Affidavit on behalf of Union Territory of Puducherry in the matter of a news item titled "India lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000 Global Forest Watch" which appeared in the Indian Express, April 13, 2024. The report dated April 25, 2025 said that there is no loss …
the voice of dissent against large dams has reached a crescendo in recent years. Booker-prize winner Arundathi Roy and several other eminent personalities have joined anti-dam activists like Medha Patkar and Sundarlal Bahuguna to denounce them as
he was fighting back the tears. "I lost four sons last year; all of them were suffering from respiratory disorders,' said M Rasul, a middle-aged advisor to the ministry of food processing in Delhi, drawing attention to what air pollution can do to the residents of the capital. "Every time …
in order to provide safe drinking water to all rural areas during the Ninth Plan, the ministry of rural development has revised the guidelines for implementing the Rural Water Supply Programme (rwsp). This would involve exercising control on over-extraction of groundwater, more funds for repair and rehabilitation of infrastructure, increasing …
"i am proud to die for the rights of the fisherfolk.' These were the last words Bacchanidhi Behera uttered before he succumbed to a police bullet in the firing in Orissa's Sarano village in Khurda district on the night of May 29-30. Chilka Lake is Asia's largest brackishwater water body …
Why have we become a nation of such cynics and grumblers? During the World Environment Day on June 5, I was asked repeatedly, will Delhi's air ever become cleaner? My simple answer, which I repeated ad nauseum to anyone who asked was, 'don't grumble', get organised, study and protest. Demand …
fifty years ago, Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh was covered with dense forests. People were rich and prosperous. All was well till a famine ravaged the district and forced the people to go hungry. Forests became their only source of livelihood. Fifty years later, Anantapur stands bare. Its parched land …
The much-awaited rain arrived too late in the hills of Uttarakhand in Uttar Pradesh. Forest fires had already gutted more than 40,000 hectares of the 3,446,655-hectare forests in the region, mainly affecting pine forests. Three people died and several were injured in fighting fires in the Garhwal region in the …
Participants at the seventh session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), held in New York from April 19-30, this year expressed concern over the growing use of land, traditionally used by indigenous people and local communities, as tourist destinations. They called upon the industry to contribute to …
work on a new oil terminal on the Black Sea coast has led to renewed concerns over environmental safety in one of Russia's most beautiful regions. At a ceremony at Yuzhnaya Ozereika, near Russia's main Black Sea oil port, Novorossiisk, Russian and Kazakh government officials and shareholders in the Caspian …
It was a unique way of celebrating Women's Day. Women in the Uttarakhand region of Uttar Pradesh dedicated March 8, 1999, to "Save the Forests'. Chanting slogans such as " jungle bachyega, desh bachyega, gaon kushal rehyega ' (we will save the forests, the country and make the village prosperous), …
protest by the residents of Maitidevi in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, against diesel-driven three-wheelers (Vikram tempos) reached a flashpoint on April 14. Police had to resort to lathicharge when harassed residents started pelting stones at the offending vehicles. The people are demanding that diesel vehicles should not be allowed to ply …
from coastal zones to the high seas, a growing wave of awareness is bringing together citizen groups, businesses and governments, who are mobilising all their resources to save the oceans before human activities destroy them. This has been the conclusion of Anne Platt McGinn's study Safeguarding the Health of Oceans …
fishing communities all over India will go on strike on May 10, 1999 to press for "protection of the sea and the coastal areas'. "On that day, there will be no fishing, no sale of fish and no consumption of fish,' said Thomas Kocherry, coordinator of the World Forum of …
marriages in Gwaldam, a small town in Uttar Pradesh's Chamoli district, are not only about tying wedding knots. When a girl leaves home after marriage, she leaves behind something valuable for her parents. In Gwaldam, it's a tree for them to nurture in the way she had been until her …
"if you look at the figures of the Van Mahotsav (forest festivals), you will find that millions of trees have been planted. But their survival rate has always been under question," says Prem Kumar Dhumal, chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. He talks in similar vein about the crores of rupees …
A people's movement, like that in Ralegan Siddhi, Maharashtra and Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh (MP), is indispensable before ecological regeneration can be undertaken in Rajasthan. This was stated by Anil Agarwal, director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) in a presentation to Rajasthan chief minister …
Both systems exist in Rajasthan. Small, cheap and easy-to-build water harvesting structures and a large canal. One relies on traditional wisdom and local expertise to function. The other, the Indira Gandhi Canal, has been built and maintained by a centralised bureaucracy. The canal passes through the sewan grassland regions of …
This paper discusses the political circumstances which help explain why the insanitary living conditions of such a large section of India’s urban population have been ignored, and contrasts these with the circumstances which explain successful sanitary reform in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. In India, there …
officially recognised as one of the poorest regions of Nepal, the people of Kanchanpur, a district in the country's far-west, have had to survive with whatever little returns they got from their lands. And these were not enough. The district was being afflicted by a bigger, more formidable problem
Forest issues often concern large amounts of money, long time frames, huge areas of land and diverse livelihoods. This report draws the main findings from a series of six country studies from Costa Rica, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe and from a review of international policy initiatives. …
