Governance

Common pool resources, popularly known as “commons”, are those resources which are accessible to the whole community or village and to which no individual has exclusive ownership or property rights. Commons have two essential characteristics: non-excludability and high-subtractability.

After independence, India was largely food insecure but post Green Revolution around the 1970s, foodgrain production increased manifold consequently reducing food insecurity and poverty in the country, in spite of rapid population growth. Its ability to achieve targeted results was largely dependent on the explosion of groundwater abstraction mechanisms like tubewells.

Union Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman presented the decade's first union budget in the parliament on 1st February 2020. While presenting budget for 2020-2021, she started with the country’s vision for the decade in which she emphasised on water management and clean rivers as one of the 10 points of vision for the country.

Climate change impacts are disproportionate and influence lives and livelihoods variedly. One crucial determinant of these disproportionate impacts is gender. Existing social norms determine roles and responsibilities, entitlements and capabilities, thereby influencing the individual perceptions of shocks and susceptibility which vary across gender groups.

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Guidelines to monitor illegal sand mining released

For the first time, the Environment Ministry has released Enforcement and Monitoring Guidelines for Sand Mining 2020 to monitor and check illegal sand mining in the country.

People tend to be happier and reinvigorated in green spaces. Agrobiodiversity - the number and abundance of different species in particular systems is known to promote happiness. It ensures the resilience of ecosystem services such as food production, climate regulation, and pest management that in turn underpin human wellbeing.

The Mahanadi delta in Odisha is a composite delta fed by water, sediments and nutrients from a network of three major rivers: Mahanadi, Brahmani and Baitarini. The coastline of the delta is approximately 200 km long, extending from the Chilika lagoon in the south to the Dhamara river in the north.

Locally called Neeru, water of the Nilgiris in its springs and wetlands has been the fountainhead for two main rivers systems of South India. Today, with growing anthropogenic influences, there is a water crisis in the hills that needs our attention more than ever before.

Gangetic dolphins under threat thanks to increased river traffic