Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is a regulatory process that aims to strike a balance between economic development and the environment. However, with the recent publication of Draft EIA Notification in March 2020, this balance has been disrupted. It allegedly strikes upon the foundations of the EIA process and emphasizes more on facilitating ease of doing business than the conservation of[Read More…]
Amidst the corona virus pandemic, the government of India (The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change) unveiled the Environment Impact Assessment 2020 draft to the public in March 2020 seeking to replace the 2006 version of the law. The latest draft has already created a lot of hype amongst the concerned citizens, with many environmental activists and climate[Read More…]
Co-Written by Surabhi Agarwal, Lubna Sarwath and Sandeep Pandey Disregarding Ravi Chopra’s Recommendations on the Chardham Project Will Destroy the Already Fragile and Threatened Ecology of the Himalayan Region The ecologically sensitive citizens had barely recovered from the excruciating death of Professor G.D. Agrawal aka Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, who gave up his life after a 112 days of fasting[Read More…]
There is a welcome awareness about the need to protect tigers in the wild and the wild places they live. Welcome even more because it comes now at a time when the tiger population in India (numbers are even more elusive and ephemeral than the tiger) has fallen from 100,000 in 1900’s to less than 3000 today. Frankly, one needs[Read More…]
As India went into a lockdown to prevent the spread of the Covid 19, we witnessed a different kind of opening-up of our Protected Areas. As we worked from home, we were greeted with reports of several controversial projects being given a go-ahead in and around some of the most biodiverse regions, ironically by the Standing Committee of the very[Read More…]
The death of John Lewis is a reminder that power concedes nothing without a struggle and that social and ecological justice is a consequence of generational efforts. Building a fair, just, and prosperous ecological future, rooted in social and ecological justice means fundamental change of how we treat one another, how we govern, how we work, how we protect and[Read More…]
In Chile, the Covid-19 pandemic is raging with an unprecedented speed. There are more than 300,000 confirmed cases with one of the highest per capita infection rates of 13,000 cases for every 1 million people. The economy is severely experiencing the repercussions of Coronavirus-caused restrictions and the historically high national unemployment rate of 11.2% is an indicator of such damage. Chileans have took to the[Read More…]
Background The conservation of endangered carnivores is critical to maintaining the structure and balance of diverse ecosystems. Today, drivers of ecosystem change such as climate change, overexploitation of habitats, and land-use change are pushing many vulnerable species towards extinction at alarming rates. The Asiatic cheetah is one such species that roamed the grasslands of India before it was declared extinct[Read More…]
A long series of never-ending dystopias have generated during the COVID 19 pandemic. The mega corporates from time immoral have quenched their thirst by exploiting and extracting resources from the earth without anticipating risks and harm. The dystopias of mishaps in various industrial units have led to corporate wrongdoing in our country. The saga of catastrophes from Chhattisgarh gas leak[Read More…]
Co-Written by Aamir Altaf & Nisar Wani The earth , the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers but on loan from our children . so we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us. (M.K. Gandhi) Lal Koul a canal flow from Bumhama through Drugmulla, shalpora,[Read More…]
I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers – Langston Hughes A bridge is always beautiful. This bridge is located in Ghorashal, Narshingdi, Bangladesh on Shitalakhya River Until the Harvard College admission acceptance letter came I did not see[Read More…]
The World Environment Day (henceforth WED) was initially started by the UN General Assembly in 1972, on the first day of the Stockholm Conference. The objective of this conference was primarily based on, to connect the human with nature and promote the interactions, so that harmony between environment and human could be realized. The WED is being celebrated on 5th[Read More…]
Every year, 5 June is celebrated as World Environment Day globally. Also called People’s day, this day is meant to encourage people to save and protect the environment. World Environment Day 2020 is spotlighting the importance of Biodiversity. According to the United Nations, the theme for this year is ‘Biodiversity’ with the slogan[Read More…]
