-The Hindu Environmental experts and politicians raise concern over Centre’s proposal. Given the widespread destruction of rainforests and native biodiversity caused by oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, environmental experts and politicians are warning that the Centre’s move to promote their cultivation in India’s northeastern States and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be disastrous. Other concerns include the impact on community ownership of tribal lands, as well as the fact that...

-Down to Earth More than half of the degraded land in the country is either rainfed farmland, responsible for the food security of the country, or forest land that offers the best defenc With close to 30 per cent of its geographical area already affected, land degradation is definitely among India’s most pressing environmental problems. To make matters worse, almost all Indian states have recorded an increase in degraded land in the...

-Down to Earth Till 2020, 7.86% of India’s land was under drought-like conditions   Over a fifth of India’s land area (21.06 per cent) is facing drought-like conditions, according to recent data released by Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), a real-time drought-monitoring platform.  This is 62 per cent more than the area under drought during the same period last year, which was 7.86 per cent.  The 21.06 per cent area is under different degrees...

-Hindustan Times IPCC had flagged that sea levels around Asia in the North Indian Ocean have increased faster than the global average, with coastal area loss and shoreline retreat The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis” report released on August 9 made sea level projections which are based on data gathered by satellites and instruments on the ground, analyses and computer simulations. IPCC...

-Countercurrents.org In the first week of August construction workers from several parts of the country organized protests in Delhi and submitted memorandum of their demands to the union government, including the Labor Minister and the Prime Minister. Although the number of those joining the protest was kept low keeping in view COVID related precautions regarding travel and gatherings, construction workers from North to South were represented with representatives from Jammu and Kashmir...