Subir Ghosh's Blog, page 6
March 4, 2015
NDA and its pathological hatred of environmentalists
If a Union Budget is supposed to be not just a document of numbers, but a precursor to the shape of policy initiatives to come, then the 2015-16 Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley needs to be seen as a recipe for unmitigated disaster.
There is nothing wrong with a government that calls for economic growth; after all, everyone wants to have a better life. But when policy initiatives pave th...
March 1, 2015
Doing business sustainably is the way forward: The State of Green Business 2015 report
For almost two decades since the landmark Rio Summit of 1992, businesses saw red whenever ‘environment’ and ‘sustainable development’ were mentioned to them. And the catchphrase ‘it isn’t development unless it is sustainable’ was perceived to be a shibboleth of hostility on part of environmentalists towards businesses. By and large, the situation hasn’t changed much, but things are changing. Slowly, quite slow...
February 24, 2015
Edelman decision on oil is good news for climate activism
Earlier this month, the world's largest PR firm Edelman ended its decade-long relationship with the world's largest oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API). A welcome step, and high time too, as climate change activists would likely assert.
API's contracts with Edelman had been big; so massive that it amounted to 10 per cent of the PR firm's revenues. Its Blue Advertising subsidiary helped API run commercials that promoted the idea that oil and gas were plentiful, and were viable to...
February 21, 2015
Gas Wars authors respond to Mohan Guruswamy's allegations
Mr Mohan Guruswamy (see his original statement appended below) is factually incorrect in suggesting that the "meat" for "Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis" was sourced from "Anil Ambani's operation". The book has been put together over a period of four and a half years from dozens of sources, including top officials of Reliance Industries Limited. Anyone who reads the 600-odd pages of the book will surely realise this. One presumes that Mr Guruswamy has read the book since he took a...
February 17, 2015
Who's responsible for deforestation? Just 250 companies around the world
The forests scene the world over is depressing, quite depressing indeed. The ones plundering forests are not complying with international benchmarks, and the impunity with which the ravaging of forests is under way will leave one frustrated and in utter despair.
There are as few as 250 companies across countries that are engaged in this unfettered loot, and the ones from India come a cropper when it comes to performance.
The Global Canopy Programme (GCP), which evaluates and ranks 500 organisa...
January 14, 2015
Make in India is a motivation to work even harder: Pankil Shah
Aarvee Denims and Exports Ltd is a leading global player in the textiles industry. Backed by experienced promoters, the company is spreading its wings all over the globe at a very fast pace. Established in 1988 by the Arora & VB Group, which has been involved in textile trade for over 50 years, well-qualified human resources and state of the art production units have made ADEL one of the world's largest vertically integrated denim manufacturers. Pankil Shah, Vice-President (Garment Divis...
August 13, 2014
The media is in a hurry to exonerate tea companies on their own
In 2006, the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published a damning report on the presence of banned pesticides in colas. The Indian media, by and large, went easy on the two cola brands – Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The allegation was serious and the implications far and wide. Yet, the cola companies, the opulent advertisers that they are, tided over the crisis with consummate ease. One of the many reasons for this was that news media establishments steadfastly refused to pus...
July 16, 2014
When reportage is a disaster in itself
Memories of last year’s Uttarakhand catastrophe are a tad difficult to push under the rubble of amnesia. For the last few days, incessant rains have been wreaking havoc in districts like Champawat, Chamoli and Nainital. Landslides too have been reported from many places. A bridge that had been constructed after the 2013 Uttarakhand disaster has been washed away. It is not without reason that memories of the other day keep rushing back.
July 10, 2014
Review of 'Prey by the Ganges': All night long
It’s nice to be taken by surprise, once in a while, you know. Of course, one only has the pleasant kind in mind here. And better so, if this surprise comes in and through the form of a book. Fiction, if you please.
There were many reasons for the surprise that I am talking of. For one, I hadn’t heard of the book itself. Nor did I know a fig about the author or the publisher. And the query (whether I would like to read and possibly write about it too) came from someone who I barely knew at the...
July 8, 2014
SC judgment on fatwas needs to be seen closely
Too much hot air is being blown into Monday’s Supreme Court judgment clarifying that fatwas are not binding on Muslims. That’s possibly because there’s a new government in New Delhi that is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and some people have a morbid tendency of contextualising issues. In fact, if anyone contextualised anything, it was the Supreme Court.
The court ruled that fatwas are not illegal, but are also not legally binding on those against whom they are made. It was hardly a...
