Magsaysay winner environmentalist says mindless rampage on Himalayas must stop PTI
Gopeshwar: The glacial burst near Chamoli district’s Raini village, the cradle of the Chipko movement, should serve as a wake-up call to stop the rampage on the Himalayan ecological system in the name of development, according to Magsaysay awardee Chandi Prasad Bhatt. He said Monday that many power projects in the area should not have been given environmental clearance. The 87-year-old environmentalist was a Chipko movement leader. Chandi Prasad Bhatt said projects like the Rishi Ganga hydel project, which bore the brunt of Sunday’s calamity, should not have started.
Mindless rampage on Himalayas must stop, says Chipko movement leader Chandi Prasad Bhatt Had my advice been heeded, the loss of lives and largescale damage to property at the project site could have been prevented. The mindless rampaging on the Himalayas in the name of development must stop, says Magsaysay awardee Chandi Prasad Bhatt
PTI | February 8, 2021 | Updated 16:42 IST
Bhatt said in 2010 he had written to the then environment minister warning against the adverse effects of the project
The glacial burst near Chamoli district s Raini village, the cradle of the Chipko movement, should serve as a wake-up call to stop the rampage on the Himalayan ecological system in the name of development, said Magsaysay awardee Chandi Prasad Bhatt on Monday.
6 Lessons From A Himalayan Tragedy - by Ramachandra Guha 6 Lessons From A Himalayan Tragedy - by Ramachandra Guha
Updated: February 08, 2021 4:33 pm IST
On Sunday, a few hours after the news about the flash floods in Chamoli District hit our screens, I phoned a man who should be a household name but sadly is not. A leader of the Chipko movement, a thinker of originality and insight, a social reformer of courage and vision, he may be both our country s greatest environmentalist as well as the greatest living resident of Uttarakhand. Back in 1983, he had written a long essay in Hindi warning against the construction of hydel projects in the Himalaya. He repeated these warnings in the 1990s, and again in the 2000s, this time in essays published in English as well as in Hindi. Had the politicians of Uttarakhand, and of India, listened to him, this tragedy in the upper Alakananda valley may never have occurred at all.
This study of archaeologist MN Deshpande’s work highlights the integrity and zeal of a true scholar
MN Deshpande was someone whose respect for the past was supreme. MN Deshpande.
Before anything else, a personal disclaimer, or rather, a claim: I briefly had the pleasure of knowing MN Deshpande. I met him not in the capacity of archaeologist and scholar, but as my school friend Mita’s grandfather, calling him Azoba as she did.
As Class XI students at Delhi’s Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Mita and I often came back from school together to the Deshpande home. I was already interested in history, and although Madhusudan Narhar Deshpande was not the sort of grandfather to lecture teenagers floating around the house, I remember wonderful occasional conversations with him about ancient India.
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1 LIMITATION: Rakesh Tikait (left) possibly lacks the organisation, cadre and resources to set up the BKU as an autonomous political entity. PTI
Radhika Ramaseshan
Senior Journalist
OVER two months after the farmers’ protests began at Delhi’s borders, the incipient signs of a more direct engagement between the political Opposition and the agitators are showing up. The Opposition stepped out of the breathless and bizarre microcosm of Facebook and Twitter to set its foot on terra firma, and check out the travails of people who braved the cold and rain and are living without water and electricity. The Opposition’s forays into ground zero might not yield anything tangible. It is unlikely to pressure the Centre to resume a dialogue with the farmers, considering that the government refused to accede to the Opposition’s demand for a separate discussion on the issue in the ongoing Parliament session. But the initiative opens up the prospect of a partnership between a civ