Read this special report published in Down To Earth on Nirma, the detergent company that gave false information to obtain clearance for its cement plant in coastal Saurashtra.

Supreme Court has asked the states to evict illegal occupants of village commons.  This a report by Down to Earth on the apex court judgement which said that transfer of village community land for private & commercial use is illegal and asked all state governments to prepare schemes for eviction of illegal occupants of village community land & restore them back for the purpose it was originally meant for. 

The influence of John Locke’s theory of property on the policies governing India’s landscape is examined in this paper. Locke’s concept of wasteland, as opposed to value-producing land, constituted a founding binary opposition that constructed how landscapes were categorised.

The Government of India has announced the Greening India Mission (GIM) under the National Climate Change Action Plan. The Mission aims to restore and afforest about 10 mha over the period 2010–2020 under different sub-missions covering moderately dense and open forests, scrub/ grasslands, mangroves, wetlands, croplands and urban areas.

The issue of declining net sown area (NSA) has been highlighted as a major
concern for Indian agriculture in recent years. According to the Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, about 59.2 million ha of land had degraded in India by 2003