-Scroll.in The result is a big mess, in the words of one official. In nine months since September, a file containing a proposal seeking environmental approval to upgrade a highway in Sikkim has travelled about 1,500 km from Shillong to Kolkata to Guwahati, before returning to rest in an office in Kolkata. Until last week, the file had not been examined, an official in the environment ministry said. The story of this file...

-Newslaundry.com The state’s River Training Policy appears designed to allow near unfettered mining of sand and boulders by private contractors, bypassing green clearance and scientific assessment. In November 2020, a few months before floods ravaged Uttarakhand, the deputy collector of Purnagiri in Tanakpur district announced an open auction of tenders to desilt the riverbed in Champawat’s villages. Tenders for government work usually seek the lowest bidder, the contractor willing to do the job...

-The Hindu Livelihood rights of fishers should be protected, they appeal to CM Chennai: environmental groups, climate activists, educationists, fishers and a number of citizens have written to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin expressing concern over the ‘Project Blue’ component of Singara Chennai 2.0 proposed by the Greater Chennai Corporation. In their letter, 65 eminent personalities said the project should recognise and protect livelihood rights of fishers. They also pointed out that the similar...

-UN News The health of children, adolescents and expectant mothers worldwide is at risk from the illegal processing of old electrical or electronic devices, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, in a landmark new report on the toxic threat. In a statement coinciding with the launch, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the health threat was growing, in line with the “mounting ‘tsunami of e-waste’”. "In the same way the...

-Article-14.com The Niti Aayog wants to review the economic impacts of Supreme Court rulings on environmental-law violations. Its officials are supposedly not investigating ‘judicial activism’. Files we obtained using right-to-information laws show that is indeed what they are doing. New Delhi: The government think tank Niti Aayog funded a study on the economic impact of judicial activism, overruling a warning from a top official that it served no purpose, according to documents...