Reply affidavit on behalf of the Central Ground Water Board in the matter of Suo Moto case titled "Haryana 60.48% groundwater over exploited Kurukshetra worst Jhajjar best says" appearing in the Tribune, January 8, 2025. The CGWA report, May 3, 2025 addresses the issue of groundwater exploitation and violation of …
The growth of militant left radicalism, known as the Naxalite movement in official documents and civil society discussions, has acquired considerable prominence in the public policy discourse, media coverage and interaction with social scientists. The subject has also been deliberated upon in seminars across the country. The Government policy to …
A bill that promises direct benefit to people from the minerals underneath their land is ready to be tabled in Parliament this monsoon session. The Group of Ministers gave it a nod on July 7 after minor changes in the contentious profit-sharing provision, which requires mining companies to shell out …
The new Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation (MMDR) Bill, 2011 will ensure that the industry shares its profits with affected people. This is a special report by Down To Earth on this bill that will make mining companies shell out Rs 10,500 crore a year for affected people. New …
Sustainable mining is an oxymoron. Environmentalists will tell you this. Mining—coal to limestone—takes away forests, devastates mountains and leaves the land pockmarked. It also destroys livelihoods of people and displaces them. Worse, modern, mechanised mining takes away livelihood based on land but does not replace it with local employment—all estimates …
Detection of illegal mining is on the rise as State Governments intensify the drive against the menace with Maharashtra topping the list in 2010. The number of detected illegal mining cases in some 19 States has almost doubled to 82,330 in 2010 as against 41,578 in 2009. Maharashtra tops the …
Independent India inherited a structure of landholdings characterised by heavy concentration of cultivable areas in the hands of relatively large absentee landowners, the excessive fragmentation of small landholdings, growing number of landless agricultural workers, and the lack of any generalised system of documentary evidence of landownership or tenancy.
Approach to conserve biodiversity for sustainable development should be targeted at different levels, from improving living standards to changing the attitude of people. If Himalayan medicinal plants are to continue to serve the needs of the people without being reduced to a dangerously unstable resource base, they have to be …
Disclosure is now at the heart of the misappropriation debate—and the centrepiece of vexed international efforts to hammer out a treaty to protect the last major resources of developing nations. Talks in the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) last month on protecting genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural …
Biofuels could help poor nations modernize, but scaling up aid supported projects to commercial operations is far from easy. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352_supp/full/474S018a.html
Bioenergy could help bring food security to the world's poorest continent, say Lee R. Lynd and Jeremy Woods. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7352_supp/full/474S020a.html
My position on the need to re-position forests in development (see ‘Rethink growth with forest capital’, Down To Earth, May 16-31) has brought me a huge response. On the one hand are those who argue that functions of forests already include conservation vital to life; they need to be valued …
Mining companies must share profits with local communities says this latest CSE report. Supports the proposal to share 26 per cent net profits and shows that mining industry’s opposition to this has no basis. Mining companies must share profits with local communities says this latest CSE report. Supports the proposal …
This paper reviews three leading forest sector policy approaches relevant to benefit-sharing for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+): payments for ecosystem services, also known as payments for environmental services (PES), participatory forest management (PFM), and forest concession revenue-sharing arrangements. A survey is made of these three approaches …
This paper looks at the progress made in the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the eight countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region using the national reports to the CBD as the primary source. The paper concludes that all the Hindu Kush-Himalayan countries are making efforts to …
This publication examines the role of foundations, trusts, and funds (FTFs) in delivering benefits derived from mining projects in the developing world. Chapter two addresses the necessity of sharing benefits from mining projects and identifies the situations under which a dedicated instrument such as an FTF can support that process. …
This report by the Ministry of Mines presents the draft Sustainable Development Framework (SDF) for the mining sector in India in light of the recommendations of the Anwarul Hoda Committee, a High Level Committee set up by the Planning Commission in 2005. The draft SDF prepared by ERM India Pvt. …
“Stroke of the pen” reform is critical as in many cases policy is dastardly and change is laggardly. The essential element is to find that big-ticket item that can have impact on a scale and at a pace that is needed. I believe Union environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh’s …
