In a recent Cabinet meeting, according to media reports, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that green laws are the new 'license raj'. This is not the first time the Prime Minister's office has expressed this view - in 2011 too, in a public forum he emphasised that 'saving the environment could not be at the cost of development'. The disdain of the Prime Minister for green laws is obvious when in 2008, as part of UPA -I, Manmohan Singh arrived in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh to lay the foundation stone for the 3000 MW hydropower Dibang Dam, touted to be Asia's tallest dam even though the dam had yet to get environment and forest clearance from the Environment Ministry. Incidentally, the reason why the environment clearance was not through was, the public hearing had not yet been conducted that's mandated by law, under the Environment (Protection) Act, which was....

From one minister who came across as a loose cannon (Jairam Ramesh), to another who is now rarely seen or heard in the media (Jayanthi Natarajan), the dusty corridors of the Environment and Forest Ministry has seen many radical changes these last five years. This month Jayanthi Natarajan will complete one year of being in the Environment Ministry - an appropriate time to analyze how she has fared since she took charge. Natarajan in her first interaction with the media made it clear she that she would maintain a low profile but would continue to talk tough when it came to protecting the nation's natural environment and resources. Her low profile in the media in subsequent months had us convinced that hers would be a stoic but mature response to a Ministry that has courted many a controversy in recent times. The Minister may have got good press,....

It's that time of the year again. Yes, the end of the year, but the start of a another summit on climate change. This is my third year at the climate change negotiations. And I could write the script in my sleep now. The big daddy US opposes, the EU acts like a martyr (like it's the only bloc interested in a serious treaty,) India bristles, and China, well continues to add a thermal power plant every hour. As part of hundreds of journalists who converge every year at this conference, we are all now familiar faces, at least to each other! As laptops and iPads blaze away at the media centre, I wonder are we all filing the same story? Clearly not. Climate change negotiations are strongly linked to perceptions and projections. And the projections are based on how the media reports on them. For instance, how....

May 27, 2011 The day was full of much action. It was snowing in the morning as we headed out with the scientists from the Indian research station Himadri. I cannot but help admire these people who come from a tropical country but are living here in the polar region simply for the love of science and good research. We head out in a boat towards the fjord where instruments are immersed in the water to check for micro-organisms, temperature, and chlorophyll levels. Oceans act as good carbon sinks so the work being done by the Indian scientists right now is to look at how this role of the oceans and their ability to act as sinks will change in the coming years as temperatures rise. Science is a painstaking process and scientists spend hours and days in extreme weather conditions collecting data. Its also a process many of....

The first signs that this journey is going to be full of a lot of adventure? We miss our connections from the quaint airport of Helsinki to Oslo. Its not easy getting to the Arctic, even though it may seem made easy by modern day travel. But even most sophisticated airjets get hit by volcanic ash. It has thrown flights at most European airports in a tizzy. But I am amazed by the almost zen like attitude with which the Europeans face such disasters even as their summer plans go for a toss. I can just imagine the pandemonium which would break out if flights were cancelled at any of our Indian airports. As Indians strangely we are the worst behaved in our own land. Passengers would be shouting at helpless airline staff, dropping names, threatening to call up some minister or VIP if they are not put on the....

On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster the Indian government announced it will remain committed to its ambitious plans to build a nuclear power plant at Jaitapur. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithvi Raj Chavan washed his hands off the violent protests at the site by stating to the Prime Minister that there are "outside elements" involved in the protests that broke out last week which led to the death of one person, Jaitapur has become a victim of shadow boxing. Not one announcement made by the Prime Minister's office will assuage the people of Jaitapur. Even the media which could have kept up the pressure dismissed the protests last week as incited by the Shiv Sena and therefore not worthy of any attention. "Typical of the Shiv Sena to politicize the issue" claimed angry editorials and viewers responses on television debates. Angry readers wrote in....

As Environment Ministers from different countries fly into Cancun, the final round of talks has now started. And its like the world is sitting on one long merry-go-round ride that refuses to end. US wants out of the Kyoto protocol, so does Japan, India postures as the mother superior, first to Africa and the G77 group and then to the Small Island States, but also forms its own alliance called as BASIC, China is apprehensive but generously offers to voluntarily cut emissions, small island states want to make it clear that size doesn't matter. As each country continues its posturing, you are left wondering - hey, whatever happened to saving planet earth from a 2 degree rise in global temperatures? Yes, it's easy to be cynical and dismissive about the heavy complicated task of decoding a text that's heavily bracketed (which in UN parlance means there....