Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

Dr. Tishyarakshit Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), recently underlined the need to design carbon markets to address the short-term needs of investors in manufacturing, save fossil fuels for the future and meet the compulsions of environmental probity, sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation over a long period. Addressing the India Carbon Market Conclave 2011, organized jointly by FICCI and the MoEF, in partnership with The World Bank and the International...

Experts have questioned the latest tiger count at Bihar’s Valmiki reserve, saying the park could have more than the eight big cats the census says it has. Authorities at the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR), in West Champaran district, claim that the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had goofed up in not taking into account the entire occupancy area of the park and instead relied on the data collected over just 444sq...

Bringing an aggressive outlook to the ministry of rural development, Jairam Ramesh, who took charge of the portfolio in July, has attempted to address and fast-track contentious issues such as the proposed land acquisition legislation and the census for identifying households below the poverty line (BPL). Ramesh spoke in an interview about his blueprint for the ministry and revisiting controversial elements, including identifying the poor and poverty caps imposed by...

Are environmental clearances delaying industrial development in the country? Some in the government might claim so and argue for further easing of green norms but government data shows otherwise. In the past three years, the rate of rejection of projects for environmental clearance was an insignificant 1.13%. Out of the 1,689 projects that the environment ministry decided upon from 2008 up to August 2011, only 19 were rejected. The ministry...