Environment

The assault on Pune activist Vidyanand Bapat reveals how a demand for lawful, quieter festivals became entangled with political power, religious identity and intolerance of dissent

India’s tribal communities have long lived at the margins...

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Rajasthan has raised serious questions on the tokenisms behind the recent public hearings on the Aravallis, and condemned the “hijacking” of the process by the “mining lobby”

The river Kho, that breathes life into both the Ganga and Ramganga — and supports countless farmers — is under severe threat at its source. Both the Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh governments need to take urgent steps to protect and preserve this river and surroundings from resorts and uncontrolled ‘religious tourism;’ besides Dogadda, a culturally and politically important town in Uttarakhand also deserves official recognition as the origin point of the Kho argues the author

The editorial of the latest issue of the prestigious...

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.