-Hindustan Times Some violations of the air and water acts, the environment protection law, and the public liability insurance law that deals with providing relief to victims of accidents while handling hazardous substances in industries will be decriminalised to remove the fear of imprisonment, the ministry said. New Delhi: Violation of certain environmental regulations may soon be decriminalised, although they would attract stiffer penalties, according to public consultation papers released by the...

-TheWire.in * The proposed Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill 2021 encourages a conducive environment for investments and to simplify the patent application process. * Farmers in India have historically been against any kind of IP rights – whether patents or plant variety protection over seed and planting materials. * In a confused mix of laws, the government also grants IP rights to BMCs for farmers’ varieties – formed under the Biological Diversity Act –...

-TheWire.in The MoEFCC's recent decision to exclude new-gen GM plants from the ambit of existing biosafety rules endangers our food system, food exports, farmers' rights over their crops and the country's biological heritage for the sake of corporate profits. Christmas came early for Big Biotech companies and their allied seeds multipliers as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recently, through an office memorandum, excluded the new generation genetically...

-The Hindu Business Line The 2016 report had flagged the disastrous impact of unchecked illegal constructions; but it was never tabled in the Assembly Early warnings of a 2016 draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) Kerala office about the disastrous implications of the environmental degradation due to unchecked and illegal construction activities in the State seem to have been buried, with the report inexplicably not getting tabled in the...

-Press release by Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) dated 9th September, 2021 Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), today, released its new report on forced evictions in India. Titled, Forced Evictions in India in 2020: A Grave Human Rights Crisis During the Pandemic, this report presents comprehensive data and an analysis of forced evictions and demolitions of homes of the urban and rural poor across the country in 2020. It...