As I write this my city Delhi is drowning. It started raining early this morning and within a few hours the city has come to a standstill. The television is showing scenes of traffic snarled up for hours, roads waterlogged and people and vehicles sunk deep in water and muck.

Noise levels in most Indian cities have crossed safe limits. Lack of awareness has led to ailments ranging from hypertension to heart diseases. But the authorities dont's seem bothered. Read this special report in Down To Earth.

Aditya Batra in conversation with Keshab Sthapit, a mayor famous for muscling his way to urban renewal.

Climate change threatens species’ genetic diversity too. Much has been talked about how climate change poses risk to ecosystems and individual species. But no one has analysed how global warming will affect the genetic diversity hidden within the species. DNA studies have revealed that traditional species contain a vast amount of “cryptic” diversity—such as different lineages or even species within species. “The loss of biodiversity expected in the course of global warming has been greatly underestimated in previous studies, which have only referred to species numbers,” says Steffen Pauls.

Countries move from labs to seas to study the implications of ocean acidification. On a pleasant morning when fifty-four-year-old Australian marine diver David Hannan was gearing to plunge into the deep sea, a bunch of American scientists were ready to set sail for the Arctic Ocean. In another corner of the world at Dona Paula in Goa oceanographers were contemplating plans to measure coastal pH along the entire Indian coastline.

For full text: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/changing-basic-nature

The state links the PDS system with controversial unique identity project to plug leakages in food supply. But loopholes remain, Latha Jishnu and Jyotika Sood report in Down To Earth.

In partnership with forest departments, communities across India have raised forests worth millions of rupees in the hope of getting shares in timber revenue. Now that forests are ready for harvest, officials make excuses or give pittance. Read this Special report in Down To Earth.

Odisha, is struggling to cope with floods of horrendous magnitude. This state which recorded deficient rains of 40 per cent, is now in surplus. Experts and the public attribute the current flood in Orissa entirely to the mismanagement of the Hirakud dam. This special report by Down to Earth Online, calls for adopting a new strategy based on the present rainfall pattern both upstream and downstream of this dam.

State to give 80 per cent of sand mine auction profit to panchayats

THE Jharkhand government has announced it will give 80 per cent of the amount collected from auction of sand mines in the state to block panchayats. This is the first time a state has decided to share business profits with local bodies.

Hemant Soren, deputy chief minister and minister in-charge of the department of mines and geology, made the announcement on August 11. “The decision has been approved by the state Cabinet,” he added.

For more than two decades, Huta Ram Baidya has led the Save Bagmati River campaign. An affable, octogenarian activist and Nepal’s first agricultural engineer, his views have been widely circulated in the country’s regional language press, radio, television and on websites. He tells Aditya Batra that the river’s extreme degradation bears testament to extreme cultural and environmental loss in the Kathmandu valley.

Read More - http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/civilisational-loss