CLIMATE CRISIS
From Wired: It’s the worst locust outbreak to strike Africa in decades, and Pakistan and India’s border states too have been badly affected. And the problem is about to get a lot worse—the insect population could boom by a factor of 500 by June. Unlike other species, a rapidly-warming planet present an advantage to locusts….
Read More about The terrifying science behind the accelerating locust plague
PM Narendra Modi at Jammu's Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, India's longest road tunnel
Conflict/Dispossession
A slew of infrastructure projects in Kashmir, now a Union Territory, are now likely to be fast-tracked. These include road projects totalling 683.31 km, the marquee Zojila and Z-Morh tunnels, and several dam projects. This LiveMint article says the infrastructure push must be seen in the backdrop of China’s controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor next door….
Read More about Paradise imperilled: The ‘development’ onslaught awaiting Kashmir
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about Cross-border environmentalism and the future of South AsiaALTERNATIVES
Rina Saeed Khan reports: Under its “Green Growth Initiative”, the Imran Khan-led Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has begun a number of activities to reverse sixty years of deforestation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Along with a crackdown on the timber mafias, they have started a large scale afforestation project called “The Billion Tree Tsunami” to reverse this trend….
Read More about Pakistan’s ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ takes hold
