Highlights from the issue

Highlights from the issue

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Sunita Narain’s Desk: Must we promote private EVs?

Must we promote private EVs?
Illustration: Yogendra Anand/CSE

Our decarbonisation and air pollution reduction objectives demand that we reduce private transport on our roads and transition to an approach that moves people, not vehicles

Cover story: Lost in maize

Lost in maize
Budh Sagar Maurya from Uttar Pradesh’s Shravasti district had been a rice and wheat grower. He now grows maize on part of his land to benefit from the Ethanol Blending ProgrammePhotograph Courtesy: Access Development Services

India’s dependence on major food crops for its ethanol-blending programme can have spiralling impacts on food inflation, nutrition availability

Column: “Judgement on retrospective environmental clearances restores legal principles”

‘Judgement restores legal principles’

The Supreme Court’s strikedown of the two executive instruments of the Union environment ministry for ex post facto environmental clearances is significant

Column: “Supreme Court stems the trend of environmental decline”

‘Environmental decline slowed’

The apex court’s strikedown of retrospective environmental clearances makes a detailed analysis of constitutional and statutory law, and reiterates that it is the state's duty to protect the environment

Special Report: May mayhem

May mayhem
Flood-affected people are moved to safer places through a water-logged road during rains in Imphal East, Manipur on June 2Photograph: Reuters

The 2025 monsoon arrived a week early and raced across India in May, breaking records with its speed and intensity

Civil Lines: The gross deprived parameter

Representational photo from iStock

There is a global backlash against GDP as measure of an economy, as it hardly reflects the well-being of people and fails to capture income distribution

Analysis: Flood fix

Flood fix
The Greater Chennai Corporation is developing a sponge park at the RA Puram corporation playground in Chennai, for which stormwater drains are being constructed using polymer-based materials called eco-blocksPhotograph: Pradeep Kumar Mishra / CSE

Chennai is implementing sponge parks to mitigate waterlogging. But they may not be the best solution

Patently Absurd: The mammoth in the patent system

The mammoth in the patent system
Illustration: Yogendra Anand/CSE

Firms working on de-extinction of long vanished species are banking on wide patent protection to make colossal profit

Down To Earth
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