For green cause: Bangalore, Brikesh Singh knows all about scaling great heights to protect environment. Be it the UK Parliament or trees on the sides of Sankey Tank Bund Road – thankfully spared by the axes of the city corporation – he had used his skill to climb buildings and …
The sight on television was heartbreaking: children lying in rows in the searing sun to be human shields against the takeover of their land for Korean giant POSCO’s mega bucks project. Facing them were armed police sent by the state government to assist in the operation. The steel plant and …
This Supreme Court order dated July 6, 2011 permitted Lafarge of France to resume limestone mining in Meghalaya to feed its $255-million cement plant in Bangladesh. This order was delivered by a bench comprising of the Hon’ble Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice KS Radhakrishnan. According to …
A month before the chariot festival of Jagannath in Odisha’s Puri town, newspapers in the state published a government advertisement: “Donate phasi timber for chariot construction.” It promised a felicitation certificate to anyone donating timber for making three gigantic chariots. The appeal soon made headlines. With thousands of devotees set …
A High Powered Committee set up by the Central government has suggested that allocation of natural resources should go to the highest bidder. This 13-member committee, headed by former finance secretary Ashok Chawla, submitted its recommendations in the first week of June. It was set up in January in the …
In April this year, Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra made history. One of its villages became the country’s first to win the right to sell and harvest bamboo. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh handed over transit pass books to residents of Mendha Lekha village, allowing them to exercise community forest rights over …
Loss of forests leads to droughts. Research has shown that destruction of rain forests in Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire may have caused two decades of droughts in Africa. Rain forests are being destroyed at an annual rate of 31 million hectares, an area larger than Poland. Deforestation also contributes …
New Delhi Backtracking on his decision to clear only one power plant in Orissa, environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday gave the green nod to three projects in the state
Blocks not actually within the biodiversity-rich region, he says The bastion of Hasdeo-Arand has finally been broken. One year after saying that the coalfields of this heavily-forested, mineral rich region of Chhattisgarh would never be open to miners, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has finally granted a stage-I forest clearance to …
In what could set a precedent for forest rights struggles, six villages in Madhya Pradesh have stalled a government plan to notify their forest as wildlife sanctuary. Gram sabhas of these villages have passed resolutions against the proposed Katthiwada wildlife sanctuary in Alirajpur district. While the government is yet to …
It’s afternoon and wisps of clouds have already enveloped the Sora Muni shrine that keeps watch over Sri Lanka’s Horton Plains massif. Here, Tamil workers of the Thotulagalla tea estate in Haputale offer a sacrificial goat to the deity following the annual pruning of tea bushes. It is ironic to …
There is something paradoxical about the current thinking on forests, the theme of this year’s World Environment Day. They are dispensable in the pursuit of economic growth. But with climate change becoming common knowledge, there is also a recognition of the role of forests in checking global warming. These divergent …
THE Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has asked detergent company Nirma to explain why the environmental clearance granted to its cement plant in Gujarat should not be revoked. The ministry issued a show cause notice to the company on May 11 after a report by a group of …
POSCO’S steel plant project in Odisha may get stalled again. As the state resumes acquiring land for the country’s largest foreign direct investment project—US $12 billion—it faces a fresh litigation and mounting protests. Communities refuse to part with forest in the mining area and river water for the South Korean …
Following the historic forest rights victory on April 27, mood in Mendha Lekha is upbeat. Gram sabha of this village in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district started felling about 90,000 bamboos a day after winning the right to harvest and sell the minor forest produce (MFP). With transit passes in hand, the …
McDonald saheb, Qureshi saheb, Jivan Singh, Aadal Singh, Udham Singh …. Eighty-yearold Lakshmi Nishad rattles off all the names she remembers of the forest officers who have served in the Gorakhpur range. The display of memory is a desperate attempt to prove that she has lived all her life in …
The joint committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to enquire into the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of the Forest Rights) Act, 2006, came out with its final report in December 2010. The report …
400,000 MAY BE DISPLACED The environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project says 276 villages will be affected; an estimated 177,275 people live in these villages. The Polavaram Project Environmental Impact Appraisal Report of 1985 expected 150,697 people to be displaced in 226 villages. But the population of these villages …