TANGLA ,ASSAM December 7 – Rapid shrinkage and degradation of the grasslands of the Barnadi Widlife Sanctuary of Udalguri of Assam pose a serious threat to the long-term survival of the critically-endangered pygmy hog that was reintroduced to the sanctuary six months back that were captive breeded in state capital Guwahati. It is to be mentioned that the Durrell Wildlife[Read More…]
Ahwazi environmental activists are reporting an acceleratingenvironmental catastrophe in the once verdant Hor al Azim marshlands in Ahwaz near the Iraqi border with Iran. Thelatest reports reveal that Iranian authorities recently excavated large areas of land in the marshlands, covering these in thick plastic sheeting to use as open pits for the storage of millions of barrels of oil.[Read More…]
The Southern Birdwing has a magnificent wing span. I have seen them in Goa and often wondered if it was a butterfly or a small bird! Karnataka plans to announce the Southern Birdwing (Troides minos) as its state butterfly. It’s stunning beauty will leave one in no doubt as to why. Butterfly lover Haneesh KM says, ” Butterflies symbolise freedom,[Read More…]
Half the tropical forests in the world – the lungs of our ecosystems – are gone; by 2030, at the current rate of harvest, only 10 percent will be left standing. Ninety percent of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practices. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, “There is no blue frontier[Read More…]
The latest cycle of mining expansion in South America dates from the mid-1990s. Since then, levels of investment in exploration and exploitation have generally held steady. Such investment has benefited from reforms in the laws governing mining in almost all countries, and the high demand for basic minerals for industrial use, especially in China and India, which have translated into high prices.[Read More…]
Forest fires are raging in an indigenous territory on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, threatening to wipe out uncontacted members of the Awá tribe. Small groups of neighboring Guajajara Indians were forced to spend days attempting to contain the blaze in the absence of government agents, until an Environment Ministry-led fire-fighting operation began last week. Forest fires started by[Read More…]
Like the Dharavi Belt protest the East Indians (natives of Mumbai) also protested at Azad Maidan on 18 July 2016. The East Indians of Mumbai are an ethnic group who fear the development plan will take away their ethnicity and cultural roots . In order to over come this fear they have submitted a signature campaign to the Chief minister[Read More…]
On 24th July 2016, the Dharavi Beth (island) comprising villages of Gorai, Manori, Uttan, Pali, Chowk, Dongri, and Tarodi on the outskirts of Mumbai came to a halt. Over ten thousand fisherfolk, farmers, the Catholic clergy i.e. priests and nuns, hotel owners, ferry and rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers just about everyone had gathered at a public meeting and rasta roko to[Read More…]
New Delhi, July 16 : National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) condemns this complete arbitrary arrest of environmental activist Piyush Sethia, who has been a crusader for several national level issues including Bhopal Gas Survivors, rights of adivasis and founder of Salem Citizen Forum. He has worked hard to change the face of the city Salem by organising citizens led[Read More…]
Common experience Anybody going out in any city or metro, is assaulted by smoke and exhaust fumes of every sort of motor vehicle. In reducing size, we notice buses and trucks, SUVs, plush sedans, and “commoners’ small cars”, to use the elitist turn of phrase of Mr.Mukul Rohatgi representing government, when arguing against Supreme Court’s ban on large diesel[Read More…]
Recent research by IISc reveals startling numbers on Bangalore’s reckless urbanization and its consequences: during 1973–2016 (1005% concretization or increase of paved surface) has had a telling influence on the natural resources, such as decline in green spaces (88% decline in vegetation), wetlands (79% decline), higher air pollutants and a sharp decline in groundwater table.
Chinese government’s massive open-pit mine in the rainy Papua New Guinea highlands, with its tons of toxic tailings full of sulphides and heavy metals, is to be poised above the Sepik River and its primary rainforests, intact local cultures, and the South Pacific Ocean. Apparently Papua New Guinea’s urban elites have learned little from decades of foreign industrial mining (and logging) causing conflict and despair, environmental damage, and social and economic decline.
