Environmental corruption has destroyed ecosystems, and wildlife is at the edge of extinction. The un-monitored plundering of the environmental resources has resulted in the deplorable state of its being. Environmental crimes have shot up to a great extent in a short period of time. These crimes include illegal trading of wildlife, poaching, crimes in the forestry sector, illegal exploitation and selling of precious metal and minerals, illegal fisheries, the trafficking of illegal wildlife products...
New Delhi, March 11 (G’nY News Service): India is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and is impacted by livelihood issues, low food security, health risks, and dwindling ecological resources. The Natural Resource Management (NRM) programme of GIZ seeks to address the pressing needs of India’s rural areas in the context of climate change through a range of projects fostering rural innovation and business models, knowledge networks in Indian agriculture, food security, and promoting...
New Delhi, March 10 (G’nY News Service): The Government of India has repeatedly committed itself to Sab ka Sath in development projects in India. This was reiterated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his governance related speech in Dibrugarh (Assam) on Feb 5, 2016. While a debate on what this should mean in practice could be a subject of a longer article, I would like to highlight that the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF &CC) seems to be working in contradiction...
New Delhi, March 08 (G’nY News Service): In 80per cent of Indian cities, air pollutant concentrations are well above the prescribed standards. This exposes the resident population to extremely dangerous air pollutant levels resulting in acute and chronic ailments. The impact of pollutants on agriculture, ecology, and the climate has already been well- documented. Delhi’s air quality is particularly attracting domestic and international attention as the annual averaged concentrations of particulate...
New Delhi, February 25 (G’nY News Service): On January 8, 2016, the residents of Ghatbarra village in central India received a notice stating that their Community Forest Rights (CFR) granted on September 3, 2013 were being cancelled. The reason cited was that their rights were causing disturbance to ongoing mining operations. The letter justified this stating that the cancellation was legitimate since the villagers had received their CFR titles only after formal approval for forest diversion. This...
New Delhi, February 20 (G’nY News Service): The Zika virus is a mosquito-transmitted infection, closely related to dengue, yellow fever and the West Nile virus. Although it was first discovered in the Zika forest in Uganda in, 1947 and is common in Africa and Asia, it did not begin to spread in the Western Hemisphere until May 2015, when an outbreak occurred in Brazil. Since then, there have been more than 4,000 births with suspected microcephaly in Brazil, compared with a previous yearly average...
New Delhi, February 15 (G’nY News Service): “I hope they are competent, too,” the then Delhi Chief Minister Smt Sheila Dixit, had remarked, on July 13, 2007, in her file about cleaning the Yamuna. This was in response to a note from the then Chief Secretary, recommending that the Interceptor Drain project be awarded to M/s Engineers India Limited, a public sector company on nomination basis. Subsequently an agreement for laying Interceptor Sewers along three major drains (Shahdara, Supplementary...
New Delhi, February 13 (G’nY News Service): The impact of climate on aviation has long since manifested itself through temperature variations, bumpier rides, turbulence and weight reduction on planes. But now, studies have shown that additional factors such as faster jet stream winds (a strong high-altitude wind that blows west to east across the Atlantic) driven by the temperature difference at high altitudes between the polar region and equator, are set to make a difference due to increasing...
New Delhi, February 11 (G’nY News Service): The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) are the freshwater towers of South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Water originating from their snow, glaciers and rainfall feed the ten largest river systems in Asia, supporting the drinking water, irrigation, energy, industry and sanitation needs of 1.5 billion people living in the mountains and downstream. The HKH region spreads over 8 countries, from Afghanistan in the West to Myanmar in the East, and North-South from...
Automobile emissions may not be the single most source of air pollution in Delhi, but they are a significant contributor to the deteriorating air quality. The transport sector accounts for about 20 per cent of global energy use but reports indicate that automobiles alone contribute 25-30 per cent of all global emissions. The world over the key philosophy gaining momentum for transition to a low carbon economy is to electrify all human activities including transportation and agriculture. Delhi...
