-Business Standard The ordinance has returned near absolute power of discretion in land acquisition, except in tribal areas, into the hands of the bureaucracy yet again Even after the National Democratic Alliance's land ordinance, governments will still need the consent of tribal gram sabhas in all Schedule V and VI areas of the country before acquiring land for themselves or for public-private projects. While the land ordinance has done away with the need...
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350-tonne oil spill by Bangladeshi ship threatens Sunderbans -Krishnendu Mukherjee & Rakhi Chakrabarty
-The Times of India KOLKATA: The fragile Sundarbans region stared at an ecological nightmare after a vessel carrying 350 tonnes of oil crashed, spilling the toxic liquid over an 80-sq-km area along the Sela river in Bangladesh and threatening a sanctuary of rare Irrawaddy and Ganges dolphins. The site, near Mongla port, is about 100km from the Kolkata port and Indian officials are on alert over the possibility of the oil slick...
More »Women on the Edge of Land and Life -Manipadma Jena
-IPS News SUNDARBANS: November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. There is little agricultural wage-work to be found, and the village moneylender's loan remains unpaid, its interest mounting. The paddy harvest is a month away, pushing rice prices to an annual high. For those like Namita Bera,...
More »A year after Uttarakhand floods, disregard for ecology continues -Chetan Chauhan
-The Hindustan Times In the din of elections and euphoria over new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the loss of hundreds of lives in one of the worst Himalayan tragedies in Uttarakhand has been forgotten. The policy correction promised after the tragedy remained mostly on paper and Uttarakhand is back to business as usual - developing but doing little to save the fragile local ecology. The core of the promises made was to check...
More »The fifth metro: To save a lake -Saritha Rai
-The Indian Express A new study on the Dal Lake could point the way in dealing with ecological challenges A multi-dimensional group of experts from the Bangalore-based biodiversity and environment think tank, ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment), embarked on a wide-ranging study to save Srinagar's Dal Lake. The ATREE team of experts includes a water quality scientist, a hydrologist, a sociologist, an institutional management and governance expert and...
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