-Business Standard These disasters were caused due to higher economic activities like rock quarrying, construction of new buildings and roads and destruction of natural forest, says Madhav Gadgil At least 20 people have lost their lives and several others are missing as heavy rains led to flash floods and landslides in several parts of Kerala. The situation, which may turn out to be a repeat of the 2018 floods if rain continues, has...
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Development vs environment debate resurfaces after Uttarakhand flash floods -Megha Kaveri
-TheNewsMinute.com Experts say that the narrative that a country must choose between environment and development itself is wrong. Merely days after the fatal landslide in Kerala’s Pettimudi in Idukki district in August last year, the spotlight was back on the Gadgil report on the Western Ghats. The report, submitted to the government of India in 2011, had designated the Pettimudi region among the most sensitive ecological zones in the Western Ghats and...
More »Why We Already Know the Rishi Ganga Flood Was a ‘Sooner or Later’ Event -CP Rajendran
-TheWire.in There should be no doubt that the Chamoli disaster is a sign of our misguided developmental priorities and proves our inability to sustainably develop Ecologically Sensitive Zones. In 2019, a petitioner from a village named Reni, in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, had filed a public interest petition at the Uttarakhand high court. Kundan Singh’s charge was that the Rishi Ganga Power Project, set up near the village in 2005, was resorting to environmentally...
More »Lessons after the great deluge -Anjith Augustine, Shyama Kuriakose, Rajesh George & Monolita Chatterjee
-The Hindu Kerala needs to adopt watershed-based master planning and review building byelaws The unique geography of Kerala, with its steep climbdown from 900m high elevations of the Western Ghats to the coast of Malabar, has resulted in a land with a vast riverine network. There are no less than 44 fast flowing rivers that drain the rainwater Kerala is blessed with into the Arabian Sea. It is a lifeline that supports...
More »Buried in the sands -Sujatha Byravan & Aarthi Sridhar
-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...
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