Environmental

12 Oct 2026

12 October, 2026 | Kolkata A flood warning may reach people in time, yet fail to protect a family if drains are clogged, evacuation routes are unsafe or the nearest shelter is inaccessible. By examining household preparedness, public infrastructure and early-warning systems, this analysis explores what genuine flood resilience means and whether communities are truly equipped to act when disaster strikes. Summary: From waterlogged streets in Kolkata to flood-prone delta settlements and cloudburst-exposed Himalayan communities, disaster preparedness depends on more than forecasts. This investigation examines whether warnings, drainage, evacuation routes and shelters can protect people when they need them most. If a Flood Warning Arrives Today, Would Every Household Know What to Do - and Be Able to Do It? A warning on a phone is only the beginning of disaster preparedness. Imagine a family receiving an alert about heavy rainfall. The nearest drain is clogged, the lane outside is already filling with water, and the designated evacuation route passes through a low-lying stretch. An older family member cannot walk quickly, while the household is unsure which shelter is open. The warning may be accurate, but the family’s ability to respond depends on what happens next. Can they reach safety in time? Is the evacuation route accessible? Will the nearest shelter be open and equipped to receive them? These questions lie at the heart of the 2026 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, observed on 13 October under the theme “Resilience Starts at Home.” The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is using this year’s theme to highlight safe housing, risk-informed planning, accessible warnings and household preparedness. It also recognises that people do not have equal access to safe homes, reliable information, financial resources or the support needed to evacuate. Source: UNDRR For India, this question matters across very different landscapes. Urban neighbourhoods can struggle with waterlogging and drainage failures; delta settlements face flood- and cyclone-related risks; and Himalayan communities may experience intense, highly localised rainfall, landslides and sudden changes in river conditions. Although these hazards differ, they expose a common problem: preparedness is only as strong as the weakest link between receiving a warning and being able to act on it. What Happens Between a Warning and a Safe Evacuation? India has developed systems to monitor weather hazards and distribute warnings. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides impact-based and risk-based weather warnings, while the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) operates the SACHET National Disaster Alert Portal. SACHET brings together warnings from agencies, including IMD and the Central Water Commission (CWC), and supports their dissemination through mobile phones, television, radio, apps and other communication channels. Sources: IMD information via PIB and NDMA SACHET These systems are important advances. However, the availability of a warning channel does not automatically establish that every household received the message, understood its urgency or had enough time to leave. Official figures also show why forecasts must be interpreted carefully. In a December 2025 parliamentary response, the Ministry of Earth Sciences reported that IMD’s accuracy for heavy-rainfall forecasts was 85% at a one-day lead time and 58% at a five-day lead time. These figures describe national heavy-rainfall forecast performance at different lead times. They do not indicate the probability that a particular street will flood or that a specific household will receive an alert. Nevertheless, they underline why forecasts, local observations and preparedness plans must work together. Source: PIB, 17 December 2025 The investigation should therefore follow an alert through its entire journey: when the forecast was issued, when the relevant authority received it, when a local message was sent, when residents received or heard it, and what action followed. Where records are unavailable, that gap must be reported rather than filled with assumptions. Can a Kolkata Ward Drain the Water - and Move People Out Safely? In an urban neighbourhood, flooding is not simply a question of how much rain falls. Drainage capacity, waste accumulation, maintenance, road levels, land use and the condition of nearby water channels can all influence how quickly water collects and recedes. The National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) has identified urban flooding as an issue requiring coordination among local bodies, planners and disaster-management authorities. Its training material on urban flood management also highlights the role of geospatial tools and community-based approaches. Source: NIDM A ward-level audit should begin with a drainage map and a physical inspection. Which streets and lanes are most vulnerable? Where are the drains, culverts and outfalls located? Are maintenance records available, and do they show when the system was last cleared? Are there recurring complaints about waterlogging, and what action followed? These questions matter because a map of infrastructure cannot, by itself, establish its actual condition. A drain may appear on a municipal map but remain blocked in practice. A road may be designated as an evacuation route but become impassable when water rises. The same test applies to housing. Reporting should examine whether homes have safe exits, whether residents know where to go, and whether people living in ground-floor or low-lying dwellings have a practical way to move essential belongings and reach safer ground. It should also distinguish household responsibilities from the public responsibility to maintain drainage, enforce appropriate building and land-use standards, communicate risks and provide safe evacuation options. Does a Delta Settlement Face a Different Preparedness Test? A delta settlement requires a different risk assessment. Its exposure may involve river flooding, intense rainfall, tidal conditions, cyclone-related inundation or damage to roads and other connections. The specific hazards must be established for the settlement selected rather than assumed to be identical across the Sundarbans or the wider delta. The audit should examine whether residents have reliable access to warnings, whether evacuation routes remain usable during flooding and whether the designated shelter can be reached on foot, by boat or through another locally appropriate means. It should also establish what happens when transport services stop, mobile connectivity weakens or a route becomes inaccessible. Shelter availability is not the same as shelter accessibility. A building may be designated for evacuation but remain difficult to reach for a wheelchair user, an older person, a pregnant resident or someone who needs assistance. The investigation should check ramps, entrances, toilets, lighting, accessible communication and arrangements for people who cannot evacuate independently. The comparison with Kolkata should not rank one community as safer simply because it has more visible infrastructure. Instead, it should identify how each location manages its specific risks and which gaps prevent residents from acting on warnings. What Can Himalayan Cloudbursts Teach Us About the Last Mile? The additional reporting module on Himalayan cloudbursts and early-warning systems extends the investigation beyond the two flood-prone locations. It examines how warning systems perform in remote hill districts, where steep terrain, highly localised rainfall and limited observation coverage can complicate risk communication. IMD has explained that cloudbursts are highly localised events and that monitoring them requires dense networks of automatic rain gauges and weather stations. It has also noted that remote Himalayan and Western Ghats areas remain data-sparse, making long-term trend analysis difficult. This distinction matters: warning systems may improve, while highly localised events can remain challenging to observe and anticipate. Source: IMD press release, 15 October 2025 The comparison should focus on the practical chain from detection to action: available observations, forecast or warning issuance, transmission to district and local authorities, communication to residents, and the availability of safe routes and shelters. It should not suggest that a Himalayan cloudburst can be predicted in exactly the same way as a widespread heavy-rainfall event. The Tunis exercise also requires careful treatment. Its findings may offer useful lessons about preparedness, coordination or warning communication, but a simulation cannot establish how effectively a system performs in real conditions. Any exercise results should be presented as findings from that exercise, supported by its date, participants, scenario and documented outcomes. Claims about actual performance in Indian communities must be supported by separate Indian records or field observations. Who Is Responsible When a Warning Does Not Lead to Safety? Preparedness is a shared responsibility, but responsibility is not distributed equally. Households can keep emergency contacts, understand local alerts and prepare essential supplies. They cannot independently clear municipal drains, repair damaged public roads, build accessible shelters or establish a reliable public warning network. Local authorities and ward officials must be able to explain their drainage and maintenance arrangements, evacuation plans and shelter provisions. Engineers can help establish whether infrastructure is designed and maintained for the relevant risks. Disaster-management authorities can explain how warnings are received and passed on. Disability advocates can identify barriers that standard evacuation plans may overlook. The investigation should include different perspectives. Authorities may point to warning platforms, preparedness plans, shelters or completed infrastructure works. Residents may report that routes remain unusable or that messages arrive too late to act on. Engineers may explain the limits of drainage capacity, funding or the challenges of managing intense rainfall. Each perspective should be tested against records and direct observations rather than treated as a complete explanation. The evidence should include warning timestamps, drainage maps, maintenance records, shelter-access checks and documentation of disaster drills. A published plan establishes that a plan exists; it does not prove that the plan has been practised or will work under pressure. Similarly, a completed drill does not prove that every resident can evacuate safely. What Should a Household and Ward Preparedness Audit Include? The final reader tool should make the investigation practical. A household and ward checklist can ask: Housing: Are exits safe, and does the household understand the hazards affecting its location?Warnings: Which official channels provide alerts, and is there a backup if a phone or internet connection fails?Drainage: Are nearby drains and outfalls maintained, and are recurring waterlogging points documented?Evacuation: Is there a clearly identified route, and has it been assessed for flood conditions?Shelters: Is the shelter open, reachable and suitable for people with different mobility and support needs?Emergency arrangements: Are contact numbers, essential medicines, documents and necessary supplies accessible?Practice and accountability: Has a drill been documented, and is there a designated authority or office to contact about unresolved risks? A ward risk map should accompany the feature only after locations and routes have been verified. It should distinguish confirmed hazards, official evacuation and shelter information, observed infrastructure problems, and locations that still require verification. Sensitive household information should not be published. Resilience Is Measured Before the Water Rises The proposed comparison between a Kolkata ward, a delta settlement and Himalayan warning systems should produce more than a list of risks. It should reveal where the chain of preparedness works, where it breaks and who has the authority to address each gap. The aim is not to claim that every flood can be prevented or every warning can eliminate danger. It is to examine whether people receive usable information, whether public infrastructure supports safe action and whether the most vulnerable residents are included in disaster planning. On the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, “Resilience Starts at Home” offers a useful principle. But homes cannot become resilient through household effort alone. Safe housing, maintained drainage, accessible evacuation routes, dependable warnings and accountable local planning must work together. The real test is not whether a ward has a disaster plan. It is whether residents can use that plan when the next warning arrives. Sources: UNDRR — 2026 International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction: “Resilience Starts at Home”UNDRR — 2026 campaign and key messagesMinistry of Earth Sciences / PIB — Early Warning System, 1 April 2026Ministry of Earth Sciences / PIB — Monsoon Warning System, 17 December 2025NDMA — SACHET National Disaster Alert PortalIMD — Press release on cloudbursts and observation requirements, 15 October 2025National Institute of Disaster Management — Urban flood management training report, March 2025NDMA guidelines — Floods, urban flooding and disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction ...Read more

09 Oct 2026

