Carbon Copy A freshly passed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act has created a stir among ecologists, parliamentarians and stakeholders. With several contentious provisions, the amendment reveals an afforestation push where rights and justice take a backseat to commercial interests. This week, amidst a raucous monsoon session, the Indian Parliament saw the passage of several consequential pieces of legislation in quick succession. Among them was the contentious amendment to the Forest Conservation...

Scroll.in The village of Galkuva lies deep in the heart of southern Gujarat, in Tapi district. The mud house serves as a library for the children and youth of Galkuva and neighbouring villages. It is open from 8 each morning to 9.30 at night. Hardik set up the library in August 2022 with the support of like-minded youth in the village. Before that, for two-and-a-half years, he and others had been helping...

A new study suggests that climate change-induced heatwaves in India can hinder or reverse the country’s progress in fulfilling the sustainable development goals (SDGs) Recurrent heatwaves have greater socio-economic impact in India than previously known. A study published in PLOS Climate suggested that heatwaves made more likely by climate change may impede India’s progress toward its sustainable development goals.  India has committed to achieve 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including...

Medianama The Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) floated a second tender in December 2022 for implementation and maintenance of a Master Data Management and de- duplication tool for a State Family Database (SFDB) project. The objective is to assign the ‘Makkal ID’— a unique identification number already allotted to the state’s seven crore residents— to different records across departments. The SFDB is projected to be the “single source of truth” of all...

-Hindustan Times The National Remote Sensing Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation has released satellite images of Joshimath, the Uttarakhand town gradually sinking because of land subsidence. It has revealed that a rapid subsidence of 5.4 centimeters has been recorded in 12 days between December 27, 2022 and January 8, 2023. The 12-day period of subsidence has been rapid, because between April 2022 and November 2022, Joshimath saw a slow...