The hilly state of Himachal Pradesh is limping back to normalcy after a tumultuous monsoon season. The number of fatalities during the monsoon season in the state this year is around…
Punjab enforced the Right To Walk, as per Article 21 of the Indian constitution, in May this year, following a 2010 petition filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court…
Two months after the Indian government identified 30 critical minerals, it has proposed to amend the key mining legislation, Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023, allowing private players to…
The government-run afforestation activities in Himachal Pradesh have increased the vulnerability of pastoralists, leading to expansion of invasive species, as well as hindrance in seamless connectivity to green pastures. As…
Ambikapur, located in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district, is a small city that houses about 200,000 people. In the recent years, the city has become synonymous with 'cleanliness', as the decentralised waste…
India's first water body census, which primarily focused on small water bodies like ponds, tanks, lakes, water conservation structures, and reservoirs, highlighted drawbacks related to their maintenance. Approximately 1.1 million…
Ten state pollution control boards across the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which faces severe air pollution, have a surplus of funds each year, finds a recent report by the Centre for Policy…
India's wheat crop this year has been hit because of excessive rainfall in the crucial month of March, when the crop enters the vital grain-filling stage and gets ready for…
Despite years of discussions to phase out paddy in Punjab, owing to its impact on groundwater, latest data shows that the paddy crop area still dominates agriculture in the state.…
The north Indian union territory of Chandigarh, in its electric vehicle policy released on September 20 this year, aims to phase out fuel-based vehicles and promote electric vehicles by putting…
After a difficult two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Manjeet Singh was hopeful that 2022 would bring some cheer. A farmer from Harigarh village in Punjab's Barnala district, Singh owns…
Even as authorities claim that they are all set to deal with what is now an annual public health crisis, stubble burning in the northern states of India is back…
The opening of the Atal tunnel at the Rohtang Pass in October 2020 has facilitated an unprecedented increase in vehicular traffic in the region, over the past two years. Most…
The summer of 2022 was unkind for the 30-odd farmers of Tandi village in Himachal Pradesh’s cold desert. Over 50% of their crops in the village in Lahaul and Spiti…
Buddha Dariya, in Punjab’s Ludhiana city, was once a clear stream of water, flowing into one of the largest rivers of the state, the Sutlej. Today, it is a stream…
Roshan Lal, 66, is livid. He is yet to come to terms with the damage caused to a forest near his village, that caught fire on June 12. Lal, an…
In October 2021, an eight-storeyed building in Shimla collapsed after heavy rains triggered a landslide. The building was evacuated well before the collapse. But the tragedy exposed the pressure being…
A 2020 block-wise groundwater resources assessment by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) found that most of the districts in Punjab had over-exploited the groundwater levels. In some districts, the…
India’s growing energy requirements have made Kinnaur a major hub of hydro projects in Himachal Pradesh, particularly over the past two to three decades. As a result, there has been…
The capital city Delhi’s giant garbage mountains often come into the limelight, reflecting India’s poor waste management situation. But a similar scene, not too far away from the capital, in Chandigarh,…
I am Vivek Gupta, I have worked in several media outlets including The
Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and The Tribune. Writer can be reached on Twitter at @journoviv.
