Tag: down to earth

News: A phenomenon called Marine heat waves (MHW) have increased significantly in the past few decades in the Indian Ocean region. This is also impacting the Indian monsoon.  Contents1 What are marine heatwaves and why they occur? 2 What is the impact on the oceans? 3 How are they impacting the Indian monsoon? 4 What is the way… Continue reading Frequent marine heatwaves in Indian Ocean disrupt India’s monsoon pattern 

News: The Auroville Forest Group, a non-profit in Puducherry, has introduced a new method of increasing tree cover that can mitigate climate change effectively in the future.  Lessons from Auroville can be implemented on a larger scale all over the country. Auroville, an international town in Puducherry, has planted about three million trees from 1968… Continue reading How Auroville can teach us all a thing or two about offsetting carbon 

News: Oil prices globally have seen a massive surge due to reduced supply and increased demand due to economies rebounding from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The geopolitical tensions in Russia-Ukraine are also helping the price surge.  What are the implications of the price rise?  Economic aspect: Companies may be tempted to invest in oil… Continue reading How surging oil prices threaten world’s climate goals

News: Unfavourable and unreliable weather hurt agriculture resulted into pushing food prices our of reach across the world. What is the situation of Indian economy? India’s wholesale inflation rate in November 2021 was the highest in three decades i.e 14.23%. Although, it reduced marginally to 13.56% the next month, but still December 2021 was the ninth… Continue reading Climate and food price rise: Extreme weather events triggering unprecedented food inflation

News: Neglected tropical disease day is on January 30 and it reminds that India needs an integrated approach to eliminate NTDs. What is Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)? NTDs is an umbrella term that refers to 20 medically diverse, communicable diseases that flourish in impoverished environments, tend to coexist, cause significant mortality. Why there is need… Continue reading Neglected Tropical Diseases Day: India can beat them but that needs bold action

News: Forest Survey of India has recently released its reports which show an increase in forests by 2,261 square kilometres. But, various researchers and environmentalists do not agree with this claim. Contents1 What are the findings of the Forest Survey of India?2 What are the arguments presented by the environmentalists?3 How there are discrepancies in the… Continue reading About India State of Forest Report 2021: Plantations, invasive species… what all India counts as ‘forest’

News  Environment Ministry’s move to rank state environmental impact assessment authorities based on their speed of environmental approval can have negative consequences for the environment.  What can be the negative consequences of this move?  Read here.  How has the EIA regime in India has evolved?  Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) started way back in 1994. Although… Continue reading Our broken system of environmental clearance

News  Election are around the corner and Punjab is one of the states going for the elections.  However, like every other election there is lack of concern and debate on some of the urgent issues of Punjab like the Ground water depletion.  What it is the magnitude of this problem?  Groundwater depletion in Punjab has… Continue reading Punjab assembly election 2022-Ignoring the ground water depletion problem