Reckless Plunder

The Supreme Court's scathing intervention in the Kancha Gachibowli deforestation case last week could not have come sooner.

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What began as a quiet student protest at the University of Hyderabad has now snowballed into a national flashpoint, forcing the country to confront once again the reckless pace at which India's urban green spaces are being sacrificed at the altar of development. In directing the Telangana government to immediately halt all clearing activities in the Kancha Gachibowli forested zone, the apex court delivered a message that was, in the words of Justice BR Gavai, loud and unmissable: "no one, not even a state government, is above the law" when it comes to environmental protection.