9 October 2026 | Kolkata Can ordinary bird observations become reliable evidence of ecological change in Kolkata's wetlands? SummaryEast Kolkata Wetlands is not simply a birding destination. Its wetlands, sewage-fed fisheries, agricultural plots and surrounding communities form a working ecological system that supports livelihoods, treats wastewater and provides important habitat for waterbirds.World Migratory Bird Day 2026 places citizen science at the centre of bird conservation with the theme “Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!” The question for Kolkata is more practical: can repeated observations by birders, fishers, residents and researchers become a reliable local evidence system for tracking changes in wetland health?The answer depends not on how many photographs are uploaded, but on whether observations are made consistently, verified properly and connected to habitat conditions. Can citizens turn birdwatching into evidence of a wetland under pressure? A single sighting is interesting. A year of comparable sightings can become evidence. That distinction matters. The East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority's management plan already recommends coordinated monitoring of waterbirds at major congregation sites, including mid-winter counts using Asian Waterbird Census protocols. It also calls for information on habitat structure, seasonal abundance and changes in prey so that population estimates and trends can inform management. The challenge, therefore, is not to invent citizen science. It is to make existing public observation more systematic, repeatable and useful. EAST KOLKATA'S BIRDS ARE PART OF A MUCH LARGER SYSTEM The East Kolkata Wetlands cover about 12,500 hectares and include nearly 254 sewage-fed fisheries across 37 mouzas, alongside agricultural areas and other land uses. That makes the wetlands unusual. Their ecological value is tied directly to human activity. Wastewater supports fish production. Wetland processes support agriculture. Open water and vegetation provide habitat. The landscape also contributes to flood buffering. Birds sit inside this system. They respond to water availability, vegetation, food, disturbance and changes in habitat. That makes them potentially useful ecological indicators. But a bird count alone cannot explain why numbers change. A lower count could mean fewer birds. It could also mean a different survey time, poorer visibility, disturbance, altered water levels or a change in where birds are feeding. That is why the method matters as much as the number. THE DATA ALREADY CARRIES A WARNING The EKW management plan records 267 bird species documented since 1964, including 93 waterbird species, of which 36 were identified as migratory. But historical records also show a changing picture. The management plan notes that while 248 species were recorded during an early Zoological Survey of India survey between 1964 and 1969, only 162 species had been variably recorded during the following decades. It also identifies species that had not been recorded after earlier surveys. These historical comparisons should not automatically be treated as proof of local extinction. Survey effort, habitat and recording practices changed over time. But they do establish something important: there is enough historical variation to justify better monitoring. The question is whether today's observations can be structured well enough to create a dependable baseline for tomorrow. WHAT SHOULD A CITIZEN COUNT? Not just birds. A useful monthly observation should record: date and time;location or designated survey zone;species observed;number of individuals;duration of observation;approximate distance or route covered;habitat type;visible disturbance;photographs or audio where possible. This is the difference between a sighting and a dataset. A photograph uploaded with no location, time or effort information may be useful for identification. A standardised observation repeated at the same site every month can reveal something much more valuable: change. FROM SIGHTING TO DATASET Observation → Date + Time → Location → Effort → Species → Count → Habitat → Disturbance → Verification → Monthly trend A simple visual explaining why standardised observations are more valuable than isolated bird photographs. ONE BIRD COUNT IS A SIGHTING. TWELVE ARE A DATASET. This is where citizen science becomes analytically useful. Suppose a group records birds at the same wetland zone every month for a year. The project can begin asking better questions: Are winter migrants arriving at roughly the same time? Are particular species becoming less frequent? Are bird numbers changing with water levels? Does disturbance correspond with changes in observations? Are certain habitat zones consistently richer than others? The point is not to force a conclusion from the first few months. It is to build a time series. World Migratory Bird Day's 2026 campaign explicitly highlights community science because repeated observations from large numbers of people can contribute to understanding migration, population trends and important habitats. The International Waterbird Census, which marks its 60th anniversary in 2026, demonstrates the value of long-running volunteer-based monitoring.  AND THE FISHERS MUST BE PART OF THE COUNT There is another reason not to make this a project only for birders. East Kolkata Wetlands are working wetlands. Fishers, farmers and other local users experience changes in water, vegetation, fish availability, access and disturbance directly. A birder may record fewer birds at a pond. A fisher may know that the water level changed, vegetation was cleared or fish availability shifted. Neither observation should automatically replace the other. They should be read together. This is particularly important because the wetlands' ecological value is inseparable from the livelihoods built around them. A citizen-monitoring project that treats local communities merely as subjects of observation would reproduce the very gap it is trying to close. THE COMPETING VIEW: CAN CITIZEN COUNTS REALLY BE TRUSTED? Yes — but only within limits. Citizen observations can be powerful because they generate information across large areas and over long periods. But they can also contain identification errors, duplicate observations and inconsistent effort. One experienced birder may identify a species confidently. A first-time observer may not. One survey may last 90 minutes. Another may last ten. One observer may systematically cover open water. Another may remain near the road. These differences can distort comparisons. The solution is not to exclude citizens. It is to standardise participation. Training, fixed survey zones, clear protocols, moderation and uncertainty labels can turn public participation into usable evidence. That is also why the proposed project should not claim that every observation is automatically verified. A SECOND WETLAND PROVIDES THE COMPARISON East Kolkata Wetlands should not be studied in isolation. A second eastern-India wetland can provide a comparative lens. Chilika Lagoon in Odisha is particularly useful because its authorities maintain formal biodiversity and bird-monitoring systems and completed a 2026 bird estimation exercise. Official Chilika information reports a 2026 bird count of about 1.13 million birds, reinforcing the lagoon's importance as a major wintering habitat. The purpose of comparison is not to rank Kolkata against Chilika. It is to ask a more useful question: What does good wetland monitoring look like when it is repeated at scale? Different wetlands have different ecological systems, so raw bird numbers should never be compared without accounting for habitat, area, survey effort and species composition. WHY THE MONTHLY COUNT SHOULD MEASURE HABITAT TOO A bird-counting project can fail if it records birds but ignores the landscape around them. Every monthly count should therefore include a short habitat checklist: Water: high / normal / lowVegetation: intact / changed / clearedHuman disturbance: low / moderate / highFishing activity: low / moderate / highConstruction or land-use change: observed / not observedPollution indicators: observed / not observedBirding pressure: low / moderate / high This does not turn citizens into hydrologists or ecologists. It simply creates context. If bird numbers change, the dataset may then offer clues about what else changed at the same location. THE MONTHLY WETLAND SCORECARD A simple dashboard showing: Bird count | Migratory species | Water level | Habitat condition | Disturbance | Pollution observations The visual should clearly state: “Citizen observations — not independently verified scientific measurements.” THE PROJECT NEEDS MODERATION, NOT JUST PARTICIPATION The easiest mistake would be to create another online form that accumulates thousands of photographs but produces little usable information. A serious citizen-monitoring programme needs an editorial protocol. Every observation should be classified as: Verified / Probable / Uncertain / Rejected Sensitive information must also be protected. Exact nesting locations or locations of threatened species should not be publicly disclosed if publication could increase disturbance or exploitation. The project should also distinguish between: what was observed, what was reported, what was verified and what is inferred. That distinction is essential if the resulting dataset is ever used in policy discussions. WHAT WOULD MAKE THE DATA GENUINELY USEFUL? Five conditions would make the project considerably stronger. 1. Consistency The same sites should be monitored using comparable effort. 2. Continuity The project should run monthly rather than only around World Migratory Bird Day. 3. Verification Uncertain records should be reviewed rather than silently accepted. 4. Context Bird observations should be accompanied by basic habitat and disturbance information. 5. Transparency The public should be able to understand how the data was collected and what its limitations are. The East Kolkata Wetlands management plan already provides a useful institutional foundation by recommending coordinated waterbird monitoring, participant training and collection of habitat and seasonal abundance information. The citizen project can build on that framework rather than operate separately from it. THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE MUST SIT BEHIND THE BIRDS The strongest story will not come from photographs alone. The reporting file should seek: dated citizen observations;survey effort and route information;historical bird records;Asian Waterbird Census data where available;EKWMA monitoring records;current satellite imagery where land-use change is being examined;habitat observations;water-quality information where relevant;notices or official records relating to wetland management;interviews with birders and wetland users;responses from EKWMA and relevant government authorities. The evidence should then be compared. If citizens report fewer birds at a location, the next question should be: What else changed there? That is where the story moves from birdwatching to environmental journalism. THE EVIDENCE CHAIN Citizen observation → Verification → Habitat context → Historical comparison → Authority records → Independent analysis → Conservation action The visual should make clear that a citizen observation is the starting point, not automatically the final conclusion. WHAT SHOULD AUTHORITIES BE ASKED? A citizen-monitoring programme should ultimately lead to institutional questions. For example: Does EKWMA have a current baseline for waterbird populations across major wetland zones? How frequently are bird populations formally monitored? Are citizen observations incorporated into management decisions? Which wetland habitats are showing measurable change? How are disturbance and land-use changes being recorded? What information is publicly available? These questions turn a public activity into an accountability mechanism. THE REAL QUESTION IS NOT WHETHER CITIZENS CAN COUNT BIRDS They clearly can. The harder question is whether institutions, researchers and communities can build a system in which those observations become credible evidence over time. That requires more than enthusiasm. It requires methodology. It requires moderation. It requires data continuity. And it requires authorities to actually use the information once it exists. The 2026 World Migratory Bird Day campaign is built around precisely this principle: observations become valuable when they contribute to the knowledge required for conservation. (CMS) For East Kolkata Wetlands, that principle could be tested locally. A birder with binoculars. A fisher watching a familiar pond. A student recording birds from the edge of a wetland. A researcher checking the trend. An authority responding to the evidence. That is how a collection of observations becomes an environmental record. THE FIRST COUNT SHOULD NOT BE THE LAST World Migratory Bird Day can generate attention for a day. The real opportunity is to use that attention to establish a monthly monitoring habit. The first count can provide a baseline. The second can provide comparison. The sixth can begin showing a pattern. The twelfth can start answering questions. And after several years, the dataset may tell us something that photographs alone cannot: how the wetland is changing. That is ultimately the test. Not how many people participated. Not how many photographs were uploaded. Not how many species were listed once. But whether repeated observations can reveal ecological change early enough for communities and institutions to act. Every bird counts. But every observation must count for something. READER ACTION: MONTHLY WETLAND BIRD COUNT Record: Date and timeWetland / survey zoneSpeciesNumber of birdsObservation durationHabitat conditionDisturbancePhoto/audio evidence Do not publish exact nesting locations or sensitive threatened-species coordinates. Uncertain observations should be labelled as uncertain rather than presented as verified records. The proposed series can begin around World Migratory Bird Day and continue as a monthly, moderated citizen-science initiative. SOURCES World Migratory Bird Day 2026 — Official campaignhttps://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/ (worldmigratorybirdday.org)Convention on Migratory Species — World Migratory Bird Day 2026https://www.cms.int/news/2026017-world-migratory-bird-day-2026-10-october-2026 (CMS)WMBD 2026 Campaign Toolkithttps://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/assets/files/WMBD_2026_Campaign_Toolkit_en.pdf (worldmigratorybirdday.org)East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authorityhttps://ekwma.wb.gov.in/East Kolkata Wetlands Integrated Management Plan 2021–2026https://ekwma.in/ek/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Integrated-Management-Plan-of-East-Kolkata-Wetlands-2021-2026.pdfRamsar — East Calcutta Wetlandshttps://www.ramsar.org/Chilika Development Authority — Ecology & Biodiversityhttps://www.chilika.com/chilika-ecology-and-biodiversity.phpNature Environment & Wildlife Society — Bird Meet 2026https://naturewildlife.org/event/eBird Science — Data and Methodologyhttps://science.ebird.org/ ...Read more

