The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The Supreme Court judgement on Sardar Sarovar Project ( ssp ) has a lesson for environmentalists: if the judiciary is asked to decide between the environment and development, it will choose development. Therefore, the judges must be presented with a case that integrates the two issues. In the case of …
Atul Kaushik Hats off to Anil Agarwal for his insightful piece on Kashmir and environment. It is such rational thinking that can resolve the trade-environment debate. Uday Turaga The column you wrote on the issue and the perspective that you brought to the Kashmir issue is immensly creative and appealing. …
Sanjay K Srivastava IFS The article by Anil Agarwal is atrocious with heinous flavour and needs to be debated upon. We have umpteen number of officers who have served in such difficult areas where ‘Veerappans’ operate. Anil Bhardwaj IFS Anil Agarwal’s article is not at all a responsible statement. He …
Excerpts from letter to the editor from M Mahmood Husain, Chennai Forty years ago, Veerappan's haunts in Tamil Nadu forests were mine too, almost every one of them. Every nook and corner was intensely familiar for ten years or more, right from probationer days in the Forest Service. What memories …
Environmentalist Anil Agarwal, founder of CSE (Centre for Science and Environment), booming with concern, fighting to strike a balance between environment and development. "A million Gandhis are not a problem but if you have a million Clintons, it's a big problem"
In our January 15, 2000 issue, Down To Earth had highlighted the situation in drought-struck areas of Gujarat. The conclusion was that villages with structures to harvest rainwater were faring much better than villages which had forgotten the value of rain (see:
Achampet mandal of Mahabubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh (AP), was in the clutch of drought six years ago. But it is doing well at present. “Satellite images show an improvement of about 300 per cent between February 1994 and March 1998 with regard to the groundwater table,” says Ramesh Reddy, head …
SEVERAL messages emerge from the analysis of crash programmes to harvest rainwater in Gujarat and ap. It is amply clear that the government of Gujarat has been much more successful in addressing the need of the hour than the AP government. POLITICIANS' RESPONSE: The way the political establishment has gone …
It was quite visible in several districts, whether it was Rajkot, Junagadh or Jamnagar in Saurashtra or Bhuj in Kachchh. People in several villages of these drought-prone regions looked a lot more confident in September 2000 about dealing with drought in the future. Barely four months ago, they had looked …
What does JFM lack? Even today, most of the major decisions are taken by the forest department. Only a small part of the decision making process has been transferred to the village community, and that too only for degraded forests. Another drawback is that only 15-20 per cent of the …
Since forest-dependent communities in India are amongst the poorest people, any bottom-up poverty reduction strategy will have to take forest management into account. Madhya Pradesh ( mp ) chief minister Digvijay Singh's letter to the prime minister asking for a review of the Forest Conservation Act ( fca ) has …
Bangalore. A poor person's Silicon Valley. It's 11 am on July 5, 2000. The scene is Yavanika Auditorium. The occasion is what has come to be known as a public hearing. Outside the hall, protesters demand that farmers and members of the
As the international crude oil crisis worsensits tremors are being felt in India. Seventy per cent of India’s oil is imported. The country’s oil import bill which was Rs 530crore in 1999is expected to be more than Rs 800crore this year. Most of this is due to the international oil …
In the early 1990s, the Birla-led Indo-Gulf Fertilisers Limited was scouting for land near Mangalore to establish a copper smelter plant. Tokur and surrounding villages near Baikampady were proposed as a possible site, an area full of paddy fields and plantations. In 1994, the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Parisarasakta Okkoota ( …
The Indian government subsidises certain petroleum products like diesel This encourages consumers to switch from expensive petrol to cheap diesel Diesel emissions are more harmful than petrol emissions Increase in diesel vehicles means more pollution More pollution will only results in more health problems Subsidy keeps fuel use inefficient. Freight …
W hen you cry, in fact cry hoarse, and yet not be heard, what do you do? Experts contend that going to courts should be the last straw. "Firstly, there is a kind of misplaced loyalty towards the formal justice delivery mechanism as the be-all-and-end-all,' says Ramesh. Secondly, there is …
steel industry: To produce one tonne of steel, India spends 9.5 million kilocalories. In Italy it is 4.3 million kilocalories and for Japan it is only 4.1 million kilocalories. cement industry: Over 2 million kilocalories are used to produce one tonne of cement in India. In Germany it is 0.82 …
Under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 1994, amended in 1997, the company seeking environmental clearance submits to the concerned state pollution control board (SPCB) an executive summary (ES) of the project The SPCB gives a 30-day notice for environmental public hearing with details of the time, date and venue. The …
