An eerie silence is still prevailing over Chellanam, a coastal village panchayat located between Ernakulam and Alappuzha in Kerala, where cyclone Tauktae barrelled dangerously into the tiny houses of covid-…
India is targeting about 450 Gigawatt (GW) of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030 and, of that, a lion’s share – 280 GW (over 60 percent) – would come from…
The mining industry is often under criticism for the toll its activities take on the communities living close to mines and the environment. But the mining sector, which has been…
For over a decade, the villages near the Kulda opencast mine in Odisha’s Hemgiri block in the Sundargarh district have been fighting coal pollution without respite. In a desperate bid…
During the latest budget Session of Odisha’s Legislative Assembly, the Odisha government’s Cabinet in March 2021 approved several proposals but the one that raised eyebrows was to use the District…
As an experiment to see if there is a chance for co-development of “mining and ecology”, the expert forest panel of the Indian government’s environment ministry has asked a mining…
Driving across coastal villages of the Vizianagaram district in Andhra Pradesh, it is difficult to miss the vast swathes of swaying trees on either side of the road. Eucalyptus -…
The government of India is once again making a move to amend the Indian Forest Act 1927 even as the effort made last time led to a serious pushback from…
Two shades of river water passing through Ludhiana’s Manewal village explain it all. It is at this village where the Sutlej river, which originates in Tibet before it enters Punjab…
The Piparwar opencast mine in Jharkhand was once the largest coal-producing mine in the state and had damaged the local ecology. Now, after about 30 years of mining operations being…
Every year, India, one of the biggest consumers of palm oil in the world, imports billions of rupees worth of this commodity. Over the past few years though, it has…
India’s push for ramping up coal production would lead to an increase in the country’s methane emissions, the second biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, a latest study…
Indian government’s environment ministry has come out with an order with which the mining industry can avoid public hearing for projects which were granted environment clearance under the Environmental Impact…
The Union Budget 2021-22 announced in February 2021, came amid health and economic challenges caused by Covid-19 and followed stimulus measures totalling a notional value of Rs. 27 trillion (Rs.…
On April 28, 2018, Devidas Nayak of Molem, a mining-affected village in south Goa, wrote to the authorities managing the DMF funds, explaining that his agricultural land has lost its…
“You think anything will ever grow here again?” – asked Tapas Mondal (name changed to protect identity) while he stood beside a stream gushing with fresh water with hills and…
Giving weightage to the “holistic development” argument, an expert committee of the environment ministry has recommended a near-negligible eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) around Galathea National Park (GNP) in the Great Nicobar…
In early February, Kerala's forest department officials raided a timber mill at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district and seized rosewood worth Rs. 60 lakh (six million). The material was being transported…
It is the silver jubilee year of the Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 that was passed by the Indian parliament to empower people living in the fifth…
India’s environment ministry has come out with a set of rules which facilitates any industrial project that starts in an ecologically sensitive coastal zone without required permissions, to compensate by…