07 Oct 2026

The urgent case for governing hills and rivers together in the Northeast of India with an integrated approach. The Northeast's floods begin far beyond its embankments. Roads, mines, damaged slopes, shrinking ice and crowded river valleys help determine what reaches the plains. The enormous Siang proposal now demands a harder question: will it reduce the region's combined risks, or redistribute them? Summary Northeast India needs to manage mountains, rivers and settlements as one connected system. The 2026 flood debate, new developments around the proposed Siang project and Nepal's recent catastrophe make that task urgent. Stronger embankments and reservoirs can protect particular places, but their benefits depend on location, maintenance, operating rules and the hazards they can actually withstand. Governments must also restore flood storage, regulate extraction and hill cutting, protect Indigenous rights, and make warnings trigger action across borders. The practical agenda begins before the 2027 monsoon and extends through 2031, with public measures of safety rather than construction expenditure alone. The next flood may begin above the clouds The next devastating flood in Assam may begin on a hillside where a road contractor leaves loose debris, in a rain-soaked catchment in Nagaland, or in a high Himalayan valley where rock and ice suddenly give way. By the time the danger appears beside a downstream home, decisions taken years earlier and hundreds of kilometres away may already have helped determine its force. For the family trying to save its cattle, documents and children, these distinctions offer little comfort. Yet they are essential to preventing the next loss. A breached embankment is the visible failure. The chain that brought water and sediment to it is the larger story. The three recent Counterview articles identify complementary failures: Assam's excessive dependence on embankments, inconsistent treatment of Himalayan fragility, and flood governance divided by state boundaries. Together, they point towards a regional approach that follows the river upstream into the mountains and downstream into livelihoods. [1–3] That approach now faces a consequential test on the Siang in Arunachal Pradesh. India is considering an immense multipurpose storage project partly as protection against upstream risks from China. The strategic concern deserves serious examination. So does the possibility that protecting against one danger could introduce another through excavation, reservoir slopes, displacement or operating decisions. The Northeast needs development that remains useful when conditions become dangerous. That requires treating the stability of a mountain and the safety of a floodplain as connected public responsibilities. Floodwater carries a piece of the mountain An ordinary-looking brown river contains evidence of what has happened uphill. Its load can include naturally eroded soil and rock, material loosened by construction, and sediment remobilised from earlier floods. Under exceptional conditions, that load becomes boulders, uprooted trees and a rapidly moving debris flow. Heavy rain can saturate a slope and increase pressure within its soil or fractured rock. Failure may dump material into a channel. If the material blocks the river, water accumulates behind a temporary natural dam. When that blockage breaks, the flood can arrive after the rain has weakened or stopped. Watching today's rainfall alone will miss part of tomorrow's danger. Downstream, deposited sediment can reduce the space available to carry water in particular reaches, redirect channels, or obstruct tributary outlets. Elsewhere, intense scouring deepens the bed and undermines bridges or banks. The Brahmaputra does not respond uniformly along its length. An explanation that says every embankment invariably raises every riverbed is too simple for this changing system. [5] Nor can every upstream landslide be blamed on human activity. Natural geology, earthquakes, rainfall and river erosion are powerful forces. The policy question is where human interventions add avoidable instability or exposure, and whether those additions have been measured. This creates a clear connection between two administrative files usually handled separately. Slope management determines part of what enters a river. River management determines where that material and water go. A hillside's construction waste can become a downstream village's excavation bill, lost harvest or shattered bridge. Eight states need more than one flood formula The Northeast is not a single Himalayan valley. A programme designed around glaciers would miss much of its danger, while an Assam embankment programme would miss the instability of its uplands. Arunachal Pradesh connects high mountain hazards and steep catchments to the Siang, Subansiri, Dibang, Lohit and other rivers. Its priorities include slope stability, sediment, hydropower operations and the survival of roads that serve isolated settlements. Assam receives these flows while facing its own rainfall, drainage congestion, erosion and shifting channels. The Brahmaputra and Barak valleys need distinct plans within a coordinated regional system. Nagaland's connections to Upper Assam through the Dikhow, Disang and Dhansiri illustrate why small tributaries deserve attention equal to the main river. The July 2026 accounts describe rainfall in the Naga Hills producing damaging downstream surges. That is a reason for joint investigation and warnings, rather than a licence to assign collective blame to another state's people. [3,5] Meghalaya's steep catchments, expanding settlements and extraction pressures require careful management of runoff, drains and disturbed slopes. Mizoram and Nagaland need road designs that protect hillsides and keep settlements accessible. Manipur requires separate attention to the Barak headwaters and the drainage of the Imphal valley. Loktak's ecological health and the functioning of connected waterways belong in that valley's planning. Tripura's Gomati, Manu, Khowai and Feni systems require basin-specific rainfall warnings, reservoir coordination where relevant, and links with Bangladesh. Sikkim's Teesta demonstrates the reach of glacier-related hazards beyond the mountains, through West Bengal and into Bangladesh. These geographical connections are practical units for planning; they cannot be replaced by a general declaration that the entire Northeast has the same risk. [19,20] Within each state, the distinction must become still finer. A slow, shallow inundation of agricultural land, an eroding riverbank and a boulder-rich mountain surge call for different decisions. A stilt house may be appropriate for the first; secure relocation may be essential for the other two. Climate is changing the design conditions The monsoon's apparent contradiction matters: a seasonal rainfall deficit can coexist with destructive local floods. A monthly average does not describe how rapidly rain fell, how saturated the ground was, or which upstream catchment received it. A relatively dry fortnight followed by an intense downpour can produce both agricultural stress and flood damage. [5] The IPCC assesses growing risks associated with heavy precipitation, glacier retreat and changing mountain stability. That is a reason to update design assumptions. It does not establish climate change as the exclusive cause of each landslide, or prove that every Northeast district will experience the same trend. [6] ISRO's 2024 satellite assessment offers a similarly important distinction. Of 2,431 glacial lakes larger than ten hectares identified in 2016–17 across the studied Himalayan catchments, 676 had expanded since 1984; 601 of those expanding lakes had more than doubled. Expansion warrants assessment, but is not an announcement that all these lakes will burst. Location, dam material, surrounding slopes and downstream exposure matter. [8] The lesson for Arunachal and Sikkim is to watch the surrounding mountain as well as the lake. For the non-glaciated hills farther south, the relevant questions concern intense rainfall, weathered slopes, drainage and land use. Both tasks need observations that are updated as conditions change. Embankments need an escape route for water Embankments can protect settlements, crops and essential infrastructure. Their continued use should depend on a clear answer to three questions: what are they protecting, against what event, and what happens when their intended level of protection is exceeded? A bank that keeps river water out may also trap local rainfall inside. A road embankment can interrupt drainage across a floodplain. Protecting one reach can change water levels or erosion elsewhere. These effects require connected modelling and maintained outlets, not an assumption that a taller wall automatically makes everyone safer. [1,5] The alternative is a carefully chosen combination. Retain and maintain essential defences. Where land and compensation arrangements permit, move selected embankments back, reconnect flood-storage areas and allow rivers more space. Protect beels and other wetlands together with the channels that feed and drain them. Assess proposed interventions for their effects on neighbouring villages before construction. Seasonal flooding also supports wetland ecology. Kaziranga illustrates the need to distinguish beneficial inundation from dangerous depths, prolonged submergence and blocked wildlife movement. Safe passage towards higher ground and traffic management belong alongside human evacuation planning. [1] Nature-based measures have limits. Wetlands can fill; forests cannot absorb an unlimited deluge. Their value lies in reducing particular risks and preserving ecological functions, combined with appropriate engineering and evacuation. Restoring a beel while blocking its outlet with a new development would defeat the investment. The quarry bill arrives downstream The misuse of natural resources often begins with a transaction that looks locally profitable. A hillside supplies aggregate. A river supplies sand. A forest becomes a construction site. The resulting public cost may emerge much later, in another district's flood losses. Road cuts can remove support from slopes, while badly placed drains concentrate runoff onto unstable ground. Spoil tipped into gullies adds material ready to be carried away. Unscientific mining can disturb slopes and waterways. Excessive riverbed extraction can alter channel shape and undermine banks or bridge foundations. These mechanisms require site-specific investigation; they should not become an accusation that any one activity explains an entire flood. [2,4,5] Nor should conservation become a convenient way to blame Indigenous farmers while ignoring large contractors and commercial extraction. Customary farming systems vary. Their effects depend on practices, fallow periods, slope conditions and changing economic pressures. Regulation must examine actual disturbance and offer viable livelihoods, rather than treat community identity as an environmental offence. For governments, the immediate requirement is traceability. Every major excavation should have an approved spoil destination, drainage design, restoration obligation and independently checked record of where material went. Mining permissions should reflect channel change and cumulative extraction, with inspections after major floods. Contract payments should depend on these obligations being met. Dredging needs the same discipline. Removing a shoal may help a specific obstruction, but a sediment-rich river can refill an excavated reach. Indiscriminate dredging can also shift erosion. Decisions must follow a sediment budget showing where material originates, accumulates and travels, rather than a promise to dig the flood away. Siang has reached a consequential decision point The Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, often called SUMP, remains a proposal whose design is being investigated. NHPC's 2023–24 annual report listed three alternatives: Uggeng at 11,600 MW, and Dite Dime and Parong at 11,200 MW. Those figures represent potential electricity-generating capacity, not an independently demonstrated flood-protection benefit. [9] The Arunachal Cabinet approved a high-level committee to oversee preliminary feasibility survey