Cyclone Phailin has not taken many lives but has left behind a trail of destruction that severely cripples people’s livelihood. What did it take to save so many lives in the face of a potential killer? A Down To Earth analysis with a rider: should saving lives be the only mission of disaster preparedness? Alok Gupta from Paradip and Ashis Senapati from Jagatsinghpur in Odisha; …
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Drought of equity
A large part of Maharashtra has been declared drought-hit. But distribution of water is quite incongruous. While the few who are politically and financially powerful take the lion’s share for sugarcane crops, thermal plants and other industries, the rest are struggling to survive. The government has failed to deal with the crisis, report Aparna Pallavi and Akshay Deshmane from the state
Kudankulam meltdown
The spectre of Fukushima continues to haunt the world, forcing governments in most parts of the globe to rethink their plans to tap this controversial source of energy. But it is in India that the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl has had its most serious fallout, with public protests forcing the authorities to delay the commissioning of the ambitious Kudankulam project by …
Future shock
As the world continues to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the global temperatures could rise by 3°C by mid-century, says a soon-to-be-released report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Extreme weather events will become even more intense. Erratic monsoons and severe cyclones have already battered large parts of India this century. Should we still blame …
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Drought hit
Jharkhand’s water table falls three metres in one year
Poor pay for ecological neglect
Droughts seem to be here to stay. Wrong development policies, governmental indifference and relief schemes which don't work have led to a situation where a large part of the nation faces scarcity despite a year of almost normal rainfall
The paradox of nature and balanced accounts
Western institutions and the United Nations are keen protagonists of natural resource accounting but it may still not be a useful policy tool for planners to promote sustainable development. Experience in the Philippines has shown that only an elaborate community-managed accounting system can enable the community achieve environmentally-sound economic development. Drop by drop, national …
A state in chaos
The human cost of the cyclone in Orissa is very high. So is the cost of the damage to the environment. The failure of the state machinery in handling this crisis is only going to make matters worse. At present, chaos reigns supreme in the affected areas
Breach of trust
This is not a story about floods in Bihar. This is a story about how an entire society has been corrupted by money meant to build embankments for flood control. A lesson that poor environmental management, especially one which emphasises construction, leads to corruption which may be difficult to get rid of. More so if it gets intertwined with the political culture. The bogey of floods was, …
