-The Indian Express Out of the 1,400 hectares required for the bullet train project in Maharashtra and Gujarat, 353 hectares will be required from Maharashtra. Mumbai: The Maharashtra forest department has raised queries regarding a proposal submitted by the National High-Speed Railway Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) seeking to divert 77.45 hectares of forest land in the state for the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. Calling the proposal incomplete, the state government has...

-The Hindu The Compensatory Afforestation Fund is a deeply flawed and unjust mechanism Last month, Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Mahesh Sharma informed Parliament that his Ministry has collected over ?50,000 crore in a Central compensatory afforestation fund (CAF). This money is to be used though the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) Act, 2016 or CAF, a purported mechanism to offset forest loss. Before issuing Forest Clearances to a...

-TheWire.in Environmentalist and water management expert Ravi Chopra says river inter-linking will sow the seeds for future conflicts between states. There is nothing new about the proposed river-interlinking project being pushed by the government, and this ‘unnecessary excess’ of a project will create more problems than it promises to solve, says environmentalist and water management expert, Dr Ravi Chopra, the director of People’s Science Institute, Dehradun and a managing trustee of the...

-The Telegraph The Left in Bengal had often criticised him whenever he red-flagged excessive local tyranny, and spoke about the industrial decline in Bengal. The incumbent ruling party may make tall claims about changes in Bengal since the Trinamul government came to power but he has been candid enough to suggest that he hasn't seen much change either in industrial expansion or in investment in infrastructure. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has...

-Down to Earth New laws to regulate sand mining have not had much impact Illegal sand mining is a perennial problem in India. But it assumes gargantuan proportions right before the onset of monsoon because swollen rivers make extraction extremely difficult during the rainy season. To make most of the lean period, mine owners and hoarders try to dig out as much sand as possible, through legal and illegal means, in...