Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Aug 08, 2012
Many of us who served India for decades on Environmental Committees mandated to protect our natural resources have tried without success to convey to planners that they cannot so ruthlessly destroy life-support infrastructures -- forests, wetlands, coasts, rivers, lakes -- to create infrastructures of commerce -- mines, dams,
Posted by: Manu Prakaash on
Jun 06, 2012
WHAT A SHAME ..... Man Animal Conflict claims another victim. We lost another magnificent Big Cat on Sunday, 03.06.2012. A full grown Leopard that entered Oil India Limited's campus in Duliajan, Assam, was shot dead mercilessly by security forces, after the forest officials failed to tranquilise the agitated animal. The
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
May 05, 2012
This is a letter I wrote as long as 15 years ago, on July 11, 1997, to Mr. I.K. Gujral, who was then India's Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Indian Board for Wildlife.
I could write almost the exact words today to Dr. Manmohan Singh and they would remain valid.
No action was taken then. Little has been learned since.
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Mar 04, 2012
It's budget time for India and every industrialist is in Delhi, lobbying for tax benefits, sops and policies that can be reflected on their balance sheets. This has been the pattern for six decades now. It's how most fortunes were accumulated by the largest Indian corporations.
If short term economic gains are not replaced by a
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Nov 21, 2011
Flying in the face of cyclonic winds, floods, droughts, hottest-ever and coldest-ever days, plus salinisation of coasts thanks to sea level rise, the climate skeptic brigade is up to its dirty tricks again. Just as they did a few weeks before Copenhagen, prior to the climate conference about to take place in Durban they have
Posted by: Apoorva Joshi on
Oct 30, 2011
Bowfin and Paddlefin caviar, komodo dragons or water monitors, Darwin's finches or hummingbirds, spitting cobras or taipans, tree frogs or gliding frogs, the US Fish and Wildlife Service's wildlife inspectors need to literally, know it all.
Animals, both wild and domestic, have played a major role in the lives of humans ever
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Aug 21, 2011
Why do I strongly support the national uprising against corruption? Because, apart from all the personal indignity inflicted by blackmailing opportunists on ordinary, law abiding citizens, corruption is the single greatest bludgeon used by thugs of all descriptions (white collar and no collar!) to deforest India and kill its
Posted by: Sukanta Das on
Jul 25, 2011
As the Climate suggests, it is raining at regular intervals in Kabini which has had a direct impact on occupancy at our resort. Yet there is a set of clienteles who visit our resort every three months to experience the Forest in all its colours. We are four Naturalists here at Kabini and are having the much awaited free time
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jul 23, 2011
Nuclear energy is not merely unsafe, it is uneconomical. Carbon neutrality? That's really just wishful thinking for nuclear reactors, if the canvas is expanded to incorporate a 'cradle to grave' scenario. Indian scientists and nucleocrats have learned the art of window dressing cost-benefit analyses from their counterparts
Posted by: Bittu Sahgal on
Jul 13, 2011
There is precious little real on-the-ground cooperation between India and Bangladesh on the issue of climate change and the management of the largest mangrove forest in the world -- the Sundarbans.
We know, of course, that the Indian Sundarbans has better WILDLIFE management and enforcement than the Bangladesh side. And that
