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Appeal to the Government of Karnataka to institute processes that will ensure democratic governance & administration of the metropolitan area of Bengaluru

In the past, Karnataka has disastrously placed trust in task forces & vision groups consisting of elite personalities to imagine what is right for Bengaluru. These groups were undemocratic and contrary to the constitutional mandate. The present Congress Government has once again pushed for the formation of another such forum to seek views of the elite in shaping the future of the metropolis.

Please sign this petition to support our appeal to the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka demanding that the city be governed through a deeply democratic and inclusive process and that the Metropolitan Planning Committee be constituted immediately.

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EnergyESG OpinionSolar
Bhargavi Rao

Securing Skilled Jobs for the Present and the Future

Good research-based approaches to skill building are the need of the hour in order to identify the right approaches in building a broad spectrum of jobs. Anticipating Skill Needs for Green Jobs is a study that offers practical guidance on building employment opportunities  and developing short term job oriented skill courses.  From the experiences of the pandemic it has been learned that it is certainly more beneficial for society overall to provide a range of skill training – from farm-based activities to non-farm skills – and speaking to the  needs of the region, even at the very local  levels. It is such an approach of care that will help youth in making wise choices to secure their futures, in ensuring economic security of their households and to look to the future with dignity and confidence.

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AdvocacyBiodiversityCampaignsEnvironment & Forest Policy
ESG Author

MoEF&CC must stop destroying India’s progressive environment, forest and biodiversity protection jurisprudence

At a time when the United Nations General Assembly has finally passed a resolution making Right to Clean and Healthy Environment a Human Right, Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change is doing everything to destroy India’s progressive environmental jurisprudence.

We invite you to endorse a statement demanding Indian Government must step back from its proposals to comprehensively dilute India’s and devastate India’s environmental laws. And it must stop yielding to corporate pressures and instead defend our Constitutional rights over our health, environment and our futures.

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AdvocacyEnvironment & Forest PolicyOther Reports & DocumentsResources
ESG Author

Need for meaningful extensive review and debate on fundamental changes proposed to India’s Environment Protection Act, 1986 and related laws 

India’s environmental jurisprudence has been torn between the competing demands of prioritising environmental protection and securing economic progress.  While there are several judgements that speak to the need for balancing development with environmental priorities, it is not necessarily an exercise that can be easily rationalised.  There is overwhelming evidence in the pollution flowing in every river and lake across the country, in the extensive degradation across the Western Ghats and the Himalayas – resulting in catastrophic impacts on human settlements, in the breakdown of our cities every time it rains or when there is an unrelenting heat wave, and in commons that are extensively encroached, diverted and polluted, that the state of India’s environment is precariously hinged.  The damaging consequences of such extensive degradation are irreversible and will seriously impede the country’s socio-economic progress.

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AdvocacyEnvironment & Forest PolicyEnvironmental GovernanceESG Opinion
ESG Author

Fundamental dilution of Environmental Laws and Jurisprudence of India Proposed

The current proposed amendments to four major environmental laws, are effectively a big step away from India’s long held statutory tradition of protecting environmental and natural resources and is a clear indicator of prevailing priority: putting business and commercial interest over environmental protection and safeguarding human rights.  The draft Bills were put out on 1st July 2022 by the Ministry in English, not any of the other Scheduled languages, and the commenting period ends on 21st July 2022.  Never in the history of India has there ever been such a rush to put interests of international and national business empires over that of peoples of India and its biodiversity.   

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EnergyESG OpinionSolar
ESG Author

Designing a low energy home

The most important aspect of a sustainable house or infrastructure is to create one that consumes less energy in both its production and operation. As human civilization settles down comfortably into a lifestyle of energy and product consumption, we lead ourselves to believe that we can become green by just shifting the source of energy generation, unwilling to fathom that unnecessary product and process creation is the underlying issue. Energy reduction and lifestyle changes can pave the way for true sustainability.

