Category: Environment, Forest and Climate change

Cost of rising air pollution

By Altaf Patel, Mumbai Mirror | March 26, 2019

Unless authorities soon take corrective measures, people will see their quality of life diminish further.

The right to breath clean air is one of the most fundamental rights in the world. Clean air is critical to healthy human life. Pollution affects our health in myriad ways. From respiratory illnesses to damage to sexual organs to cardiovascular problems, the long-term effects of breathing poor quality air are well documented.

According to a new report, seven of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in India. They include Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Noida and Patna. The study, by the software company AirVisual and NGO Greenpeace, ranked New Delhi at 11, making it the world’s most polluted capital, ahead of Dhaka and Kabul. Read more

Protect ocean ecosystem, tap blue economy, says Venkaiah

The Hindu || Prakash Kamat || March 24, 2019

‘Initiate programmes to harness ocean reserves sustainably’

Vice President of India M.Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday cautioned against the further degradation of oceans and their ecosystem. He was visiting Goa.

“India should fully tap the enormous potential of the blue economy to achieve higher growth and initiate appropriate programmes for sustainable harnessing of ocean reserves,” Mr. Naidu told students and officials at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) here. Read more

In an ancient land, a forest’s impending destruction threatens India’s future

Scroll.in || Samar Halarnkar || 24 March 2019

Opening Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo Arand to mining will hasten the devastation of the Adivasi people and the country’s natural resources.

In the heart of India, there is a land called Gondwana. Geologists borrowed the name to provide an identity to Gondwana or Gondwanaland, a prehistoric supercontinent that gave birth to India before humans evolved. It is also a name derived from some of India’s most ancient people, a tribe called the Gonds. Read more

Centre’s nod for mining in 170,000 hectares of forest in Chhattisgarh

Hindustan Times || Jayashree Nandi, New Delhi || March 21, 2019

Hasdeo Arand is one of the largest contiguous stretches of very dense forest in central India, spanning about 170,000 hectares.

The Union environment ministry has given environmental clearance for open cast coal mining in Parsa in Chhattisgarh’s dense Hasdeo Arand forests, in a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for forest cover conservation in India.

Hasdeo Arand is one of the largest contiguous stretches of very dense forest in central India, spanning about 170,000 hectares. Parsa is one of the 30 coal blocks in Hasdeo Arand and is owned by the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (RVUNL). Read more

Centre drafts stricter alternative to Colonial-era Indian Forest Act, 1927

Nitin Sethi & Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava | New Delhi | March 21, 2019

Forest bureaucracy to get more policing powers, including higher immunity to use firearms and override Forest Rights Act

The Union government has proposed an overhaul of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 which the British rulers imposed to take over Indian forests, use them to produce timber, while curtailing and extinguishing rights of millions. But, in the draft law to replace the colonial-era act, the Union government has proposed to not only retain but enhance policing and quasi-judicial powers that the forest officials enjoyed under the original act and provide them yet more. This includes powers to use firearms with exceptional levels of immunity from prosecution. Read more

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