activities in September 2026. On 29 September, Chief Minister Pema Khandu said advancement would depend on technical feasibility, with further social and environmental assessments and a detailed project report if the proposal progressed. The investigations would address construction in Seismic Zone V and protection against possible upstream releases. He described the intended study period as November through January. Earlier alternative studies therefore should not be confused with a final, approved design. [10,11] The attraction is understandable. A large reservoir could provide electricity, revenue and some ability to regulate incoming water. The government also presents the scheme as a strategic response to upstream developments in China. But Arunachal's potential benefits and Assam's potential protection must be examined separately. An electricity project can earn revenue without protecting every downstream community. A structure on the Siang cannot intercept a flood generated in Nagaland's tributaries, the Barak basin or Guwahati's drains. Its geographical limits should appear prominently in every public claim. Flood protection depends on empty space and operating rules A reservoir moderates a flood when it can temporarily hold some incoming water and release it more slowly. Its effectiveness depends on available storage at the moment of arrival, the duration and size of the flood, outlet capacity and conditions downstream. Installed megawatts tell us none of those things. This creates an operating trade-off. Storing water supports electricity generation and dry-season supply; retaining empty space supports flood absorption. Forecasts can help reconcile the two, but cannot remove uncertainty. A seasonally prescribed rule curve, which sets intended reservoir levels over the year, must therefore be backed by enforceable responsibilities and decisions tested against difficult conditions. [22] For Siang, a public appraisal should answer four practical questions. How much usable flood storage would remain during different parts of the monsoon? Which upstream events could the project moderate, and which would exceed its capacity? What downstream consequences would follow from planned releases or emergency operations? How would those conclusions change as sediment accumulates and rainfall patterns shift? The tests should include an upstream landslide-dam outburst arriving when the reservoir is already high, intense rain in tributaries below the dam, blocked gates, power loss and disrupted communications. Scenarios should state their probabilities where these can be estimated and identify the uncertainty where they cannot. Protection against a flood wave is also different from compensation for reduced upstream flows. A reservoir can redistribute water already received; it cannot manufacture a continuing supply. Its contribution to dry-season security must be calculated against plausible inflows, demand and losses. Political assurances should not substitute for those calculations. Sediment will decide how long protection lasts A dam holds back a proportion of the sediment arriving with the river. Deposits occupy space intended for water, so a flood-storage assessment must show how useful capacity changes over decades. It must also examine damage to equipment and obstruction of outlets during exceptional sediment pulses. The Central Water Commission already has a handbook for assessing and managing this problem. [29] Below the reservoir, altered water and sediment flows can change erosion, deposition and river habitat. Tributaries may replenish some sediment farther downstream, so the response will differ by reach. It would be misleading to promise uniform benefit from trapping silt, or predict uniform damage throughout Assam. Siang needs its own connected measurements and modelling. [30] The timing of water matters too. Rapid release changes for power generation can affect people using the channel and the ecology of the river. An operating plan should examine seasonal flows, acceptable rates of change, and warnings for downstream users, alongside any minimum-flow requirement. Flood protection must therefore be assessed across the project's lifetime. The appraisal should specify monitoring, sediment-management options and the costs of keeping them effective. A reservoir cannot be advertised with the storage capacity of its opening year while later generations inherit the consequences of accumulated material. A strong dam can still sit inside an unsafe valley The safety of the dam wall is only one part of the assessment. Construction brings access roads, excavation, tunnels, quarries, spoil sites, worker camps and transmission corridors. Each creates a footprint that can affect slopes, drainage and exposure. [2,4] A future reservoir would also require close assessment of its surrounding slopes. Changing water levels can change groundwater pressure and the support provided to saturated material. A large slide into water may generate a displacement wave. Seismic loading, reservoir-related seismicity where relevant, and the stability of abutments and rim slopes need site-specific investigation. None of these possibilities proves that the proposed Siang project will fail; each identifies a question that its safety case must answer. [27] The cumulative test should consider nearby infrastructure and the construction period itself. A completed plant may have monitored slopes while temporary works, camps and access roads remain exposed. A disaster can arrive before commissioning. Arunachal should require baseline measurements before major disturbance, monitoring through excavation and filling, published intervention thresholds, and independent authority to stop unsafe work. Developers should fund these responsibilities over the project's life, including emergency planning and eventual closure. This is also an energy-security issue. Placing generation, access and transmission in a shared hazard corridor can create simultaneous failures. Alternatives should include lower-impact project configurations, energy efficiency, distributed supply for isolated settlements and broader grid options. Smaller hydropower deserves assessment too; a small project in a dangerous channel can still be unsafe. Sikkim and Nepal reveal how disasters grow Sikkim has already experienced a mountain-to-river catastrophe. A 2025 Science study reconstructed the October 2023 South Lhonak event: collapsing frozen moraine entered the lake, produced a large impact wave and released roughly 50 million cubic metres of water. The flood then eroded about 270 million cubic metres of sediment along its path and overwhelmed infrastructure, including hydropower installations. Those estimates describe successive processes, not a simple water-to-mud mixing ratio. [15] Its lesson for Siang is the growth of a hazard as it moves. Designs need to examine debris, erosion and connected failures, rather than assume that the initiating water volume remains the whole event downstream. Nepal's 26 August 2026 Rasuwa-Gyirong disaster adds another warning. ICIMOD's evolving assessment describes an ice-rock avalanche entering the Lhende corridor and transforming into a debris flow. The precise timing and possible temporary river blockage remain under scientific examination. It was not simply a conventional outburst from a known glacial lake. Direct attribution of this particular event to warming also remains unresolved. [16] Nepal's experience also shows how concentrated roads, power infrastructure, settlements and local institutions can turn one valley's destruction into a wider systems crisis. Lessons on safer relocation, redundant communications and inclusion of landless families are directly relevant to the Northeast. A village needs functioning government and access after a flood, as well as a surviving house. [4] On 25 September, ICIMOD published the Kathmandu 10 Action Points, calling for stronger monitoring, faster cross-border information, better response capacity and people-centred recovery. Northeast governments can turn that recent regional agenda into district operations before another monsoon. [17] China raises a real concern that needs real evidence China announced the start of construction of its lower Yarlung Zangbo hydropower project on 19 July 2025. The official account described five cascade stations and investment of around 1.2 trillion yuan. The river subsequently enters Arunachal as the Siang and contributes to the Brahmaputra system. [12] On 23 July, China's foreign ministry stated that the project would not adversely affect downstream areas and would support disaster prevention. That is Beijing's stated position, not an independently verified finding about every future operating condition. Indian strategic concerns likewise need to be separated from demonstrated project-specific consequences. [13] Upstream instability is already a scientific concern. Research on the Sedongpu catchment documents glacier-related cascades that blocked the Yarlung Tsangpo in 2018. The danger from natural mountain failure therefore exists alongside questions about dams. A comprehensive warning system has to observe both. [14] India should seek agreed procedures for reservoir filling, planned and emergency releases, abnormal river blockage and rapid downstream alerts. China, India and Bangladesh need arrangements that remain functional during political tension. Bhutan is equally important to coordination in the river systems it shares with Assam. If India demands transparent assessment upstream, it should offer comparable scrutiny to communities downstream of its own projects. Applying the same safety principles to China, Nepal and Arunachal would strengthen India's case. Competitive dam building without shared information could leave the basin with more infrastructure and continuing uncertainty. Consent belongs inside the safety assessment For Adi communities, the Siang valley is a place of land, food, kinship, cultural memory and customary authority. Tadu Rimi's March 2026 research describes these connections and the role of traditional councils in opposition to the project. The implications extend beyond compensation for a house or field. [18] Some local people see opportunity in development; others fear profound loss. A credible process must hear both without treating one group as the authentic community and the other as an inconvenience. Consultation should begin early enough to affect the choice of site, scale and alternatives. Villagers need accessible maps of likely submergence and hazards, independent advice, records of questions and answers, and clear distinctions between agreement to investigations and agreement to construction. Customary institutions, women, young people, tenants and households without conventional title documents need meaningful participation. Applicable land, forest, environmental and rehabilitation obligations remain part of the decision. This also improves the evidence. Residents can identify flood marks, past slope movement, springs, seasonal channels and routes that outsiders overlook. That knowledge should be tested alongside geological investigation and modelling. Assam's downstream residents need a voice too. Benefits and risks cross the state boundary. A project appraisal that listens near the proposed reservoir while overlooking those exposed to releases or changed sediment downstream would leave an important part of its social assessment unfinished. Existing policy needs consequences on the ground India already has institutions and tools for this work. The Brahmaputra Board's statutory remit includes basin planning for floods, erosion and drainage. In June 2026, it reviewed work on 15 sub-basins and sediment studies in the Siang and Dibang being undertaken by IIT Guwahati. The starting point is to make those studies influence approvals, budgets and operating decisions. [19,20] Four limitations need attention. First, assessments can remain fragmented between project sites, sectors and states. Cumulative analysis must test interacting hazards and infrastructure, with a clear requirement to change or refuse a proposal when risks are unacceptable. Second, mapped danger does not necessarily change land-use permission. National floodplain-zoning technical guidance was circulated in August 2025. States must translate such guidance into notified boundaries, development controls, appeal procedures and funded arrangements for affected households. A map without enforceable decisions offers little protection. [21] Third, ecological protection and flood planning can leave gaps between categories. The Wetlands Rules' definition excludes river channels; wetland notification alone therefore cannot protect every route that carries or stores floodwater. State planning must also safeguard connected drains, seasonal waterways and flood corridors through appropriate legal instruments. [26] Fourth, responsibility for long-term maintenance and emergency decisions needs to be unambiguous. The Dam Safety Act framework and subsequent directions address rule curves, information exchange and coordinated cascade operations. Governments must verify that these obligations result in working communication and drills, rather than assume formal compliance guarantees downstream safety. [22] The same accountability should apply to roads, embankments and spoil disposal. Ministries promoting projects need independent scrutiny of safety conclusions, and affected people need an accessible way to challenge failures. A warning matters when someone can act on it The Northeast has a base to build upon. NESAC's Flood Early Warning System combines rainfall prediction, hydrological modelling and geospatial information to issue actionable Assam advisories. Its