Order of the National Green Tribunal (Central Zone Bench, Bhopal) in the matter of Naresh Vashisth Vs Union of India & Others dated 08/04/2025. Issue raised in the application is encroachment of land of village Amer which comes under reserved forest and "Vankhand Amer-54 of Nahargarh Wildlife Sanctuary." The Assistant …
IN INDIA, environment is hardly an election topic. No one expects political parties to make environment a plank and neither do most voters base their decisions on ecological promises. However, in the just-concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, the absence of a burning …
FOR THE candidates of Bhopal (North) constituency, the area worst affected by the gas leak in 1984, relief for the victims seems to be a non-issue. Congress candidate Rasool Ahmad Siddique smugly declares voters are "satisfied with the relief they are getting" and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ramesh Sharma …
GREEN issues came to the fore in several colonies of Delhi. But, for inexplicable reasons, metropolis-wide environmental issues such as the rapidly increasing air pollution, were ignored. Some of the city's otherwise articulate middle-class even accepted the problem of vehicular pollution as fait accompli. Says O P Sharda, president of …
ONE RARE case of an environmental issue spreading out and influencing an election campaign in two constituencies is that of Betwa river pollution in Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for Vidisha and the Congress candidate for nearby Sanchi tried to cash in on the issue, cleverly using …
PARTY manifestoes have repeatedly shown that election promises come cheap. Green ones may come even cheaper. The Congress party's environmental concerns have been stressed in its election manifestoes since the mid-1970s. However, that has not stopped the party from presiding over heavy exploitation of India's forests and groundwater. Now, it …
ANYBODY reading the national media would have thought that environmental issues had precious little to do with the current round of elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. But the stories that our reporters have brought back show that nothing could be farther …
The powers of local government in the UK derive from acts of Parliament -- not from the Constitution -- and can be amended to suit the wishes of the central government. The future of local government at the district (borough) and county levels is currently under review. The ruling Conservatives …
IS THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), proponent of saffron Hindutva, turning green? In Maharashtra, the party recently led two anti-pollution agitations that have impressed even the BJP's opponents, save the ruling Congress, which dismissed the protests as an "unnecessary politicisation" of environmental issues. Both campaigns targeted new industrial projects -- …
With commerce minister Pranah Mukherjee and commerce secretary A V Ganeshan both indicating the government was veering around to the pro-Dunkel point of view, its opponents have become worried. The Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sarigha (KRRS), the most prominent critic of the proposals, said it would try to persuade opposition members …
FOR NEARLY two decades, scientist bureaucrat M G K Menon has been envied and hated by jealous rivals for the favours he has enjoyed from successive Indian governments, whatever the ruling party. Following close association with Indira Gandhi as well as her son, Rajiv, during their premierships, Menon joined the …
THE PAPERS on political themes in this compilation are based on the proceedings of a seminar in Honolulu organised by the University of Hawaii and the East-West Centre. The seminar ambitiously sought to assess independent India's political and economic development to chart out an action path for the 1990s. It …
INDIA'S politicians and bureaucrats have often been compared to the five blind men and the elephant, with the difference that they have consciously chosen to be blind. For years, they have woven a shroud of secrecy over the state of the country's natural resources and every bit of relevant data …
WHEN THE slogan "Declare agriculture an industry" was raised at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Tirupati some months ago, it was an attempt to include rural toilers in the ruling party's grand policies of social reconstruction. But, at best, the slogan is a redundancy, for agriculture is …
