-Down to Earth The need of the hour is to put halt large hydel-power projects in the Himalayas. Can small hydropower plants offer a sustainable solution? Hydropower is a renewable and non-polluting source of energy. India has an economically exploitable and viable hydropower potential, which is estimated to be about 84,000 megawatt at 60 per cent load factor. It has an installed capacity of 148,701 MW, according to the National Hydroelectric Power...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org With no industrial activity and low wages in agriculture, men from Bhagabanpur in Maldah district go to work in faraway places like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, just to survive and send money home Rehna Bibi didn’t think much when her phone call to her husband, Anas Shaikh, failed to connect at 10.30 a.m.on February 7, 2021. They had spoken less than two hours ago. “His grandmother had died that morning,” says...

-The Indian Express Uttarakhand CM sent letter to PM on jobs, energy security; SC awaits Govt unified stand. At least two power projects hit by the glacial flood burst in Uttarakhand last Sunday — in which over 150 workers are still feared missing or trapped — were in a list of 13 flagged at a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office exactly two years ago. That meeting, records show, ordered a permanent ban...

-The Indian Express “Imagine the odds of a single, dislodged boulder killing him while nobody standing around received a scratch. In hindsight, was it just a freak incident or an early warning? Today, so many are feared dead and everything has been washed away,” says Kolkata-based realtor Kamal Surana. On Independence Day in 2011, Rakesh Mehra, the owner of Ludhiana-based Rajit Paints Group, drove up to Chamoli in Uttarakhand to inaugurate the...

-The Hindu There should be space for greater storage of water in reservoirs before the onset of monsoon In the aftermath of any tragedy, people struggle to comprehend what happened and how to cope. Kerala is no different. With the floodwaters finally receding, a number of experts and politicians have stated various possible reasons for the tragedy. Some have cited ill-thought-out development plans that have affected the sustainability of the Western Ghats,...