historical lead times cannot guarantee warning for every sudden mountain event. [23] Radar satellite imagery can map inundation through cloud, while river gauges, rainfall instruments and weather forecasts help estimate what may arrive next. These are different functions. A flood map does not by itself predict the next collapse. ISRO's Landslide Atlas provides a valuable historical inventory, but new disturbances and evolving slopes require continuing observation. [7] Technology should be joined to local decisions. A dangerous threshold needs an identified official authorised to issue evacuation instructions, a tested message in locally understood languages, and a way to reach people without phones or mobile coverage. Sirens, radio, community volunteers and backup communications need regular exercises. For a steep headwater village, there may be only minutes to move. Farther downstream, useful warning may be much longer. Plans must show realistic travel times, accessible shelters, transport for people who cannot evacuate unaided, and safe arrangements for livestock. Hospitals, schools and worker camps need their own procedures. Every major event should then be reviewed publicly: when danger was detected, when the warning was sent, who received it, and what prevented action. Forecast skill and successful evacuation are related achievements, but they should be measured separately. New finance must buy a reduction in risk Assam's investment programmes already reach beyond conventional flood walls. The World Bank's $108 million project approved in 2023 includes forecasting, shelters, emergency capacity and green infrastructure. In February 2026, ADB approved $182 million in additional financing alongside its existing $200 million programme, with wetland restoration and livelihood measures among the planned activities. [24,25] Loan approval is an opportunity, not proof that protection has been delivered. Public reporting should distinguish approved finance, disbursement, completed works and outcomes. It should show whether warning reaches improved, repeated displacement declined and restored drainage functioned during heavy rain. Rescue and compensation remain essential. But annual maintenance, competent technical staff, local preparedness and the correction of unsafe land use need predictable funding too. A government should not have to wait for a disaster declaration to repair a known dangerous outlet. Dedicated State and National Disaster Mitigation Funds already provide a route for eligible prevention investments. Northeast finance departments should connect these opportunities to district risk priorities, while securing ordinary budget support for staff, instrument upkeep and maintenance. Gauges installed without funding for their operation can produce an expensive silence. [28] There is also a fairer way to connect upstream and downstream interests. Assam and neighbouring hill states could negotiate co-financing for verified catchment restoration, safe spoil management and community monitoring. Such agreements should pay for measurable stewardship and recognise local land rights. They should not promise that a restored forest can prevent every extreme flood. Sharing the cost of prevention would give cooperation a practical economic basis, rather than leaving one state to defend its development and another to count the losses. The short run begins before the 2027 monsoon The following measures are a proposed agenda for Northeast governments over the next twelve months, beginning in October 2026. They require cooperation with Union agencies and dam operators where powers are shared. In the first ninety days, identify the places where delay is dangerous. State disaster authorities should commission joint district inspections of critical embankments, blocked flood outlets, unstable road cuts, spoil sites, vulnerable bridges and exposed public facilities. Publish each finding with an owner, deadline and interim safety measure. Local observations should help select sites, while qualified engineers verify the risks. Put basin agreements ahead of the next emergency. Assam and Nagaland should begin with the Dikhow, Disang and Dhansiri catchments; Assam and Arunachal should establish comparable protocols for their shared tributaries. Other states should organise their own connected basins. Agree how gauges, rainfall alerts, reservoir information and temporary channel blockages reach downstream control rooms, and test the communication chain before the monsoon. Keep irreversible Siang decisions behind evidence. Arunachal and the Union government should publish the scope, alternatives and review process for the current feasibility work. Establish an independent multidisciplinary review, fund community access to advice, and require public responses to major objections. Survey participation must not be represented as construction consent. Decisions about construction should follow the necessary assessments and clearances. Protect drainage while long-term zoning is prepared. Planning, revenue and municipal authorities should prevent new obstruction of mapped high-risk waterways and investigate unsafe excavation. Interim restrictions need lawful notice, transparent review and support for affected occupants. Repair drainage, stabilise priority slopes and secure spoil; avoid hurried works that transfer risk to another location. Make evacuation and relief usable for every household. Before the 2027 rains, districts should run exercises with schools, health facilities, work camps and riverine communities. Pre-position safe water, sanitation, medicines and boats. Include disability access, menstrual hygiene, child protection, replacement documents, livestock and rapid livelihood assistance. Relocation support must recognise tenants and people whose land has disappeared through erosion. The first-year public dashboard should track repairs completed, gauges functioning, warnings received in drills, evacuation times and grievance resolution. These measures make readiness visible before a flood supplies the test. The middle run must change where and how development happens Over one to five years, broadly 2027–2031, governments should use those first measures to change the underlying pattern of exposure. Make flood and slope zoning enforceable and affordable. Each state should connect updated hazard maps to building permission, public infrastructure location and land records. Secure replacement land, transitional rent and livelihood support must accompany movement from places where safe habitation cannot reasonably be maintained. Relocate functioning communities with schools, health care and cultural continuity; do not recreate exposure on the nearest cheap terrace. Require development to pass a basin test. Arunachal and Sikkim should assess hydropower and associated construction alongside roads, transmission and settlements in each connected valley. Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram should prioritise cumulative slope and extraction pressures. Assam should assess downstream flow, erosion and drainage consequences. Manipur and Tripura need plans adapted to their valley and cross-border river systems. Decision rules must allow redesign, relocation or refusal, with reasons made public. Restore the places that hold and safely convey water. Assam's beels and urban drainage networks deserve sustained programmes. Manipur should integrate valley drainage with Loktak management; Tripura should protect storage and conveyance in its catchments. Test selected embankment setbacks and flood-storage restoration with landholders, compensate agreed losses, and monitor performance. Upland states should restore native vegetation and springsheds where suitable, with paid community stewardship. Build a permanent regional technical capability. Strengthen the Brahmaputra Board and state agencies with geologists, hydrologists, ecologists and trained field staff. Support open data and independent analysis through institutions such as IIT Guwahati, universities and NESAC. The regional compact should have funded basin teams and annual public reviews. Avoid creating another committee whose responsibilities end at recommending that another committee act. Price lifetime risk and negotiate across borders. Project appraisals should include maintenance, sediment, rehabilitation, emergency arrangements and plausible disruption. Contractor obligations and developer reserves should cover environmental restoration and safety over time. States and the Union should pursue practical data and emergency agreements with China, Bhutan and Bangladesh, using Nepal's recent experience to strengthen regional cooperation. Share decision-ready alerts that explain the danger and required action. By 2031, progress should be assessed through reduced repeated displacement, safer infrastructure, effective warning coverage and restored water storage, accounting for differences in rainfall between years. Construction totals alone cannot show whether risk has declined. For a child beside an Assam river or an Arunachal slope, success is concrete: a home in a safer place, a school that remains reachable, and a warning the family can use. The Siang decision should be judged within that wider promise. The Northeast's mountains and floodplains need a development policy that protects the people connected by them. Sources and further reading Sources accessed or checked on 4 October 2026. Numbers in the text identify supporting research, official statements or supplied articles. Project proposals and government assurances are distinguished from demonstrated outcomes; recommendations are the author's policy proposals. [1] Yadappanavar, A. V. (4 October 2026). Beyond embankments: Why Assam's 2026 floods demand a paradigm shift in India's disaster management. Counterview. Open source [2] Sharma, Kvita (4 October 2026). If Nepal's mountains are fragile, so are Arunachal's. Counterview. Open source [3] Yadappanavar, A. V. (4 October 2026). When rivers ignore state boundaries: Rethinking flood management in northeast India. Counterview. Open source [4] Chowdhury, U. K. When the Mountain Fell into the River. Supplied article in NepCrisisFinal(3).docx; evidence cut-off 30 August 2026. [5] Chowdhury, U. K. Too Much Water, Yet Not Enough Rain: India's Monsoon Emergency of 2026. Supplied article in MonSoonFin.docx. [6] IPCC (2022). Cross-Chapter Paper 5: Mountains. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Open source [7] ISRO / NRSC (18 March 2023). Landslide Atlas of India. Open source [8] ISRO (22 April 2024). Satellite Insights: Expanding Glacial Lakes in the Indian Himalayas. Open source [9] NHPC (2024). Annual Report 2023–24, section 9.3 on Upper Siang Multipurpose Storage Project. Alternative capacities and geological investigations. Open source [10] Tayeng, M. (29 September 2026). Siang project will move ahead only if feasibility study gives green signal: Arunachal CM. India Today NE. Open source [11] The Economic Times (23 September 2026). Arunachal Cabinet forms panel to oversee Upper Siang project survey. Open source [12] Xinhua (19 July 2025). Chinese premier announces construction of Yarlung Zangbo hydropower project. Open source [13] Xinhua (23 July 2025). China's Yarlung Zangbo hydropower project has no adverse impact on downstream areas: spokesperson. Official position. Open source [14] Li, Y., Cui, Y., Hu, X., and colleagues (2024). Glacier Retreat in Eastern Himalaya Drives Catastrophic Glacier Hazard Chain. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL108202. Open source [15] Sattar, A., Cook, K. L., Rai, S. K., and colleagues (2025). The Sikkim flood of October 2023: Drivers, causes, and impacts of a multihazard cascade. Science, 387, eads2659. Open source [16] ICIMOD (2026). Kyirong-Rasuwa Flood 2026: Nepal-China Cryosphere Risk. Evolving assessment and distinctions between avalanche, debris flow and GLOF. Open source [17] ICIMOD (25 September 2026). Kathmandu 10 Action Points: HKH countries chart a path to better preparedness after catastrophic Rasuwa-Gyirong flood. Open source [18] Rimi, T. (March 2026). Local Response to National Projects: The Siang Hydropower Project in Arunachal Pradesh. Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, issue 30. Open source [19] Government of India (1980). The Brahmaputra Board Act, 1980. Statutory basin-planning mandate. Open source [20] Ministry of Jal Shakti / PIB (19 June 2026). Brahmaputra Board Reviews Flood Management, River Basin Planning and Sustainable Development Initiatives in North East. Open source [21] Ministry of Jal Shakti / PIB (4 December 2025). Filling of Posts in National Dam Safety Authority. Parliamentary reply also records circulation of floodplain-zoning guidance in August 2025. Open source [22] Ministry of Jal Shakti / PIB (1 December 2025). Floods in Punjab and Poor Reservoir Management at Dams. Parliamentary reply on rule curves, hydrological data and coordinated cascade operations. Open source [23] North Eastern Space Applications Centre (undated). Disaster Management Support: Flood Early Warning Systems. Historical operational description. Open source [24] World Bank (24 March 2023). World Bank Approves $108 Million to Improve Disaster Preparedness for Flood-prone Districts of Assam. Open source [25] Asian Development Bank (10 February 2026). ADB Approves $182 Million Loan to Scale Up Flood and Erosion Management Along Brahmaputra in Assam. Open source [26] Tamil Nadu State Wetlands Authority (undated). Tamil Nadu Wetlands Mission. Reproduces the definition under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017. Open source [27] Central Water Commission (June 2017). Guidelines for Safety Inspection of Dams. Includes reservoir-rim and slope inspection considerations. Open source [28] Ministry of Home Affairs, Disaster Management Division (current official information). Response Fund: State and National Disaster Mitigation Funds. Open source [29] Central Water Commission (February 2019). Handbook for Assessing and Managing Reservoir Sedimentation. Open source [30] Collier, M., Webb, R. H., and Schmidt, J. C. (1996, revised 2000). Dams and Rivers: A Primer on the Downstream Effects of Dams. USGS Circular 1126. Open source #NortheastIndia #Siang #Brahmaputra #FloodResilience #HimalayanSafety #ArunachalPradesh #ClimateJustice #RiverBasinManagement ...Read more

