-Hindustan Times Mumbai: Alleging that the Centre was diluting environment protection laws to allow construction in ecologically important areas, citizens and environment groups have filed 3,971 objections against the draft environment impact assessment (EIA) notification, 2020 proposed by the Union environment ministry. On March 12, the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MOEFCC) presented the new rules that will replace the 2006 EIA notification, which is presently in force, in...

-Newsclick.in Release of the draft during a lockdown, which seeks to fundamentally changes India’s environmental regulations, shows BJP government’s utter disdain for public opinion. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC) had released a Draft Notification on Environment Impact Assessment 2020 (EIA Notification 2020) on March 12, 2020, on the eve of the world’s largest nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and had called for responses in the next...

-Press release by National Alliance of People’s Movements, dated 30th April, 2020 Even as the country is reeling under the impacts of the lockdown and coping with a pandemic, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has made a time-bound call for comments on the draft Environmental Impact Assessment Notification (EIA) 2020, published on its website on 12th March, 2020. The National Alliance of People’s Movements condemns this ill-timed...

-Down to Earth Illegal mining has ravaged the mountain range in the past few decades. Down To Earth investigates the loss and traces the legal developments in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi Abdal khan is a prisoner of geography. A resident of Nimli village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Khan, who claims to be over 100 years old, is mostly bedridden in his home nestled in the foothills of the Aravallis. He stays quiet...

-The Hindu Trees in plantations, private lands should not come under it, says expert panel A high-power committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has recommended that forest surveys — the biennial exercise by the government to estimate forest cover — explicitly demarcate trees grown in forests from those grown outside, that is, in plantations and private lands. Currently, the government counts both towards estimating the portion of...