Environment Support Group

COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 PandemicStaying in Solidarity

ESG’s Support to Communities Adversely Affected by Covid-19 and the lockdown

A crisis of hunger, and consequent malnutrition, is growing within the Covid-19 pandemic. Even as vulnerable communities were trying to recover from the economic hardships of last year’s lockdown, countless families now find themselves exhausting whatever meager savings they had on food. And they have run out of money already.

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COVID-19 PandemicEventsStay Alert

Tackling COVID-19 Sensibly – A conversation with Dr. Kashinath Dixit

Environment Support Group invites you to participate in a conversation with Dr. Kashinath Dixit, an Endocrinologist who has worked for decades in the United Kingdom and been closely involved in responding to the COVID waves that affected the region. He is now also helping a variety of vulnerable communities across India to take precautions, stay healthy and recover from the disease

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COVID-19 PandemicESG Opinion

Restoring ecosystems to address NCD pandemic

The rise in these two NCDs is largely attributed to degradation of our ecosystems due to urban proliferation with decreasing open green spaces, change in lifestyle over the years driven by the nerve-wracking GDP based economic engines, and socio-cultural changes, with a host of other factors contributing to these conditions.

Bengaluru’s ecosystem once comprised of open green spaces such as parks, urban forests, lakes and open public spaces. Such spaces help reduce temperature, improve air quality, cut noise, and provide space for physical activities such as walking, cycling, playing, exercising that help reduce the burden of these NCDs.

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AdvocacyCOVID-19 PandemicDisaster Management, Relief & RehabilitationESG Opinion

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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COVID-19 PandemicPress Releases

A Landfill is no place to “dispose” of our dead. BBMP needs to reconsider its decision to set up an open crematorium at the Mavallipura landfill.

The entire world has been afflicted with COVID. But nowhere has a landfill been used to cremate loved ones. We must all work together to ensure there is dignity and grace in conducting final rites of the unfortunate departed, and in a place appropriate for such terribly sad occasions. It has to be a place worthy of a sacred ritual.

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COVID-19 Pandemic

BBMP Must Drop its Plan to Set Up an Open Crematorium at Mavallipura Landfill Site

On the afternoon of 28th April 2021, Mavallipura was paid a visit by police and revenue officials. The intent of the visit was to set up an open crematorium atop the landfill. The thought of cremating the dead in a landfill is shocking. At a time when the nation grieves for those who lost their lives to the pandemic, the least we can do is to ensure that their untimely loss is respectfully and reverentially treated. A landfill cannot be the place to cremate or bury our dead.

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COVID-19 PandemicResearch

Comparative Covid Response: Crisis, Knowledge, Politics

As the world tried to make sense of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, ESG was invited to participate in a 23 country and 6 continent-wide collaborative study involving 60 researchers led by Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies Sheila Jasanoff of the Harvard Kennedy School and Prof. Stephen Hilgartner of Cornell University in a study on Comparative Covid Response: Crisis, Knowledge, Politics (CompCoRe for short).

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