06 Oct 2026

As temperatures rise in India, cooling is becoming essential to public health, household satisfaction, and economic productivity. But the growing popularity of air conditioning raises questions about electricity consumption, refrigerant emissions, affordability, and waste. We investigate how the Kigali Amendment and India’s Cooling Action Plan can support a cooling system that looks after people without compromising the environment.   SummaryWe explore how India’s growing cooling demand relates to climate change, public health, and energy usage. Through the Kigali Amendment and India’s Cooling Action Plan, we look at sustainable cooling technologies, refrigerant management, building design, and worker safety. The article highlights the need for affordable, accessible cooling without increasing environmental stresses.   Why is cooling becoming a necessity in India? As temperatures continue to rise, cooling is becoming an important part of everyday life in India. What once was seen as a luxury in many households is increasingly connected to health, productivity, and basic comfort. Heat affects people differently, but the risks can be particularly pronounced for older adults, children, outdoor workers, and people with existing health vulnerabilities. We often think of cooling as switching on an air conditioner or a fan, but the larger cooling system is far more complex. It begins with the design of buildings, the electricity consumed to use equipment, the refrigerants contained within cooling appliances, the workers who install and support them and the way equipment is treated when it is discarded. This wider perspective is important because cooling can protect people from heat but also contribute to environmental pressures. Air conditioners and refrigeration systems consume electricity and, if refrigerants escape, can contribute to global warming.  As more households, offices, hospitals, shops, and industries require cooling, we must consider how this demand can be met responsibly. We cannot simply focus on selling more appliances – we also must ask whether buildings can be designed to stay cooler, whether equipment will be efficient and whether cooling is affordable to the people who need it most. For us, the central question is not whether India needs cooling – it is how we can provide cooling without creating new environmental and social challenges.   What is the Kigali Amendment, and why does it matter? The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol was adopted in 2016 to reduce the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons, commonly known as HFCs. These substances are used in many refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. HFCs were introduced as a substitute for ozone-depleting substances, but many HFCs are powerful greenhouse gases. When they escape from air-conditioning equipment, they can contribute to global warming. The Kigali Amendment, therefore, is concerned with gradually phasing down the production and consumption of HFCs. India ratified the amendment in 2021 and follows a phased schedule for reducing HFC production and consumption. India’s schedule includes a first reduction landmark in 2032, followed by further reductions in 2037, 2042 and 2047. These are the scheduled phase-down landmarks, not evidence that the reductions have already occurred.  The amendment is important because it ties the cooling sector to global climate action – but simply substituting one refrigerant for another is not enough on its own. We also must ensure that new equipment is energy-efficient, safe to run and suitable for India’s climate and cooling needs. If a refrigerant has a lower climate impact but the appliance consumes too much electricity, the overall environmental benefit may be reduced. This is why refrigerant transition and energy efficiency need to move together. The Kigali Amendment gives us an international framework – the challenge is to translate it into practical action across India’s cooling economy.   How is India’s Cooling Action Plan addressing the challenge? India launched the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) in 2019 to address cooling demand with a broader, longer-term approach. The plan is aware that cooling is connected to several sectors – including buildings, transport, agriculture, healthcare, and industry. It aims to reduce demand for cooling, improve energy efficiency and encourage better technology, as well as supporting the development of skilled workers. The plan set targets for reducing cooling demand, refrigerant demand, and cooling energy requirements by 2037-38. These targets are intended outcomes and should not be described as achieved unless there is updated evidence. An important aspect of ICAP is its emphasis on reducing cooling needs before relying solely on mechanically produced cooling. If the buildings we occupy can limit the amount of heat we allow in, we may require less air conditioning to keep comfortable. The plan is also aware of the need for trained technicians – cooling equipment requires installation, servicing and maintenance, and refrigerants must be handled with care. Without skilled workers and suitable equipment, even efficient appliances can perform poorly or cause environmental harm. We should view ICAP as a framework that unites elements of the wider cooling system. Its success depends on co-ordination between government agencies, manufacturers, building designers, service providers, workers and consumers.   Why can a cooler room also mean a hotter grid? Air conditioners make indoor spaces more comfortable, but they require electricity to work. When many people start using cooling equipment, electricity demand can surge. This creates a challenge for power systems, especially during periods of extreme heat. If electricity supply relies on fossil fuels, increasing demand can also increase greenhouse gas emissions. This is why the phrase “a cooler room can mean a hotter grid” is important – cooling may protect us indoors, but the electricity we consume can have environmental consequences elsewhere. It would be wrong to interpret this as a reason to discourage people from using cooling when they need it – but it does highlight how we have to improve the overall system. Energy-efficient appliances can provide the same service but consume less electricity. Better building design can reduce the demand for energy-intensive air conditioning. Smart control systems and proper maintenance can help equipment function more effectively. We also have to consider electricity access and affordability. A household may have an air conditioner but avoid using it because of the cost of running it – in this case, appliance ownership does not mean the household has reliable access to cooling. A sustainable cooling system, therefore, has to reduce electricity consumption while ensuring that people can stay safe during extreme heat.    How can passive cooling reduce our dependence on air conditioning? Passive cooling refers to building design and other methods that seek to reduce heat indoors without relying solely on mechanically produced cooling. We can begin by looking at a few simple aspects: shading, ventilation, reflective surfaces and suitable building materials. The way a building is placed, its window size, the materials of its roof and walls – these can influence the amount of heat indoors. For example, external shading can reduce direct sunlight entering a room, and roof treatments may reflect sunlight to reduce the heat they absorb. Ventilation can also be used to create a flow of air when the outdoor conditions permit. These methods have proven to be helpful in many residential, educational, office and community buildings. They can also help reduce electricity costs by reducing the amount of time air conditioners have to work. However, passive cooling is not a universal solution, and its effectiveness varies depending on the climate, building design, humidity, air quality and use. While natural ventilation is ideal in some conditions, it may not be desirable in others. Natural ventilation, for instance, may not be desirable during periods of poor outdoor air quality or extreme humidity. Some hospitals and specialist workplaces also require controlled conditions – which cannot be achieved solely through passive measures. We should view passive cooling as one component of a broader system. Coupled with efficient appliances and thoughtful building design, it can help reduce cooling demand and contribute to indoor comfort.  What makes energy-efficient cooling important? Energy efficiency plays a crucial role in sustainable cooling, as it allows us to get the cooling we want while consuming less electricity. When comparing air conditioners or other equipment for personal use, we should pay attention to their energy-performance information rather than focusing on price, aesthetics or marketing claims. In India, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency offers energy labelling programmes for relevant appliances. These labelling guidelines can help us compare the energy performance of products, provided we look at the label for the product and its requirements. Of course, energy efficiency is not just about the appliance – it depends on several factors, such as the building’s design, the room’s size in which equipment will be used, its insulation and ventilation, as well as its maintenance. An air conditioner that is poorly installed or supported may not deliver the service we expect – in fact, dirty filters or blocked airflow can significantly affect its performance. We should also resist the assumption that the latest appliance will automatically be the right one for every space. Consumers need to understand the cooling requirements of their space, as well as the impact on operating costs, servicing requirements, and energy-performance characteristics. For hospitals, businesses and large buildings, the same principles apply – but on a larger scale, and with energy audits and maintenance playing a prominent role. The aim is not simply to reduce the amount of electricity we consume – but to provide the cooling service we want without consuming more than we must.   Which refrigerants are used, and what happens when they leak? Refrigerants are substances that are contained within cooling systems to help the transfer of heat. Different appliances use different refrigerants, and these substances vary in their environmental impact. Some have high global warming potential – others have a lower impact, but they also have safety, flammability, and operational considerations. These differences mean that refrigerant selection is a balance: it is not simply a matter of choosing whichever has the lowest climate impact. Equipment has to be compatible with a refrigerant, and technicians have to be trained to handle them. Leaks are a major concern because they can occur during equipment operation or servicing, transport or disposal. A refrigeration system may continue to function after a leak, but the system will be less effective and the refrigerant may escape. We need proper servicing records, leak detection and repair practices to reduce these risks. Technicians should have suitable tools and follow safety procedures for the specific refrigerant and equipment. We should also distinguish between refrigerant recovery and reclamation. Recovery refers to removing refrigerant from equipment, as opposed to simply releasing it into the atmosphere. Reclamation involves processing the recovered refrigerant to specific requirements for reuse. Both can be part of responsible refrigerant management, but they are distinct processes.   What happens to cooling equipment at the end of its life? The environmental impact of cooling equipment does not stop when it stops working. Discarded air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances have materials that can be recycled or reused. They also have refrigerants and oils that may pose environmental and safety risks. Improper dismantling can expose workers to unsafe conditions and valuable materials will be lost when appliances are simply discarded without recovery. We, therefore, must consider the entire lifecycle of cooling equipment – from design and manufacturing to installation, maintenance, repair, collection, and end-of-life treatment. A responsible system would make it easier for us to return old appliances to proper collection points. Service providers and waste handlers must follow suitable procedures for recovering refrigerants and separating materials. Manufacturers can support this by considering product design, repair guidelines, spare parts availability, and take-back options were proper. We should not assume that an appliance has been responsibly recycled simply because it has been collected – we must look at the evidence about where it went, how the refrigerants were treated and which materials have been recovered.    