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EnergyESG OpinionSolar
ESG Author

Reimagining Renewable Energy for this Earth day

22nd April 2022 will be the 52nd year since the observation of  Earth Day. A day that marked the birth of the modern environment movement across the West. Earth Day in the 1990s became a global call for action drawing attention of the world to the developing environmental crisis as a fallout of the Rio Summit 1992. Now we are enduring climate change impacts. The IPCC report 2022 warns if global carbon emissions are not reduced substantially, heat and humidity will surpass human tolerance and this can seriously impact human health and the economy.

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Agroecology
ESG Author

Will Zero Budget Natural Farming address India’s complex farming and food demands?

The project involved creating a network of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) – a form of self organised local parastatal and outside the representative Panchayat Raj institutional network. The project thus sidestepped the mandate of the 11th Schedule of the Constitution which requires “agriculture including agriculture extension” to be governed through Panchayats. There was no extensive debate or discussion in launching the project, even in the State Assembly.

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AdvocacyESG Opinion
ESG Author

Palm oil policy needs wider consultation

By Malvika Kaushik, ESG. The NMEO-OP intends to make India, one of the largest importers of palm oil in the world, self-reliant in edible oil production. It proposes price assurances and other economic incentives to persuade farmers to cultivate oil palm. The move is touted as essential for national economic security. Meanwhile, activists are highlighting the dangers of widespread cultivation of oil palm monocultures in the north-east and in the Andaman and Nicobar islands (ANI). There are two key threats. The first is the destruction of fragile ecosystems in these biodiversity hotspots. In the north-east, the diversion of land cultivated under shifting agriculture or jhum could also be an issue. Jhum entails rotation between cultivation and regeneration in different patches of land. It seems to support more biodiversity than monoculture plantations.

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AdvocacyCOVID-19 PandemicDisaster Management, Relief & RehabilitationESG Opinion
ESG Author

COVID-19: Why we must reorganise cities to deal with the third wave

There have been innumerable efforts in the past by civil society, trade unions, academia, public health experts and others who repeatedly stressed the crucial importance of strengthening local governance as key to mitigating and managing problems. These efforts have reached various High Courts and the Supreme Court too as Public Interest Litigations, trying to make local governance work. But the hubristic reliance and faith in centralised management has been such that even court orders directing public involvement in decision-making have all been disregarded. The whims and fancies of a few in power have prevailed with technology-based solutions for the pandemic.

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AdvocacyBengaluru Climate Action PlanEnergyESG Workshop ReportsWebinars
ESG Author

Week 6 Webinar Report: Making Bengaluru Energy Independent

“Is it possible to keep this city running with this pattern of consumption and demand for energy? How are BESCOM and KPTCL sustaining this supply? What are the challenges of the petrochemical sector in supporting fuel demands? Is there a way that we could shift to more sustainable sources, such as renewable energy, and can those transitions be just for all involved? Will such just transitions require Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Authorities to imagine futures that are based on sustainable energy systems, in contrast with the prevailing extractive and unsustainable systems? And can we ensure all homes (be they of rich, poor or middle classes), institutions, offices, government buildings will find ways to consume less power and shift to alternate forms of locally generated power?”

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AdvocacyBengaluru Climate Action PlanBiodiversityESG Workshop ReportsWebinars
ESG Author

Week 5 Webinar Report: Securing Biodiversity Rich, Healthy, Socially Inclusive and Economically Viable Commons in Bengaluru

“Commons bring people of the city together. It gives an opportunity to mix people from various communities…In a public park you will find people from a diverse set of communities; people from across caste and class economic status and so on and that is important for us to broaden our minds also. Otherwise we are just limited and living in our own silos”

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BengaluruBengaluru Climate Action PlanBiodiversityEventsWebinars
ESG Author

Week 5: Securing Biodiversity Rich, Healthy, Socially Inclusiveand Economically Viable Commons in Bengaluru

Densely crowded, polluted, non-inclusive and stress-inducing concretised spaces are making neighbourhoods increasingly vulnerable to various impacts of climate change such as flooding and the ‘heat island’ effect. How, into the future, can the metropolis secure biodiversity rich, healthy and economically viable spaces for all?

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