-Hindustan Times The decision to protect the Mangar Bani forest in Faridabad and a 500-metre buffer as a no-construction zone is a remarkable one. This declaration by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar recently has been widely welcomed, and could mark a turning point in the battle between the government and environmentalists campaigning to save the Haryana Aravallis, especially the Mangar Bani. The region is under threat from real estate developers and...

-Business Standard About 100 changes have already been effected through executive orders; new amendments involve structural and policy-level alterations The Centre is all set to overhaul environmental and forest regulations, policies, and laws once the two-day conference of state forest ministers and officials is over. The conference will start on Monday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing it. After effecting some 100-odd changes to regulations through executive orders, the Union environment ministry has...

-The Hindustan Times India has driven the truck of development - loaded with tar, bricks, glass, concrete...the works - right through its most treasured and fragile green spaces in the last decade. While major cities like Delhi and Mumbai sacrificed green cover for real estate, the country's finest wildlife corridors have been ceded to indiscriminate industrialisation. In the absence of a clear policy to balance development and environment, the Aravallis in Gurgaon,...

-The Hindu By exempting some projects on forest land from gram sabha consent, the government has undermined the rights of local communities and their crucial role in protecting the environment In early February, the Ministry of Environment and Forests partially revoked a crucial order it had issued in August 2009, which made the consent of gram sabhas mandatory for projects seeking diversion of forest lands for non-forest purposes. Now, the ministry has...

-The Hindu Thousands of acres of uncultivable forested hills in Haryana, Gurgaon and Faridabad face the same prospect Gurgaon: Two decades ago when Sunil’s parents sold off 25 acres of their family’s share of land in the Mangar forests of Faridabad, they and other villagers thought the buyers were fools to buy it up because they were assured that they could continue to use it for grazing cattle and firewood. Today, 25-year-old...