with tigers in Madhya Pradesh’s Kanha National Park, revolutionised wildlife research in India. He tells Scroll.in how Indian conservation has changed, why scientists need to engage with governments and what keeps him going….
Read More about George Schaller: ‘India has far too casually allowed development in nature reserves’
Rohan Chakravarty
Conserve/Resist
Rohan Chakravarty, creator of a popular comic column, writes: We know of Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson and Dian Fossey. But do you know about these heroes? This Women’s Day (8th March), Green Humour celebrates some ‘wild’ women of India- J.Vijaya, Prerna Bindra, Aparajita Datta, Divya Mudappa, Vidya Athreya, Kiran Pathija, Nandini Velho and Tiasa Adhya (click…
Read More about Spotlight: Some ‘wild’ women of India
A truck leaves an illegal sand mine by the Yamuna in Greater Noida
http://ismenvis.nic.in
Development/Growth
The hundreds of millions of Indians migrating from villages to cities require up to a billion square yards of new real estate development annually. Current construction already draws more than 800 million tons of sand every year, mostly from India’s waterways. All the people I spoke to assumed that much of it is taken illegally….
Read More about How to steal a river: New York Times on India’s rampant sand miningConserve/Resist
Nityanand Jayaraman writes: Coke and Pepsi are the best-known agents of commodification of water. It’s unethical and immoral for a resource that is so vital to life to be commodified. So, every nail in the coffins of companies involved in selling water –like Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Tata and so on– is a nail well driven….
Read More about Why the Coke-Pepsi boycott in Tamil Nadu is a good thingConflict/Dispossession
Deepa Bhasthi writes in The Guardian: The illegal dumping of waste mixed with mass untreated sewage in Bangalore is creating a water crisis which threatens residents’ health–and is causing the city’s famous lakes to catch fire. This is the new story of the city, which some scientists believe will be “unliveable” in a few years….
Read More about City of burning lakes: experts fear Bangalore will be uninhabitable by 2025
