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Education/Awareness

USAID, Monsanto and the real reason behind Delhi’s horrific smoke season

20th October 2018

From The Sunday Guardian: The Delhi metropolitan area has one of the world’s highest concentrations of population, and suffocating people here on an annual basis should be treated as a crime against humanity, especially when it can be controlled. Arvind Kumar writes on the connection between USAID, Monsanto and Delhi’s nightmarish annual air pollution spike….

CLIMATE CRISIS

T.G. Jacob: The genesis and political economy of the Kerala floods

10th October 2018

From Frontier Weekly: The flood in Kerala, created by an overdrive in construction activities, which gave enormous profits to corporate capital, now demands reconstruction work on a giant scale, which only expands the market for corporations further. It is obvious that this is not what is required. The requirement is an alternative model of reconstruction….

Development/Growth

Red Alert: India and world hurtling towards financial meltdown

4th October 2018

Ten years after the global financial crisis, a debt-fuelled world economy is headed towards another crash, the IMF has warned. With the Rupee at a record low, unemployment at a 20-year high, and 78 of its largest corporations defaulting on massive debts, India’s rapidly emerging as the epicentre of a crisis that could dwarf 2008….

ALTERNATIVES

Why is the Indian govt silent on this 86-year-old’s fast for the river Ganga?

2nd October 2018

From Mainstream Weekly: Dr. G. D. Agrawal (now Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand) is one of India’s most distinguished environmental engineers, who served as the first Member-Secretary of India’s Central Pollution Control Board. Fasting for almost 100 days now to save the river Ganga, he’s now on his sixth, and in his own words, final “fast-unto-death”….

Development/Growth

Presenting Narendra Modi, ‘Champion of the Earth’ (Disclaimer: This is not a joke)

28th September 2018

To the shock of greens everywhere, Indian PM Modi, whose government has absolutely the worst environmental track record in the country’s history, has been declared a UN “Champion of the Earth”. However, coming from Erik Solheim, the UN environment chief facing a string of corruption allegations himself, this ‘honour’ may not be all that surprising….

Representative pic

ALTERNATIVES

Wary of real estate boom, a Goa village revives farming after 30 years

24th September 2018

From The Indian Express: The residents of St. Estevam say they took to farming more due to fear of gated communities encroaching upon farmland. Nine months after the idea was mooted at the community level, this pilot project is now being tracked by the state government, which plans to take this experiment to every village….

Tagore in an open-air classroom at Shantiniketan, the university he founded

ALTERNATIVES

Re-reading Tagore in the age of development gone mad

20th September 2018

Aseem Shrivastava writes: Tagore’s play Mukta-Dhara foretells the manner in which people across the country have been losing their freedom— those uprooted by development quite obviously so, those ‘benefitting’ from it (mostly living in cities) more subtly and invisibly. This is the ecologically fatal price of ‘progress’, which Rabindranath anticipated in much of his work….

ALTERNATIVES

Madhav Gadgil: A people’s campaign to rebuild Kerala

14th September 2018

From The Hindu: It’s imperative that we abandon business as usual. We cannot just focus on man-made capital; but enhance the sum total of man-made, natural, human and social capital. The new regime that we usher in should acknowledge that it is local communities that have a genuine stake in the health of their ecosystems….

Education/Awareness

The National Green Tribunal is not so green anymore

10th September 2018

Rajeev Suri writes: In keeping with his belief that most cases are being filed by blackmailers, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, the new Chairperson of the National Green Tribunal, has been following the three D rule; Dismiss, Dispose, Disburse. The Chairperson is also known for his previous association with the ruling party and strong RSS leanings….

