-Newsclick.in As landslides plague Garhwal Himalayas, geologist YP Sundriyal says it confirms scientists’ fear that geologically weak areas will destabilise during monsoons. Leading geologist Prof YP Sundriyal teaches the subject at the Hemavati Bahuguna Garhwal University. In this interview with NewsClick, Sundriyal, who specialises in the Garhwal region of the Himalayan range, expresses concern about the rising frequency of landslides. He believes the government must set up a special fund to maintain...

-Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Delhi The report Regulating Urban Trees in India: Issues and Challenges by Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon (published in July, 2022), highlights the scope and functions of a dozen tree laws implemented in different states in India. The implementation of these laws has come to public focus in recent years due to the growing number of cases of large-scale tree felling in Indian cities. The government use of mechanisms...

-India.Mongabay.com * India’s 2022 Wetlands Change Atlas mapped 231,195 wetlands, covering 4.86 percent of the country’s geographical area. The Atlas concluded that the number and extent of these wetlands have increased during the 2006/7-2017/18 period. * Given that mapping wetlands is a complex task, 2022 Atlas likely presents the lower bound of the actual wetland extent in the country and the overall number is higher than what is recorded. * It is high...

-Hindustan Times Some violations of the air and water acts, the environment protection law, and the public liability insurance law that deals with providing relief to victims of accidents while handling hazardous substances in industries will be decriminalised to remove the fear of imprisonment, the ministry said. New Delhi: Violation of certain environmental regulations may soon be decriminalised, although they would attract stiffer penalties, according to public consultation papers released by the...

-The Telegraph Government had alleged that 'weight of indicators in which the country was performing well has been reduced' Calcutta: A senior researcher of the Yale Center for environmental Law and Policy, which prepared the global environmental Performance Index 2022 report that put India at the bottom of the 180 countries assessed, has defended its findings against criticism from the Indian government. Martin Wolf, principal investigator of the report, rebutted the Indian environment,...