Subir Ghosh's Blog, page 3
June 14, 2015
Bangalore's roads are safer than before. Now, figure that one out
Statistics of road accidents in Bangalore are a classic example of what numbers can tell depending on whether you have an ulterior motive in interpretation, or just want to look at figures dispassionately.
Contrary to the popular notion that road safety scenario is worsening in the city, the situation has actually been improving over the years. Marginally yes, but impro...
June 11, 2015
Modi govt is undoing all the environmental good of the past
June 8, 2015
Businesses, small or big, can���t shy away from environmental compliance
For a business to keep operating legally, the process is not as easy as it may sound. Businesses must comply with a number of requirements regarding the companys transactions, labour practices, safety procedures and of course environmental obligations. Compliance regulations can be internal or external, with environmental compliance being of the latter kind. What is unfortunately true in India is that most busi...
May 31, 2015
Biofuels were climate-unfriendly. Will the same be true for organic farming?
One might remember the biofuel craze of a decade-and-half back when it was thought that this was the panacea for all climate change problems. But as it turned out, there were innumerable studies which cast aspersions on the emphasis of biofuels as an eco-friendly energy alternative.
A 2011 study on palm oil plantations confirmed what activists were fearing: plantations were causing deforestation and hurting bio...
May 28, 2015
Karnataka scam: Come, let's draw lotteries
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has staved off an immediate political crisis by asking for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the lottery scandal, but his worries are far from over.
Barely two months after the state government had knocked at the CBIs doors to ensure that there was a fair probe into the mysterious death of IAS officer DK Ravi, little could Siddaramiah have imagine...
Lake it or not, we are all responsible
There is something surreal about the way people from politicians to citizens have been reacting to two incidents: the order of the National Green Tribunal penalising two real estate developers for unauthorised constructions in the city's lakes, and the frothing over of Varthur lake. The decay and obliteration of Bangalore's lakes is not news, and neither are the reactions of one and sundry.
The outrage is...
May 25, 2015
Urban biodiversity: We can all do our bit to save it
For all the environmental degradation that Bangalore is made to endure, the city still has considerable biodiversity left to talk about. Here, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. The biodiversity is there, breathing right under our noses, not exactly teeming as it might have been till even a few decades ago, but it's there.
Biodiversity is a subject that rarely finds itself making it to the headlines....
May 20, 2015
Siddu all set to do a poll vault
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who completed two years in office on Wednesday, will find the going get tougher by the day. Two elections are looming large on the horizon, and neither augurs well.
The first is a prestige issue. The state government has been directed by the Supreme Court to hold elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) within August 5, something that Siddaramaiah has...
Proposed tourism policy is ridden with loopholes, falls short of global standards
The Union government is increasingly bulldozing through policies and Bills in a tearing hurry. The latest, following on the heels of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014, is the National Tourism Policy (NTP).
The Union tourism ministry put up a draft of the policy on its website on April 30, and gave the general pu...
May 19, 2015
Wildlife crime/trade is under-reported and under-played
The encounter-killing of over 20 persons by a state-level task force for allegedly smuggling red sanders from the Seshachalam forests near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh stayed in the media limelight in early April for being a case of extra-judicial killings. There was enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the incident was indeed an execution, but in the din that followed, the issue of red sanders itself f...
