In the garb of streamlining green clearances, the Union government has sidelined communities and diluted environmental regulations over the past four years
WHEN THE National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power in May 2014, riding on a public sentiment for change, we, as researchers on environmental governance, nurtured a fear: the overtly business friendly government would dilute environmental norms.
The previous government, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in its first term, had brought in legislations, such as the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification (2006), to tighten environmental impact assessment process, and introduced rights-based legislations, such as the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (FRA), 2006, and the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, empowering gram sabhas (village councils) to give consent for development projects that involved forest diversion and land acquisitions. But in its second term (2009-14), UPA started diluting these legislations. The fear was that NDA would continue with the same approach. It has come true.
Just four months after it came to power, NDA set up a High Level Committee on Forest and Environment Related Laws, headed by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian, to propose reforms to India’s complex and much-maligned environmental clearance (ec) and forest diversion processes, and other environmental laws. However, no such overhaul happened. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology rejected the Subramanian committee’s patchy recommeNDAtions in July 2015.
In the past four years the Union government has given EC to 1,098 projects in the major development sectors and about 124,788 hectares (ha) of forestland diversion has been agreed upon to give way to 6,060 projects in various development sectors. The forestland diverted is over 80 percent of the area of Delhi.
Esta historia es de la edición August 01, 2018 de Down To Earth.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 01, 2018 de Down To Earth.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
THE ALCHEMY OF EMOTIONS - SL'OTH
As with all personality traits, laziness is a combination of genes and environment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - WRATH
Anger is an emotional programme, a part of natural selection that helps us bargain for better treatment
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GLUTTONY
We have been captured by food and it is driving us to do something that is arguably not good for us
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - ENVY
Envy gives people a fundamental desire for a higher social rank
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS-L'UST
Love, lust, attachments are basic brain circuits. They are too primitive a system and will never change
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS - GREED
Evolutionary biology sees greed as a way to increase your chances of survival
THE AL'CHEMY OF EMOTIONS
I felt for the tormented whirlwinds Damned for their carnal sins Committed when they let their passions rule their reason
INVISIBLE THREAT
Significant presence of microplastics in Puducherry’s agricultural soil raises concerns for soil and crop health
Feeding off each other
VEGETARIAN MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE WEST GREW WITH MUTUAL SUPPORT AND VALIDATION
India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents