It's not without reason that the Third World War is predicted to be triggered by water scarcity. The numbers themselves give us enough reason to be worried- by 2025, 60 per cent of India is expected to be living in towns and cities. Bore wells are getting deeper, urban areas brimming with population, and some already suffer from water shortage. However, success stories of humble organisations like the Rain Centre in Chennai let the results...
A recent study by IIFM found that 10 select tiger reserves of the country provide economic benefits worth Rs 5.96 trillion. Globally, efforts are being made to assess the benefits of conservation on economy and various methods and formulas have been devised to evaluate these aspects. Critics, however, believe that ecosystem valuation can lead to commodification of nature and its sale to the highest bidder. ...
नदी का विज्ञानं क्या है और बढ़ते जल प्रदूषण , बाढ़ और सूखे के संदर्भ में यह कहाँ बैठता है? बता रहें हैं प्रसिद्ध पर्यावरणविद् और लेखक अनुपम मिश्र। यह व्यख्यान उन्होंने 28 नवंबर, 2015 को नई दिल्ली में जल नीति विशेषज्ञ स्व: रामास्वामी आर अय्यर की स्मृति में दिया । ‘सबको पानी’ के नारों से ले कर बड़ी वाटर वर्क्स की योजनाओं तक, अनुपम जी पानी से जुड़े सभी सामाजिक और राजनीतिक आयामों को छूते हुए नदी के अविरल स्वभाव को चित्रित करते हैं
This document is a valuable resource that comprises important legal changes and events of last three years with reference to previous laws. Written by well known practitioner Kanchi Kohli, the e-book lists down steps that can be taken to secure people’s rights over land, forests, water and biodiversity. And all this is explained through instances where common men and women explore the nitty gritties of environmental laws. So, we have Sarita...
Going by his fame, I had imagined somebody with people running around him, at least a couple of computers on display and cell phones caroling frequently. But here was a man working without a cellphone or a computer, surrounded by letters people wrote to him. A couple of wooden almirahs adorned with old postcards and images of famous personalities from Gandhi ji to Sunita Narain, stood in his room. Gandhi Marg, the bi-monthly periodical Anupam...
August 12, 2011: The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) decides to take legal action against multinational seed firm Monsanto for accessing local varieties of eggplant and using it to develop genetically modified bt brinjal. Though the action may appear
Birds are declining significantly with 52 percent of species showing clear declines over the past decades, said a new report State of India’s birds 2020. The report analysed 867 bird species from over 10 million observations collected by over 15,500 birdwatchers across the country. It also identified 101 species with high conservation needs. The take-home message is that urbanisation is the...
At the confluence of Subarnarekha river in Orissa, the average fish catch has fallen by 20-30 per cent over the past few years while input cost to run a power boat and maintain a good net has risen. In 2008 winter, standing crops in 16 districts in Rajasthan were damaged
Image 1: More than 30 bulldozers and 100 JCBs ply incessantly on a hill in Murbad tehsil of Maharashtra, excavating a huge foundation and simultaneously levelling the land to build a dam for which forest clearance has not been sanctioned yet. The project
The Chennai floods of December 2015 had little to do with nature’s fury and more about city’s flawed urban planning and decades of improper garbage management. Chennai generates between 4,500- 4,800 tonnes of waste every day, and about 1.8 million tonnes a year. However, the city seems to be learning its lessons pretty quickly, and the effort of some responsible citizens has culminated into the Plastic Waste Rules 2016, and the Solid Waste...
There is a strong perception that the crisis of policy implementation runs deep across all the levels of governance from the Union to the State and further to the local government level. This perception is reinforced in the recent findings of the Comptroller and Auditor
Man has always been on quest of building new things. Even when there were no big machines and qualified engineers, the world had expert builders who shaped the earth into various forms to meet needs of the society. Kuhls of Himachal Pradesh are one such example of engineering brilliance. Kuhl is name given to a channel which carries glacial melt through gravity from nearby streams to the fields thus making irrigation possible even on steep...
North East India has long been ignored by policy makers who usually blame the difficult terrain for non-delivery of essential services. However, for last few years, both the bureaucrats as well as corporates are making a beeline to the region offering development.
Ghaziram's family has been living at Ekalpaar village of Jaisalmer district for ages but managed to build a pucca house only recently. Besides rearing livestock, he owns 50 bigha of agricultural land which earned him Rs 2 lakh last year.
With certain rules around extraction of resources, including ban on cutting of trees, these sacred groves contribute significantly to wildlife protection, soil conservation, groundwater recharge, and as a good source of herbs, fruits and other economic resources to local people. But practices around these spaces differ with location and may not always abide by the concept of unaltered,...
Keshari Sahu is a happy farmer. When scanty and irregular rainfall resulted in heavy damage to the Kharif paddy crop at his village in Balangir district of Odisha last year, he decided to grow Gurjee millet on his three acre farm instead of cotton.
If you frequent villages, ‘Jal, jungle, zamin’ is the commonest refrain you hear. While we city dwellers are acquainted to land and water, forest often remains a distant resource for us. But in many places of the world, there are people who are one with the forests. India is home to many such tribes who treat trees and shrubs as their extended family. The film, “I cannot give you my forest’, gives a glimpse of such a tribe, the Kondhs of...
Around a thousand families of Thalangi tribal hamlet in Coimbatore district received free television sets from the Tamil Nadu government in 2006. But these were of no use as the houses had no electricity supply. Kerosene was the main source of lighting. Today, it is interesting to see how the hamlet has met all its energy needs and also attained complete sanitation through a biodigester. Though biodigesters have conventionally been used to...
The hilsa fishermen of Howrah district in West Bengal are struggling against declining catch, stiff competition from mechanised trawlers and non-traditional fishermen entering the lucrative occupation. The hilsa fishermen get about six months to fish hilsa, considered a delicacy in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Mid-July to mid-September is the season for larger hilsa that fetch high prices....
In 2013, there were 2.6 million deep tubewells and/or borewells (deeper than 70 m) in India irrigating 12.68 million ha of land. However, around 12% of these borewells had either dried up or supplied less water than expected. Expenditure on borewells is one of the reasons for mounting farm debt. This is why artificial recharge of aquifers is essential. But exhaustive awareness campaigns...