-IndiaToday.in Moon Beverages (Coca-Cola) and Varun Beverages (PepsiCo) have been accused of breaking the terms of their licences by failing to meet their requirements to recharge groundwater. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently imposed a fine of Rs 25 crore on PepsiCo and Coca-Cola for illegally extracting groundwater from the land at their respective manufacturing plants located in Uttar Pradesh. Moon Beverages (Coca-Cola) and Varun Beverages (PepsiCo) have been accused of breaking the...

-TheWire.in The manifestoes of major political parties in the fray in all five states promise both great infrastructure development and greater environmental safeguards. Kochi: In February and March, people in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur will vote to elect their next chief ministers and ruling parties. If not at any other time of the year, the public consciousness of environmental issues is heightened in these states today, as both the...

-Newsclick.in The move, paving the way for rampant hydrocarbon exploitation in and around some of the densest forests, will potentially benefit corporate bigwigs in the oil and natural gas sector. New Delhi: A wildlife conservation body under the Narendra Modi government has exempted oil and natural gas Extraction from the definition of ‘mining’ activity, paving the way for rampant hydrocarbon exploitation in and around some of the densest forests of India which...

-Hindustan Times The Union environment ministry has come out with a consultation paper on amending the Forest Conservation Act 1980 to bring significant changes to forest governance in India including facilitating private plantations for harvesting and exploration or Extraction of oil and natural gas deep beneath forest land by drilling holes from outside the forest areas. Here are the highlights of the environment ministry’s proposal: Forests on private land Until December 1996, provisions of...

-The Hindu Mamata Banerjee’s assumption that Bengali nationalism could block anti-incumbency and Hindutva may be optimistic The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is a unique specimen in understanding anti-incumbency. Welfare schemes that usually make incumbents popular have added to the anti-incumbency woes of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the workers of her party made those the easy and only option for rent-seeking. ‘Cut money’, or the cut for TMC local...