Environment

This third part of a careful and exhaustive legal analysis looks at the environmental jurisprudence of the Himalayan High Courts over the last decade that reveals an unsettling paradox: the vocabulary of ecological protection has never been richer, yet the physical landscape has never been more legally vulnerable. The courts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have masterfully preserved the text of environmental law while pronouncing judgements that blunt its teeth.

Part II turns its attention to Western India: Mumbai, the rest of Maharashtra, and the long shadow of the Western Ghats where from sound coastal-zone jurisprudence, the High Court has been asked to, and has, permitted successive ‘infrastructure’ projects that have touched coasts, mangroves and the urban forest.

Given the flip-flops by India’s constitutional courts on protection of the environment, this three part legal investigation delves deep: In Part 1, we look at how High Courts across different regions of India are contributing to, or departing from, the trajectory of environmental jurisprudence. This part looks at Central India: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand. A region that is home to some of the country’s richest forests, its most significant mineral reserves, and its most vulnerable tribal populations.

On March 11, 2026, a coalition of Kerala’s environmental...

Much comment was made about the obvious conflicts between two verdicts of the Supreme Court of India –the Vanshakti judgements—between May and November 2025 and as India lives with the consequences, it is essential to situate the dispute within the broader evolution of environmental constitutionalism in India.

The Delhi NCR Pollution crisis needs firm, well-implemented policy shifts and institutional action against prime causes of pollution, not citizens: Restore Fundamental Right to Breathe, says a nationwide alliance dedicated to the battle for a cleaner environment and against climate change.

The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) expresses its full...

Can the country afford the destruction of the Himalayas and do our Himalayan states need help? North India and its Gangetic plain would not survive without the forests, the glaciers and rivers that originate from Himachal, Kashmir and Uttarakhand, and would soon become a desert: these rivers sustain a population of almost 400 million people. It is time that the 16th Finance Commission, follows what was begun in the 12th Finance Commission, and disburses a Green Bonus commensurate to steps taken for ecology and sustainability

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC)’s...

An action research report, “Invited Disaster: Khadi Floods in...