Twenty four groups working on environmental, labor and human rights wrote to the Executive Directors of World Bank not to dilute the environmental and social safeguards as the President of the World Bank visits India to explore new financing opportunities. India has been the largest recipient of World Bank loans in the history of World Bank. This also meant that[Read More…]
For one and a half decades, the environmental activists in Kerala have been fighting fighting against the destruction of rain forests, displacement of Kadar Adivasis, damage on the elephant route, destruction of Vazhachal, climate change and many other threats from the proposed Athirappalli project. The lone battle gathered support of many groups during this historic process. Later, KSSP sided with[Read More…]
The United States and Norway this week announced (1) they would offset the greenhouse gas emissions from their aviation industry by buying voluntary emission reduction credits from reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forests. The plan would violate the Rio Declaration in two ways. The Declaration says that States have, in accordance with the Charter of[Read More…]
We, the CBD Alliance, the global platform of civil society and academic organisations working on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), congratulate your government for the decision to re-join the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The three Rio conventions including the UNCCD are of great importance to developing countries and Indigenous Peoples. The Rio Declaration that is incorporated in the UNCCD gives States the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The same responsibility is contained in Article 3 and Article 14 (d) of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
One does not have to read Marx to understand how debt-based money in the form of credit to corporations, – chosen by banks on the basis of their ability to make profit, – leads to an accumulation of money in the hands of those few who create the money and are given the credit. Profiteering, in short, capitalism, is incompatible[Read More…]
“I’ll walk in the rain by your side; I’ll cling to the warmth of your hand. I’ll do anything to keep you satisfied, I’ll love you more than anybody can.” John Denver may have written this song for his baby, but for me my first love is my hometown, Nainital. I have grown up with the smell of the lake[Read More…]
Rational risk management is crucial for societal safety and successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. However the anti-science, anti-environment, pro-fossil fuels Australian Coalition Government has utterly perverted this process in relation to the worsening climate emergency through spin, lying by commission, lying by omission and censorship. Critically, Coalition Government[Read More…]
Huge rise in Amazon wildfires alarms scientists and environmental groups 
Now, lifeline has disappeared in the U.S. but millions rely on emergency pandemic benefits for food, medicine, and rent, 
Crossing the Creepy Line: Google, Deception and the ACCC 
Intellectuals as Lumpen Herds in the Universities 
Accountability Is Gone in America 
Four Months Into the Global COVID-19 Health and Economic Crisis… 
Dalit Politics needs a New Radical Direction 
Deva Basha Vs Mlechha Basha and Ram Vs Ravan! 
DU Professor Hany Babu’s arrest: Media takes a blinkered view to the issue 
Teachers in the e-box 
Kashmir; A year after 
Small Steps and Future Course: Answering the ‘How’ 
The Problematic Story of Draft EIA Notification 2020 
C Achutha Menon: Communist Aspirations in India 
Stop the Celebration of Hatred at Times Square, New York City 
Should Diamond symbolize happily ever after? 
India To Take China On Its Own 
The plight of Journalists in Bangladesh in the age of Covid-19 
Oppose and condemn the arbitrary, vindictive arrest of Prof. Hany Babu 
Human Rights Defenders: Palestinian Eyewitness Testimony of the Execution of Abdul Fattah al-Sharif by Israeli Soldier, Elor Azaria 
Regimes Without Reason and Conscience 
Legal Education under NEP 2020: Big Promises with Little Substance 
Macaulay Putras And The New Education Policy: Shudras/Dalits/Adivasis Must Be Vigilant 
Remembering Kamlabai 
Statement by students in solidarity with Prof Hany Babu 
Unsung martyr: Udham Singh who avenged the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 
Our Lungs Are Under Attack—We Must Protect Them to Stay Alive 
How the national movement influenced our art, culture and cinema 
U.S. jobless claims top 1 million again in latest week as the pandemic keeps on biting workers 
EIA 2020: Why is it so perilous? 
Hagia Sophia: Heritage of Entire Humanity 
Commemorating the writings of Emily Bronte 
Narendra Modi has no right to lay the foundation of Ram temple 
Gender stereotypes plaguing the pandemic response 
Eulogy or Elegy? 
CPI Opposes Privatisation and Commercialisation in New Education Policy 
A strong voice against Hindutva in Greater Vancouver lost 
How the West Stole Democracy From the Arabs 
How Americans Remember (and Forget) Their Wars 
Iran And Israel Spar Over Cyber Warfare 
Today, the Republic of India faces its gravest moment since it was born seventy years ago. What has hit the second most populous nation in the world – just in the last few months itself – is nothing short of a crisis of Biblical proportions. An untreatable viral epidemic, a debilitating lockdown, a collapsed economy, hunger stalking every corner of[Read More…]