How can district cooling support sustainable cities? District cooling refers to systems in which cooling is produced in a central location and distributed to several buildings through a network. Instead of each building having its own equipment for mechanically produced cooling, a shared system can be used for connected buildings. This can bring out opportunities for improved efficiency, maintenance and energy management depending on local conditions. District cooling can be a relevant model for large developments, commercial districts, hospitals, campuses, and other areas with intensive demand for cooling. However, it is not necessarily the best option for every city or neighbourhood – its performance will depend on factors such as building density, network design, local climate, electricity supply, investment costs, and the reliability of the system. We, therefore, must evaluate district cooling on a case-by-case basis. We need to look at how much energy it will use, what refrigerant it will rely on, how cooling is distributed, and whether the service will be affordable for the buildings and people it serves. District cooling is likely to be one component of sustainable urban infrastructure, but it has to complement other measures such as passive cooling and efficient appliances.   Why are hospitals an important part of the cooling conversation? Hospitals not only rely on cooling but also have significant cooling needs. Some spaces require controlled temperatures to support patient care, protect medicines, or operate equipment. This means reliable cooling is particularly important during extreme heat – but a cooling failure can impact patients, staff and hospital operations. At the same time, hospitals may have substantial cooling demands due to the long hours they run and the range of temperature-sensitive spaces. We should assess hospitals from both a public-health and an energy-efficiency point of view – the goal is not to reduce cooling indiscriminately, but to ensure that necessary conditions are kept while reducing unnecessary energy use. Hospitals must review their maintenance schedules, cooling arrangements, and energy performance. They must look at whether different areas require different cooling settings and whether building improvements can reduce heat gain. To understand the situation, we would have to speak to hospital administrators, maintenance staff, and healthcare professionals. Useful evidence would include indoor temperatures, equipment types, energy costs, maintenance schedules, and what resources exist for power interruptions. A specific hospital case should be based on verified reporting rather than assumptions – this would help prove how cooling decisions impact patients, workers, and costs in actual practice.   Who are the workers behind India’s cooling economy? Behind every functioning air conditioner or refrigeration system is a network of workers who install, repair, and keep equipment. Refrigeration and air-conditioning technicians are essential in the cooling transition – they handle refrigerants, inspect systems, identify leaks and perform repairs. As India moves towards new refrigerants and more efficient technologies, technicians will require updated training. We should not treat training as a one-off activity – workers have to have access to updated technical knowledge, appropriate tools and practical instruction. They also need safe working conditions and procedures related to refrigerant handling. Informal workers may face additional barriers such as the costs associated with training, limited access to equipment and uncertain employment conditions. A policy transition that ignores these may not be effective. We should include technicians in discussions on sustainable cooling, as their experience can help highlight practical problems such as recurring equipment failures, the availability of spares and difficulties in recovering refrigerants. A technician-focused field report could look at the refrigerants technicians typically handle, the tools they use, their training and the challenges they encounter during servicing. These details can help connect national climate targets with day-to-day working conditions.   How can we make cooling accessible without increasing inequality? As we develop our appreciation for new cooling technologies, we need to remember that access is not simply about availability. A cooling system may exist in a city, but it may not be affordable to nearby households. A hospital may have modern equipment, but maintenance costs may be too high. Technicians may receive training, but they may struggle to obtain recovery tools. We, therefore, must link cooling policy to affordability, infrastructure, and working conditions. For households, this can begin with better information on energy-efficient appliances, practical building improvements, and affordable servicing. For hospitals, it means protecting critical cooling while reducing unnecessary energy use. For businesses it means reviewing their equipment, refrigerant management, and the full cost of operating cooling systems. For policymakers, the challenge is to co-ordinate the various aspects of the system. We need building policies that reduce unnecessary heat gain, appliance standards that promote energy efficiency, refrigerant regulations that enable safe transitions and training programmes that reach the technicians who install and keep equipment. We also need reliable information – without data on electricity consumption, refrigerant leakage, equipment performance, indoor temperatures, and waste, it will be hard to measure whether systems are delivering the intended benefits. This is where independent research organisations, public-health experts, worker associations, and civil-society groups can contribute – their work can help us see the practical barriers that may not be clear in policy documents or industry announcements. Sustainable cooling must be measured not only through the technology being installed but also through the quality of services people are receiving, the environmental impact and the conditions in which workers are performing their roles.   What can we do at home and at work? Beyond national policy and industrial transformation, there are practical actions we can take to improve the way we use cooling. At home, we can reduce the amount of direct sunlight entering our premises by using right curtains, blinds, or shading. We can keep fans and air conditioners, keeping filters clean per manufacturers’ guidance and avoiding unnecessary use. We should use air conditioners following the needs of the room – rather than assuming lower temperatures will always be preferred. These settings can reduce electricity consumption while keeping our comfort. At work, we can review our use of fans or air conditioners, avoiding unnecessary energy use. If our workplace is air conditioned, we can check whether the temperature and airflow are proper and raise concerns if not. We can also consider the use of building materials and designs that help keep spaces cool without consuming vast amounts of electricity. As citizens, we should engage with building or appliance standards and energy labelling, encouraging our communities to embrace opportunities for passive and active cooling. We can support cleaner energy generation and promote responsible electricity use. We can ask questions about how our electricity is generated – is it cleaner? Is it cheaper? – and encourage our households and workplaces to reduce consumption where they can. We can request more information on waste management and refrigerant recovery – rather than assuming recycling happens automatically, we must demand accountability. This can help us assess whether our cooling systems are genuinely helping the environment. Finally, we can take care of our air conditioners and make sure they are supported, serviced, and repaired responsibly. This will ensure they are performing the most efficient service possible.   What should we check when evaluating a cooling system? To understand whether a cooling system is sustainable, we need evidence that covers its full lifecycle. Cool-home and cool-workplace checklist Refrigerant: What type is used, and what are its climate and safety characteristics? Energy performance: What energy label or performance information is available? Installation: Was the equipment correctly sized and installed? Service record: Is there a record of maintenance, repairs and leak checks? Recovery and reclamation: Is refrigerant collected during servicing or decommissioning, and where does it go? Disposal route: Is the appliance sent to a proper collection or treatment facility? Indoor temperature: Are indoor conditions suitable for the people using the space? Electricity cost: Is cooling affordable to use? Worker certification and training: Are technicians trained and equipped to handle the refrigerant safely? Cooling lifecycle Design and manufacture → Installation → Operation → Servicing and leak repair → Refrigerant recovery → Reclamation or proper treatment → Appliance collection and end-of-life processing This lifecycle approach helps us look beyond the appliance itself. It also gives consumers, businesses, and policymakers a clearer set of questions to ask when assessing cooling claims.   Conclusion: Cooling people without overheating the planet As we look towards India's cooling future, we need to recognise that cooling is no longer simply a question of comfort. It is connected to public health, energy security, employment, infrastructure, and climate action. The Kigali Amendment provides an international framework for reducing HFC production and consumption. India's Cooling Action Plan offers a broader approach that connects cooling demand, energy efficiency, refrigerant management, technology, and skills development. Together, they give us a starting point for rethinking how cooling is provided across the country. But the real test of this transition lies beyond policy documents and technology announcements. We need to understand whether households can afford to stay cool during extreme heat. We need to know whether hospitals can support reliable cooling when patients need it most. We need to examine whether technicians have the skills, tools, and working conditions necessary to manage refrigerants safely. And we need to set up whether cooling equipment is repaired, recovered, and disposed of responsibly. We also need to move away from the idea that one technology can solve every problem. Passive cooling can reduce heat entering buildings, efficient appliances can reduce electricity use, and district cooling may offer shared solutions in suitable locations. But each approach needs to be evaluated according to local conditions, costs, access, and environmental performance. Most importantly, we need to understand that sustainable cooling is not only about reducing harm. It is also about expanding access to an essential service. A household that cannot afford to use its air conditioner, a hospital struggling to support critical temperatures or a technician working without proper recovery equipment stands for a gap in the cooling system. We should therefore measure progress through more than the number of appliances sold or the refrigerants replaced. We need to consider whether cooling is reliable, affordable, energy-efficient, and accessible, while ensuring that workers and waste-management systems are included in the transition. The next time we enter a cool room, we should look beyond the temperature on the thermostat. We should ask how that cooling was produced, how much energy it needed, what refrigerant it uses and what happens when the equipment reaches the end of its lif Because the future of cooling is not simply about making our rooms colder. It is about building a system that protects people from heat without adding unnecessary pressure to the planet.   References and sources Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change — India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1805795&reg=48&lang=2 Official framework for cooling demand reduction, refrigerant transition, energy efficiency, and cooling technology development. Press Information Bureau — India Cooling Action Plan      https://www.pib.gov.in/indexm.aspx?reg=48&lang=2 Government information on implementation, passive cooling in buildings and technician training. Press Information Bureau — Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol       https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1746946&reg=48&lang=2 Details on India's ratification, HFC phase-down schedule and expected climate benefits. ...Read more

24 Sep 2026

