-DNA Even as the Modi government promises to increase the green cover, here are the challenges it is facing. Meet Ashish Arora, resort owner in Uttarakhand who lives next to a forest. It is not just the chirping birds, clean air and wild animals that surround him. He also has to grapple with forest fires every year. For the people in Uttarakhand like any other forest-rich state, forest fires are a way...

-Livemint.com Environment minister Prakash Javadekar says extreme rainfall events are highly localized and part of the natural variability of the Indian monsoon system New Delhi: Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar has admitted that there is a rise in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events in the last 40-50 years in India, but doesn’t think the phenomenon is linked with climate change. He was responding to a query raised in...

-The Hindu Forging gram sabha resolutions clears the path to lucrative mining... Such fictions manufacture on file the legal requirement of villagers’ participation and consent. Over 12,000 villages across Odisha conserve their community forests, says a 2013 Odisha Jungle Manch study. In a visit last October to seven villages in Keonjhar district’s Gandhamardan range, Munda communities showed me their forest protection rosters. Each roster listed four villagers for every weekday to roam...

-The Indian Express There is a mounting employment crisis in India. The current growth model, built on large private investments, cannot address the problem. Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan raised many hackles with his demand for affirmative action or job reservations for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates in the private sector. He suggested that “providing quota in private jobs will help cool down anger among SC and STs”, thereby stemming...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Seeking to rejuvenate the Ganga through a massive plantation exercise in its riverscape, the Centre on Tuesday released a detailed project report (DPR) on the sort of intervention it plans for the river which will see five states plant trees on 83,946 sq km of identified diverse forest areas over the next five years. Timing the release of the report with World Water Day, Union...