Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has taken a stand on air pollution in Delhi as the state government launches a campaign to safeguard the national capital’s air quality. Kejriwal said that the Yudh Pradushan ke Virudh campaign to fight air pollution in Delhi would provide separate and specific plans for thirteen identified air pollution hotspots. The […]
environment
Land diversion laws driving an environmental crisis?
India’s forests and their inhabitants are under threat. Land diversion laws may be driving the crisis, as an analysis by IndiaSpend reported on Friday. Deforestation in India is a considerable environmental and public health threat. Earlier this year, I quoted in a report for Health Issues India the words of a 1982 paper by B. […]
The power lies with you – Claude Alvares of the Goa Foundation talks to HII
For more than 35 years, Claude Alvares has acted as director of the Goa Foundation. In the Foundation’s own words “The Goa Foundation is the most well known of Goa’s environmental action groups. Founded in 1986 by a group of Goan environmentalists each flighting his or her own individual environmental battles, the organisation today commands […]
Lightning strikes: An underreported crisis
A popular adage, if not cliché, is that lightning never strikes in the same place twice. However, in India, lightning strikes are increasing. Experts pinpoint climate change as the cause. An IndiaSpend analysis published earlier this week highlighted the issue. The report notes that the last four months alone have seen more than 200 deaths […]
Pollution’s existentialist threat
COVID-19 may be perceived by many as the defining challenge of the moment. It can be wagered that the health of our environment – indeed, the health of our planet – is the defining challenge of our time. This is not to exculpate COVID-19 as the real threat that it is, nor to downplay the […]
Desertification: The decay of the land
Desertification is perhaps not as widely publicised an environmental issue as others, but this does not take away from the severity of the threat it poses – that of a fundamental threat to our way of life. India is beset by a plethora of environmental issues – desertification looms among them. As defined in a […]
Environmentalism in a time of COVID
Last year, Time magazine named Greta Thunberg their Person of the Year. The now-seventeen-year-old climate activist from Sweden has inspired a global movement, assuming the role of a bastion for environmentalism. Across the world, young people have protested for their future, for the future of their environment, and their planet – including in India. Thunberg […]
Mother Earth and how we’re failing her
March 22nd marks International Mother Earth Day – an occasion designated by the United Nations (UN) to underscore the importance of our environment. On International Mother Earth Day 2020, the occasion is poignant given the age of environmental degradation we reside in. To quote the UN, “nature is suffering.” This situ manifests, it says, in […]
Deforestation: An environmental catastrophe
“The emerging trends indicate that the rate of deforestation is likely to increase over the coming years. Major policy changes needed to reverse this trend are identified. They include increased commitment towards forest production and intensive agroforestry programmes.” Those words appeared in a 1982 paper by B. Bowonder published in the International Journal of Environmental […]
Bezos infuses US$10 billion into climate fight
The global fight against climate change is to receive a cash infusion to the tune of US$10 billion, courtesy of centibillionaire and tech magnate Jeff Bezos. However, the move has generated controversy. Climate change is undeniably a major threat to global health and development. India stands to be hard-hit by any number of environmental catastrophes […]