-The Hindu Business Line An Odisha organisation is working hard to preserve traditional foods and prevent the mainstream from swallowing up local knowledge systems Inside a candy pink-and-yellow shamiana, a group of children in blue uniforms line up in front of stalls heaving with different kinds of foods. Tubers in shades of brown, beige and cream; pink and red berries; tiny yellow, orange and red tomatoes; leaves of many sizes and shapes;...

-The Indian Express A new initiative attempts to economically empower villagers living near Kanha National Park, and protect its green cover and wildlife. The Kanha–Pench forest corridor is rich in biodiversity and home to a large concentration of tigers, leopards, gaurs, barasingha, and cheetal. But with the population of the villages increasing and land holdings shrinking, conservation efforts were paramount. If the needs of the villagers for improved livelihoods are not...

-The Hindu The grandiose spectacle that the Art of Living Foundation has organised on a thousand-acre site on the floodplain of a river in Delhi to demonstrate ‘humanitarianism’ and the oneness of cultures will go down as a spectacular example of thoughtless environmental destruction. The Central and Delhi governments have, in a display of extraordinary non-application of mind, allowed a private entity to take over part of the Yamuna floodplain, an...

-The Hindu Business Line Nine years after a landmark law empowering local communities, thousands of forest villages across India struggle to regain their traditional rights over resources and livelihoods Sundar Singh Rabha always carries a certain file folder. He holds it against himself in a hot tin car as it jangles along forest roads towards village Shalkumar, in a northern corner of West Bengal. His phone rings without respite. Every few minutes,...

-Hindustan Times The decision to protect the Mangar Bani forest in Faridabad and a 500-metre buffer as a no-construction zone is a remarkable one. This declaration by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar recently has been widely welcomed, and could mark a turning point in the battle between the government and environmentalists campaigning to save the Haryana Aravallis, especially the Mangar Bani. The region is under threat from real estate developers and...