-PTI “Pollution does affect health, but to create such a panicky situation and say millions of people are dying, I do not agree with that” New Delhi: Union minister Harsh Vardhan has discredited the recent global reports claiming over one million deaths in India due to air pollution, saying such studies are only aimed at “causing panic”. The Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Chandni...
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Manohar Lal Khattar fulfilled only 30% of his promises in 4 years: RTI
-The Times of India GURUGRAM (Haryana): In four years since he has been the chief minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar has made 7,306 public announcements about development works in the state between November 2014 and November 2018, out of which 2,113 (29.82%) have been fulfilled. This was revealed by the government in a reply to an RTI filed by a city-based NGO. Other revelations include the number of announcements that cannot...
More »Number crunching helps farmers manage water -Manu Moudgil
-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...
More »Framing the forest rights debate -Vivek Deshpande
-The Indian Express As activists on both sides argue their case on the SC order on eviction of encroachers whose claims have been rejected under the FRA, an explanation of key issues: from dwindling forest cover to bogus claims. On February 28, the Supreme Court put on hold its February 13 order directing states to evict tribals and other forest-dwellers whose claims over encroached forest land had been rejected under the...
More »Failing the forest -Bahar Dutt
-The Hindu Both human rights and wildlife rights groups have not used the Forest Rights Act as a conservation tool On February 13, the Supreme Court ordered the eviction of more than 10 lakh Adivasis and other forest dwellers from forestland across 17 States. The petitioners, mainly wildlife NGOs, had demanded that State governments evict those forest dwellers whose claims over traditional forestland under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers...
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