“When I told a government official that Pesa allows us to determine our policy on liquor trade in the village, he shot back, ‘Are you trying to teach me the law? If you are so knowledgeable about the law, why are you living here in your village in the forest? Why don’t you go and speak in the Orissa assembly?’” Fulsingh Naik, resident of Mandibisi (Rayagada, West Orissa), December 2009, recounting...

Unfettered coal mining is causing unchecked underground fires that threaten human habitation and the environment, writes geologist Dr Nitish Priyadarshi. The haunting inscription that marks the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno could well be true for Jharkhand. For, the underground fires that have been raging in the coalfields of this state over several years are now beginning to engulf its thickly inhabited areas as well. An underground mine fire that has...

Water may no longer be a free commodity even for the agriculture sector. In order to deal with an imminent water crisis that could haunt the country in the next few decades, the Centre has commissioned the Planning Commission to formulate a policy on integrated water management. Plan panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told TOI that the document will be ready by September. Admitting that water crisis is more...

"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...

The task of providing water where needed is becoming increasingly difficult across the world. Countries have, in recent decades, been investing in infrastructure designed to alleviate water shortages. But the response has, for the most part, overlooked the problem posed by the deteriorating state of aquatic resources. If the growing crisis is to be effectively addressed, water use needs to be linked with environmental care. In many places, even where water...