-Down to Earth Tribunal calls for doing away with general permissions given to commercial entities to withdraw groundwater The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has called for commercial entities to follow new rules for getting permission to extract groundwater. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) will now form the basis of granting such permissions, the NGT bench said. The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti (water) and the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) were ordered by the...

-TheThirdPole.net Going against its own orders, the government in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has ordered the fast-tracking of environmental clearances despite manifest evidence of illegal sand mining A few months after the Jammu and Kashmir government auctioned hundreds of stretches of riverbeds for mineral extraction, companies that won the bids are mining the riverbeds despite the lack of environmental clearance. This makes the mining illegal. But instead of...

-Newslaundry.com The draft EIA Notification 2020, activists say, is a major setback for environmental justice as it weakens public consultation and dilutes compliance norms for corporates. The Indian government is censoring three environmental advocacy groups that are raising concerns about the draft Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2020. Fridays For Future India, Let India Breathe and There Is No Earth B have had their websites blocked. In a statement on July 13, Let India...

-Down to Earth Such data is needed for assessing impact of a project on the environment; experts fear Environment Impact Assessment studies will become misleading Data from only one season can be used to create a baseline for projects under the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 unveiled by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) March 12. Baseline data is needed in EIA reports that predict the impact a...

-The Indian Express The Delhi High Court has extended the window for public feedback to the draft Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2020. A look at the changes proposed in the norms, and why these bother activists. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court extended till August 11 the deadline for public feedback on the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020. This was after the government had changed the deadline from August 10...