-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The devastation in the Garhwal Himalayas was pretty much on predicted lines and man-made. An environmental assessment of the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers three years ago by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had warned of severe hazards both for natural ecology and stabilization of hill slopes along the riverbed, erosion of which has resulted in hundreds of casualties in the flash floods. The report --...

-The Hindustan Times If there is one defining collage of the ongoing monsoon mayhem in Uttarakhand, it's this: multi-storied concrete houses collapsing like a pack of cards into an angry, wild river and cars and lorries being tossed around in the swirling muddy waters, as if they were plastic toys. As I watched the unfolding drama on TV, I remembered what a green campaigner told me some years ago in Uttarkashi:...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Union environment ministry is expected to approve the K Kasturirangan panel report on Western Ghats and declare around 60,000 square kilometers of the southern hills - spanning across six states - as no-go area for mining, thermal power plants and heavily polluting industries. Sources in the ministry said, the process has begun to finalize the decision after receiving comments from public and state governments on...

-IANS Shimla: The hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh -- in private and public sectors -- are not only gobbling up forests but also damaging natural resources, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found. The compensatory afforestation by the state is highly deficient as 58 percent of the test-checked hydropower projects reported no afforestation at all, the CAG said in its recent report. It pointed out that lack of re-greening of...

-Tehelka Close to 30 percent of forests have been converted to Chir Pine monocultures displacing grazing rights of several communities like the Gaddis and Gujjars. There is no quantitative assessement of the impact of loss on people's lives The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, or Recognition of Forest Rights Act - commonly known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA) was passed by Parliament in 2006 to address historical injustices...