-The Hindu Environment Appraisal Committee which flagged concerns over project has now ‘recommended’ it ‘for grant of terms of reference’ for EIA studies The Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) - Infrastructure I of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has flagged serious concerns about NITI Aayog’s ambitious project for Great Nicobar Island (‘NITI Aayog vision for Great Nicobar ignores tribal, ecological concerns’, The Hindu, March 21, 2021). The committee has,...

Forest fires are not just confined to countries like the United States of America (California, 2020), Brazil (Amazon forest, 2019-2020) or Australia (2019-20); they happen every year across many states in India too. Media reports suggest that forest fires have taken place in the recent months in Odisha's Simlipal National Park, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, among other states. Forest fires have also been reported this year in Nagaland-Manipur border (Dzukou...

-Press release by International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems dated 30th March, 2021 * New report sounds alarm on control of food tech, farming data, and corporate takeover of UN multilateral agencies. * Civil society  and social movements can fight back, boosting post-pandemic resilience, slashing agriculture’s GHG emissions by 75%, and shifting $4 trillion to sustainable food and farming. The future planned by agribusiness giants could accelerate environmental breakdown and jeopardize...

-The Hindu Wildlife Board denotifies Galathea bay sanctuary to build port, trade zone. In what appears to a re-run of recent developments in Little Andaman Island (A bullet through an island’s heart, The Hindu, February 1), more than 150 sq. km. of land is being made available for Phase I of a NITI Aayog-piloted ‘holistic’ and ‘sustainable’ vision for Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost in the Andaman and Nicobar group. This amounts...

-The Indian Express To solve India’s deep agrarian crisis, more public investment and government support are needed, not the new farm laws The farmers’ movement invites us to revisit the trajectory of India’s agriculture so as to understand its real problems. Beginning in the mid-1960s, India and, especially, Punjab experienced a massive productivity boom as a result of widespread adoption of Green Revolution technologies. This transition was driven by public investment in...