-The Indian Express Environment ministry clears 229 projects in a month, up from 217 in a quarter. Wary of the perception that his ministry is clearing too many projects too fast, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has asked ministry officials to replace the word ‘diversion’ of forest land with ‘reforestation’ in all communications. An intra-ministry communication issued on July 16 by Javadekar’s private secretary Vinay Srivastava stated: “Hon’ble minister has desired that henceforth...

-The Hindu Thanks to the caste system, India has always been an unequal society. What is even more worrying is that inequality appears to have deepened in the past two decades The Boston Consulting Group’s 15th annual report, “Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015”, has received extensive coverage in the Indian media. The report comes on top of the Global Wealth Databook 2014 from Credit Suisse, which provides a much more...

-India Today Experts claim that afforestation in the degraded areas include monoculture plantations which is not sufficient to create the ecosystem required for wildlife to thrive. Union environment minister may have a plan to regenerate the degraded forests of the country but that might not revive the lost wildlife and biodiversity because artificial ecosystem cannot be a substitute for the natural process. Forest experts have claimed that massive afforestation in the degraded...

-Deccan Herald There is a fresh threat to the country's green cover from a new definition of forests being considered by the Centre. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the new definition will cover notified forests and those with good tree cover. But it may leave out a good part of what is now considered as forests. In fact, there is no clear definition of forests even now in...

-PTI PALGHAR: Raising concern over changing climate scenario and lack of technical and financial resources in tribal farming community, researchers have stressed on the need to develop 'climate-smart' villages in tribal areas of Maharashtra's Palghar district. A study conducted recently in the predominantly tribal Jawhar and Mokhada talukas of the district by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi, has revealed that there is a need to develop climate smart villages...