-Down to Earth Study can go long way in pinpointing future hot spots for climate-induced migration Human migration due to changing climate happens primarily in middle income and agricultural-dependent countries, a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on September 14, 2020, has said. The impacts of climate change that caused migration of people were mainly changes in temperature, rainfall variability and rapid onset events like storms, cyclones and floods, the...

-Hindustan Times While the Centre has been arguing for a two-lane highway with seven-metre carriageways, some HPC members contended that such a broad width would be dangerous for the fragile Himalayan ecology because it is highly susceptible to landslides A Supreme Court (SC) bench on Tuesday heard Ravi Chopra, the chairman of the high-powered committee (HPC), which is reviewing the Char Dham highway project in Uttarakhand, and accepted the final report submitted...

-The Hindu Forest communities are being seen as the primary drivers of denudation during lockdown, while we continue to ignore the impacts of fast-tracked environmental clearances for dams and mines A photograph of a young man, presumably tribal, or a returning migrant, or both, with the carcasses of two hares slung over his shoulder, was recently emblazoned on the cover of a report by a reputed wildlife NGO. The report — based...

-The Indian Express The environment ministry needs to be clear about its role — its mandate is to create and sustain a regulatory framework that prevents the plunder of our natural resources, not actively accelerate the pace of environmental devastation. The draft Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) notification 2020 proposed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has met with massive opposition. As the (hard-won) extended public consultation period draws to...

-Down to Earth The region, with eight per cent of India’s total geographical area, has 25 per cent of India’s forest cover India’s northeastern region — comprising Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura — is a unique biodiversity hotspot. The region, however, faces many environmental problems. Successive Indian forest surveys in 2015, 2017 and 2019 reported net deforestation of 628, 630 and 765 square kilometres in the region respectively. This...