Conflict/Dispossession

The magnificent seven: The rights defenders targeted by the Indian state

2nd September 2018

On August 28, 2018, some of India’s leading land and human rights defenders were arrested or had their homes raided on charges of conspiring to assassinate the PM Narendra Modi, among other things. Here, we present their profiles and some selected writings/talks, as well as a video dossier of the draconian UAPA law, courtesy TheWire.in…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Kerala floods: Time for introspection and amends as water recedes

29th August 2018

From Mongabay: It was the worst flooding in Kerala in nearly a century, with all 14 districts on red alert. With over 445 dead, a million still in relief camps, its impact will last for years. But the future can be more climate-resilient if grassroots communities realise start working for the conservation of fragile ecologies…

The Economist

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: Caste and Nature: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics

21st August 2018

Rarely do Indian environmental discourses examine nature through the lens of caste. Mukul Sharma shows how the two phenomena are intimately connected, and compares Dalit meanings of environment to Neo-brahminism and mainstream environmental thought. Here, he argues that the Ambedkarite vision is relevant for environmental sustainability, and it is Indian environmentalists who have marginalised Ambedkar….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

“Two” – A film fable by Satyajit Ray

13th August 2018

In 1964, renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray was asked to create a short film for a TV-showcase by American oil company Esso. Asked to write and direct the film in English, Ray opted instead to make a film without words. The result is a poignant fable of modernity and ‘development’, which remains just as relevant today.

Representative Pic

Conflict/Dispossession

Modi govt is building the world’s tallest dam – in earthquake-prone Himalayas!

11th August 2018

Pancheshwar Dam, kingpin of the river-linking project, will be the Himalayas’ largest reservoir. It’ll be located in one of india’s most seismically active areas, yet the project has been marred by shockingly poor environment appraisal. With little chances of it being economically viable, the project is nothing but a lucrative, contractor-friendly pipedream, writes Himanshu Thakkar….

Representative pic

ALTERNATIVES

What would a thriving rural space look like?

3rd August 2018

Shashank Kalra writes: We have a vivid vision of a thriving urban space; but what would a thriving rural space look like? This was one of the key questions I went with in this Gramya Manthan, a rural immersion-programme. Here, I shall bring up some of the subtler issues, which aren’t ‘rural issues’ but all-pervasive….

Raghu Raman, senior Reliance executive and former CEO of India’s National Intelligence Grid

The Indian Express

ALTERNATIVES

India is not ‘self-destructing’ – it’s being destroyed systematically

22nd July 2018

A startlingly pessimistic vision of India’s looming environmental and economic collapse by a senior business leader deserves our urgent attention and ought to revive the debate on development, democracy and policy choices. It’s also the closest we have got to a confession from an insider as to what has really been going in the country….

ALTERNATIVES

Shiv Visvanathan: An emerging wave of environmental politics

16th July 2018

From Asian Age: Just as one wonders if one has reached a dead end, a new wave of environmental politics is emerging. The struggle against the Sterlite plant in Thoothukudi stands is a major symbol of these movements. The politics of environment and the battles for livelihood become a microcosm for the democratic struggles today….

ALTERNATIVES

Cross-border environmentalism and the future of South Asia

6th July 2018

Kanak Mani Dixit, founding editor of ‘Himal Southasian’, writes: When ‘organic environmentalism’ rises from the grassroots and makes state authority accountable, South Asia and its peoples will be protected. At that point, no force will be able to stop activism across the frontiers and South Asia will begin to tackle pollution and dislocation as one….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

The Age of Peaking Resources: A Personal Take

2nd July 2018

During my first encounter with resource depletion issues I thought re-localisation would be a strategy to defy the odds. One relocates to a resource abundant small geography and maintains it through a community driven process. But then, I never pursued it. However, the recent news of India’s looming water crisis has got me thinking again….

ALTERNATIVES

Economy of Permanence: The enduring legacy of J.C. Kumarappa

26th June 2018

J.C. Kumarappa was a stalwart of India’s freedom movement, Gandhian economic philosopher, pioneer in the development of village and cottage industries and advocate of a decentralised, localised economy of permanence and freedom. Yet, he remains practically unknown to the present generation of Indians. A tribute to Kumarappa by Pranjali Bandhu, editor of his collected writings….