While India has had a biomedical waste management rule since 1998, which was modified for ease in 2016, household biomedical waste has been neglected. Increased lifespan, rise of non-communicable diseases, the growing buying power, and better access to healthcare have resulted in the increased generation of household biomedical waste. This poses serious challenges to a frail public health system. This growing problem needs to be tackled by acknowledging it, introducing guidelines, and decentralising solutions, including facilitating recycling.
Managing human-wildlife conflict in India will involve addressing the power structures that exist between the forest department and the local population.
Under the neo-liberal framework, with tourism as an industry there is a fear of the institution falling into the hands of the same vested interests and in Uttarakhand, it brings more threats to both the conservation and benefits of local communities from nature-based tourism.
The proposed modernisation and expansion of the Mormugao Port in Goa has drawn widespread criticism for its failure to seriously assess its environmental impact and lack of thought to sustainability and social costs, while raising questions on the ownership claim over the project area itself. A three-day environmental public hearing recorded the concerns and grievances of the numerous stakeholders and civil society members who stand affected by the proposed project.
India is venturing into shale gas fracking with a pursuit to cut down its natural gas export bill significantly. This process poses several challenges concerning “energy-water nexus,” such as mixing of shale fluid with the groundwater, rationing of water in a water-scarce country, and lack of technical know-how of waste-water treatment. These challenges may result in significant problems if not regulated at the exploration stage of the gas. This article highlights legal and policy gaps concerning shale gas exploration process and water usage.
Residents of Panegoan village in the Nevasa taluka of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra have been taking on the government and illegal sand miners without a formal organisation or leadership.
Technologies are believed to be problem-solving. However, this may not always be true, especially in terms of their influence on the environment. The emphasis on purification technologies to solve issues arising due to environmental pollution raises the question as to whether short-term solutions, like air and water purifiers, can result in salvaging the health of people and the environment.
Moving the National Green Tribunal from Pune to New Delhi, for Goa, would have had severe implications for reshaping the reality of who could seek redressal over environmental concerns in Goa, at what cost, and how frequently.
Rivers of developing world are subjected to tremendous amounts of water pollutants, mainly due to economic reasons such as the race to produce cheaper goods, paucity of funds, toothless environmental regulations, and deep-rooted corruption. Using a river-based sport, if a multi-nation rowing league is created, the media, corporate and government attention could create an economic system that will help give an impetus to river cleaning and maintenance, where nothing significant has been achieved in spite of institutions like the World Bank pouring in billions of dollars.
When the people’s representatives failed to understand the implications of large projects in the highly seismic and fragile young Himalayan mountain ranges, and failed to act, people took the task upon themselves. The street became the metaphor and several anti-dam movements ensued. However, the resistance is waning in the political discourse of Sikkim.
The poor record of public and private sector industries across sectors to submit the mandatory environmental information on an annual basis reveals the shortcomings of the existing environmental regulatory process. This article attempts to evaluate the current status of firm level environmental information available with the regulators and suggests some measures to streamline, standardise, and strengthen the current regulatory system to enable better compliance by firms.
The principle of sustainable development has evolved to occupy centrality in environmental jurisprudence in India. The Supreme Court has reiterated its importance in the country's environmental legal regime. However, the jurisprudence has been criticised for framing it as a zero sum game where economic development has been repeatedly used as a justification to trump environmental violations, and therefore, rendering it as only declaratory and lacking in content and sufficient teeth to shape public action. But this has compelled policy and statutory recognition of the principle of sustainable development. The National Green Tribunal Act of 2010 recognises it too. This statutory recognition has paved the way for a robust jurisprudence spearheaded by the NGT that has actively sought to evolve a standard of review for public actions in effectuating the principle of sustainable development and in doing so has departed from the reductionist utilitarianism that had characterised the jurisprudence of Supreme Court.
