-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...

-The Indian Express PET bottles imported for processing in SEZs had increased substantially. New Delhi: The government has plugged a loophole that allowed the import of plastic waste into India for processing. “…Solid plastic waste has been prohibited from import into the country including in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and by Export Oriented Units (EOU),” the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) said in an order made public on Wednesday. The...

-The Hindu The new CRZ notification of 2018 now reads as a rejection of science and the anticipated impacts from climate change In late December, the government approved the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018, which had been earlier circulated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The CRZ consists of designated areas along the coast that are regulated by the government. The government introduced the new CRZ...