Bookshelf
Vidhyadhar Date writes: A developed country is not one where the poor drive cars, but one where the rich use public transport. Building more roads to reduce congestion is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. India has failed to learn from developed countries’ mistakes and is on a disastrous path of motorization….
Read More about Cars, Capitalism and India
Economy
Harish Damodaran writes: Is farming really a business? If so, to what extent? Is there something about agriculture that makes it fundamentally different as a business? Farmers suffer rules other businessmen never encounter. There are at least four “laws” of business operating only in farming, of which the last two are probably unique to India….
Read More about Is agriculture a business?
The Hindu
Conflict/Dispossession
Nikhil Inamdar writes: India has the world’s largest number of people without access to clean water. The financial burden of this has fallen on its poorest agrarian communities, but the crisis is now spilling over to industries too. In Marathwada, the tanker business is the only one booming. The rest of the economy has collapsed….
Read More about India’s looming water wars can destroy everything, from Make in India to smart cities
ALTERNATIVES
This first of its kind Green Development Agenda for Kerala was collectively drafted by green collective Paristhithi Aikya Vedhi, and has been submitted to the leaders of the main political parties in the fray for the upcoming Assembly Elections in May. It was released on 30th March by Dr.V.S.Vijayan, Member, Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel….
Read More about A Green Development Manifesto for Kerala
NEWS ARCHIVE
Nikhil Dey & Aruna Roy writes: The cynical attitude towards the MGNREGA is an example of how policymakers are deliberately — by squeezing funds and subverting the legal mandate of the law — causing immeasurable misery and suffering. Through the fund squeeze, the government has consciously crippled the MGNREGA’s ability to help people facing drought….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #90
Conflict/Dispossession
Nandita Haksar writes: Ravindra Velip, a 27-year-old tribal activist fighting mining in Goa, is facing the combined might of the state government, the mining lobby and a complicit media. A founding member of green activist group Rainbow Warriors, he was arrested and placed in judicial custody. When he was assaulted in jail, it went unreported….
Read More about How Goa’s mining lobby, government and media ganged up against a young tribal activistEconomy
Harish Damodaran writes: In the past, droughts invariably fuelled speculation and hoarding by unscrupulous traders. But this time, Indians in the cities are hardly feeling the pinch. Barring sugar, consumers aren’t paying all that much more compared to a year ago. Simply put, this time it is a drought essentially of farmers and rural producers….
Read More about There’s a drought in many parts of India. Why isn’t it making headlines?
Economy
Nityanand Jayaraman writes: A new report warns that India’s plans to import 12 nuclear reactors from ailing American equipment suppliers is financially fraught and irrelevant for India’s electricity needs. If built, the reactors will cost anywhere between Rs 6.3 lakh crore and Rs 11 lakh crore, thereby translating to unaffordable and obscenely high electricity tariffs….
Read More about Why is India importing US nuclear reactors that even the US doesn’t want?Digests/Specials
Valiya Chirakula Pakshikal (Birds With Large Wings), directed by Dr. Biju, has been declared 2015’s Best Film on Environment. It explores the disastrous environmental and public health consequences of pesticide use, based on real-life events in Kasargode, Kerala. On this occasion, here’s a look back at the manmade disaster that continues to haunt Kasargode residents….
Read More about Special: A look back at Kerala’s endosulphan disaster
NEWS ARCHIVE
The Centre has proposed modification of green laws to impose a fine up to Rs 20 crore on major environment violators, who would also have to pay a daily fine of Rs 1 crore if the damage continues. Another green law will prevent violators from taking shelter under a legal cover for non-payment of fines….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #89INDIA
Techno-economic fixes do not address the underlying “zero-sum game” nature of water resource use. Ultimately, the problem is that of allocating the water available each year among users — both people and the ecosystem. Without understanding how much water is available, how much is used and by whom, solving India’s water crisis will be impossible….
Read More about Why we must have water budgets
The venue of the Art of Living event on the Yamuna floodplains
www.dailymail.co.uk
Culture/Cognition
Wildlife conservationist Neha Sinha writes: In the past, environmentalists have often been blamed as obstructionist and anti-development. Legal environmental clearance processes have been described as green terrorism because questions of sustainable development and conservation do not always go hand in hand with polluting industrial expansion. But many environmentalists feel being called anti-cultural and anti-Hindu is something new….
Read More about When communalists turn on environmentalists
ALTERNATIVES
Colin Todhunter writes: GMO enthusiasts insist that agroecological farming could never feed the world. But it has been feeding us all for millennia – and it’s the only way to continue while enriching the soils on which all farming depends. Gandhi once called industrial agriculture a nine-day wonder. And its time will soon be up….
Read More about Organic agriculture, agroecology and the parallel reality of the GMO evangelistENERGY
The high water intensity of global energy generation is leading to water-coal conflict caused by coal power production. Greenpeace International has prepared a groundbreaking analysis of the impacts of the world’s coal power plants on global water resources. The world’s coal power plants are consuming water that could meet the basic requirements for nearly 1 billion people….
Read More about How the coal industry is deepening the global water crisis
NEWS ARCHIVE
Nihar Gokhale reports: Rainfall across India in March has been 300-500% higher and often were accompanied by hailstorms. As a result, winter crops across six Indian states – Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra – stand destroyed. Rain and the accompanying hail has damaged upto 60% standing winter crops across the country….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #88
Wccftech.com
ALTERNATIVES
In the Union Budget, the government has decided to exempt the new-age cesses on electric and hybrid cars. But are these green cars really green? They do not pollute the areas that they are being used in because all they are doing is move the pollution from the point of movement to the source of electricity….
Read More about In spite of cool advertising, electric cars (also) damage the environmentConflict/Dispossession
Since its formation Chhattisgarh has become the new destination of domestic and foreign investment. Sunil Kumar’s award-winning documentary Daan Se Raakh (Rice Bowl to Ashtray) captures displacement and industrialization in Chhattisgarh. It critically investigates the impact of unbridled industrialization, privatization of water, and acquisition of agricultural land on the life and livelihoods of the rural population….
Read More about Video: Rice Bowl to Ashtray – Documentary on industrialisation and displacement in Chhattisgarh
25 March 2015. Farmer Nityagopal Barman (43) committed suicide, after being unable to repay his loans
AFP
Development/Growth
As output is rising at a slower rate since 1990, profitability of farmers is getting adversely affected: for they are not being able to produce at as fast a rate as they had been doing before. Note, decline in public investment is a conscious government decision. There are also other policy changes which aggravated this….
Read More about Farmer suicides: What do we know? What does it mean?Development/Growth
Fred Pearce reports: As part of India’s modernization program, Prime Minister Narenda Modi has called for doubling the nation’s coal production by 2020. If it moves forward, India seems set to create a mounting tide of victims — from the cycle-wallahs and refugees of Jharia’s coal fires, to the country’s air quality, to the planet’s climate….
Read More about On burning ground: The human cost of India’s push to produce more coal
Development/Growth
Swati Bansal writes: The waters of many rivers were declared as unfit for human consumption. This included rivers in Goa with fecal coliform bacteria, and rivers in Karnataka where none were suitable for drinking. But pollution was just one factor, the other was hydropower power projects which continue to choke rivers such as the Chenab….
Read More about How did Indian rivers fare in 2015?
