-The Hindu The National Biodiversity Mission can help mend the dysfunctional relationship between humanity and nature On this World Environment Day (June 5), with the novel coronavirus pandemic raging across our vast country, we must reflect on the ways to rebuild our relationship with nature. India’s vast and rich biodiversity gives the nation a unique identity, of which we can be proud. The varied ecosystems across land, rivers, and oceans, feed our...

-Newslaundry.com The Hindi newspaper has aggressively spotlighted the ground realities that governments tried to hide from the public. In the afternoon on April 10 this year, the editorial team of Divya Bhaskar in Ahmedabad gathered in the office to plan the next day’s edition. One news item caught the attention of the paper’s Gujarat editor, Devendra Bhatnagar. The state BJP president, CR Patil, had claimed that he would be giving away 5,000...

-The Hindu In the U.S., India and Brazil, messianic populism, polarisation and insularity have made the pandemic that much worse A year and counting into the greatest health crisis the world has faced in over a century we can identify one overwhelming factor that separates the countries that have done relatively well from those that have been complete disasters:Autocrcy elected autocrats. By any measure the most dismal performers in the democratic world...

-The Hindu Unprecedented damage calls for policies geared to climate change For people in the ecologically fragile Sunderbans, life revolves around battling high tides daily and cyclones regularly. But every cyclone throws up new challenges to the Sunderbans and its inhabitants — something the people had not imagined, and policy makers are not prepared for. Over just the past three years, the Sunderbans, which is home to close to five million people, has...

-IndianSpend.com Recent changes to environment clearance rules allow polluting industries to expand their operations and change their product mix without full central scrutiny. This may weaken the already poor compliance with environmental regulations and could even lead to industrial accidents like the 2020 Visakhapatnam gas leak, experts say. New Delhi: Recent changes in the environment clearance process for India's most polluting industries will allow them to expand their capacity and change their...