From the Aravallis to Arunachal, and from Great Nicobar to Ladakh, big-ticket projects are being advanced through a system that counts megawatts, ports and contracts more readily than forests, water, consent and risk, finds Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury. SummaryIndia's development debate is often presented as a choice between jobs and conservation. The record of the last decade shows a more troubling question: who gets the contract, who gets the electricity or revenue, and who absorbs the costs when a forest, river or common land is changed beyond repair? Government data show 215,943 hectares of forestland approved for non-forest use between 2014-15 and 2025-26, with the annual pace rising sharply in the last two years. Court records, parliamentary reports and CAG audits document narrowed protections, unresolved consent, illegal extraction, project delays and steep cost overruns. These records do not prove one secret conspiracy behind every project. They do reveal an operating pattern: public authorities take ecological risks, communities lose the resources they depend on, and a concentrated circle of project developers and contractors receives the work. The counter-evidence is just as important: communities can restore water and livelihoods when they govern local commons. Development is not measured by the size of a project, but by whether it leaves people and landscapes more secure. A woman measures development in water In Shyampur, a village in Rajasthan's Karauli district, Anita gave rural journalist Bharat Dogra a measure of progress that no project appraisal can easily capture: the village began to move forward only after water scarcity eased. It is an ordinary sentence with a hard policy implication. Water is not a side benefit of development. It is the platform on which health, farming, livestock, education and income stand.[2] Dogra's account follows five decades of visiting drought-struck villages. In the Bundelkhand and Patha belt, he describes women carrying muddy water over long distances, cattle left behind when fodder and water ran out, and wells reduced to dangerous pits. He also records a different kind of infrastructure: Shyampur's 18 new water bodies and 14 restored ones, a de-silted tank, water-saving farming and village stewardship. Nearly three-quarters of cultivated land there was reported to have returned to productive use.[2] In one drought in the Patha plateau, Kol tribal women walked nearly five kilometres in the heat for two pitchers of unsafe water. Dogra's point is not nostalgia for village life. It is that a destroyed catchment can make even a newly installed tap unreliable, while watershed repair can restore water for people, farms, livestock, birds and wildlife at once.[2] That story sets the test for India's largest projects. A dam, mine, road or port may promise energy, trade or security. But if it degrades a village catchment, fragments a forest or removes access to grazing, fish and sacred places, it can subtract the foundations of everyday life while adding impressive figures to an investment deck. The ledger puts construction costs in bold type and ecological liabilities in small print. The clearance ledger is accelerating Official figures reported to Parliament show that 215,943 hectares of forestland were approved for non-forest use between 2014-15 and 2025-26. Nearly 62 per cent was cleared for mining, hydropower, irrigation and roads. The annual average rose from about 14,941 hectares in 2014-19 to 19,223 hectares in 2019-24. In 2024-25 and 2025-26 alone, approvals reached 45,125 hectares, or roughly 61 hectares each day.[9] These are approvals, not a measure of how much was actually felled; still, the direction and scale matter. A separate petition filed in the Delhi High Court alleges that the National Board for Wildlife's Standing Committee approved 97 per cent of 2,186 proposals between 2014 and 2026, involving at least 95,724 hectares. That is an allegation in a pending case, not a judicial finding. It raises a serious governance question all the same: if the body charged with scrutinising projects in wildlife landscapes almost never says no, what level of scrutiny is taking place?[4] The eastern Himalaya saw especially sharp increases. Arunachal Pradesh recorded 6,038 hectares of diversion in 2024-26, more than eight times its 2014-19 total; Sikkim's two-year total was nearly 19 times its earlier five-year total.[9] These are headwaters and steep slopes where floods, landslides and seismic hazards make mistakes unusually costly. A national average hides local concentration. Parcel-by-parcel clearances can miss the cumulative damage from roads, power lines, mines and reservoirs within one connected landscape. When the law moves the goalposts The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act of 2023 narrowed the statutory coverage to land formally notified as forest or recorded in government records on or after 25 October 1980. It also exempts specified strategic and security projects near borders and in other areas. The government says the change clarifies coverage and facilitates national security infrastructure. PRS warns that previously recorded but unnotified forests, and some land converted before the 1996 Supreme Court ruling, could fall outside central approval.[10] The exemptions are substantial in a border state: strategic linear projects of national importance can qualify within 100 kilometres of an international border, Line of Control or Line of Actual Control; security infrastructure up to 10 hectares is also listed, along with certain projects up to five hectares in areas affected by left-wing extremism. The Act also expands activities that may proceed without central approval to include government zoos and safaris in forest areas outside protected areas, eco-tourism facilities, and specified surveys.[10] In February 2024 the Supreme Court directed governments to keep applying the broader definition from the 1996 Godavarman case while land identification proceeds. That interim order is a guardrail, not a final ruling on every challenge.[11] The episode shows how a law can narrow protection and leave litigation to prevent it vanishing before records are complete. The 2022 Forest (Conservation) Rules let forest approval run alongside other statutory processes, including recognition of rights under the Forest Rights Act. The government says no final diversion order or land handover can occur until rights are settled.[12] The concern is practical: central approval can give a project momentum before communities establish what they own, use or hold sacred. A right considered after in-principle approval is harder to exercise than one considered before the site and contracts are fixed. In September 2026, a parliamentary committee called unanimous Gram Sabha consent a major obstacle to hydropower and proposed a 70-75 per cent threshold. The Tribal Affairs Ministry replied that the Forest Rights Act contains no general clause requiring such consent for forest clearance. That reading has force: the Act's express consent provision is specific. It does not settle questions about rights recognition, clearance conditions or authority over community resources.[3] Niyamgiri remains the clearest example of a Gram Sabha deciding a rights question. In 2013 the Supreme Court held that village assemblies should determine whether mining affected the Dongria Kondh's religious and cultural rights. The assemblies rejected the mine; it did not proceed.[13] This is not a universal veto. It is a reminder that rights tied to one landscape cannot be averaged away by counting neighbouring villages. The Aravalli hills are disappearing twice First the hills disappear under mining; then they risk disappearing from the maps that define protection. In 2018, a Central Empowered Committee report found that 31 of 128 sampled hills in Rajasthan's Alwar district had vanished since 1967-68. The Supreme Court ordered the state to stop illegal mining in the affected area.[14] The CAG's audit shows the enforcement failure was systemic. Rajasthan recorded 48,486 illegal-mining cases from 2015-16 to 2019-20, with cases up 169 per cent by the final year. Satellite analysis found illegal mining in 122 test cases, covering 83.25 hectares. The audit also found irregularities at 81.68 per cent of selected weighbridges and Rs 13.99 crore in penalties not imposed for unauthorised extraction.[15] This does not prove a political conspiracy; it documents weak controls that let extraction outrun the rules. In 2025 the Supreme Court accepted a 100-metre elevation test for defining Aravalli hills. The Indian Express reported that the Forest Survey of India warned this could exclude nearly 90 per cent of the hills. The Court put the definition on hold and appointed a new expert panel. Its August 2026 report said the range cannot be mapped by elevation alone: forests, water systems, biodiversity, habitat links and livelihoods matter too. It sought until February 2027 to complete the review.[16][17] The Aravalli is a range, not isolated peaks. Its lower ridges help hold soil and channel water. Exclude that connective tissue and the landscape is fragmented on paper before a bulldozer arrives. Great Nicobar has no spare island The Union government presents Great Nicobar as a strategic port-led hub with a terminal, airport, township and power plant. The NGT record puts the project cost at about Rs 81,834 crore. The government has approved in principle diversion of 130.75 square kilometres of forest, saying 65.99 square kilometres will remain green with no tree felling and citing biodiversity plans and monitoring.[18][20] Those safeguards matter; so does the scale of change. Great Nicobar is not an interchangeable parcel in a tree-planting ledger. Its forests and coasts sustain the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, and the Nicobarese, alongside endemic species and leatherback turtle nesting habitat. In 2024, experts told the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes that the developer's calculation of the tribal reserve remaining protected was flawed and that tribal views were ignored.[19] The government says it followed consultation and protection policies.[18] The dispute is about who defines protection and whether local accounts of risk shape the plan before it is locked in. The NGT upheld the clearance in February 2026, citing adequate safeguards and strategic importance. In May, the Calcutta High Court agreed to hear separate challenges to the forest-rights process.[20][32] The clearance has survived one environmental challenge; tribal-rights questions remain live. The NGT's 2026 order also points to conditions for leatherback turtles, Nicobar megapodes, saltwater crocodiles, robber crabs, macaques and endemic birds.[31] The issue is whether those conditions can manage a transformed landscape and cumulative pressure on forest, coast and community, not whether a clearance document lists protected species. Planting elsewhere cannot recreate a Nicobar rainforest, its species, coastal protection or the Shompen's cultural geography. Compensatory afforestation cannot make unlike ecosystems equivalent. In Arunachal the river is not vacant energy Arunachal Pradesh has declared 2025-35 its Decade of Hydropower, targeting 19,165 MW across 33 projects, against estimated potential above 50,000 MW.[23] The proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project is roughly 11,000-11,200 MW, with a dam up to 250 metres high. It remains at the survey stage; its final footprint and displacement list are not settled.[7][8] For Adi communities, the survey is not abstract: it is an official entry into ancestral land, farms, river and sacred geography. Residents from more than 27 villages oppose the project and surveys. Down To Earth reported that central armed forces were deployed in two districts in May 2025 to support the pre-feasibility survey. Villagers called the deployment coercive; authorities say the project is strategically important because of China's planned upstream dam.[24] The state government later said it would not rush the study and would hear affected families.[7] Consent requires a trusted process before equipment arrives. In September 2026, national environmental groups expressed solidarity with the Siang movement and said a CBI case under the FCRA against activist Bhanu Tatak formed part of a wider campaign to pressure dissent. That is the groups' allegation, not a court finding; it should be examined through due process.[6] A basin-wide assessment must account for sediment, fish, flood risk, seismic hazards, downstream communities and other proposed dams. A single-project study cannot show the cumulative effect on a river system. The Siang proposal is one part of that rush. The government's sectoral account also lists the 2,880 MW Dibang Multipurpose Project and 3,097 MW Etalin project in the Dibang basin.[23] The exact stage and footprint differ, but the combined scale makes basin-level assessment more important than any single project's clearance. Hydropower can be low-carbon at the point of generation and still impose high costs through forest loss, altered sediment, disrupted livelihoods and risk in a seismically active region. Subansiri Lower shows the financial risk. A parliamentary committee reported that the 2,000 MW NHPC project on the Assam-Arunachal border had risen from Rs 6,285 crore to an estimated Rs 27,949 crore, a 344.66 per cent increase.[25][26] Delays, disputes, redesign and disruption all contributed; no one cause explains the rise. The public purse carries the overrun while the valley carries the physical changes. Arunachal's revenue ambitions are real, as are India's power and security needs. But projected revenue is not realised benefit, and planned megawatts do not guarantee local prosperity. Affected people need enforceable benefit-sharing, independent safety review and a meaningful role before the dam becomes inevitable. The Western Ghats and the sunk-cost trap Karnataka's proposed 2,000 MW Sharavati pumped-storage project, estimated at Rs 10,240 crore, would require forest diversion inside the Lion-Tailed Macaque Sanctuary. In September 2026, Shankar Sharma reported that 142 hectares were at stake and a central expert committee had recommended against approval; the High Court stay ran through October 1. The committee cited tree felling, fragmentation and wildlife disturbance.[1][27] Sharma said RTI records showed seven project bills paid to an identified EPC contractor over about ten months before required clearances.[1] That is not proof of a bribe or corrupt award. It does show how public spending can become a sunk cost before an ecological decision is settled, making rejection politically harder. Proposals in the Varahi and Malaprabha catchments raise the same question: is each site necessary after comparing it with grid upgrades, demand management, battery storage and distributed systems? Batteries may not meet every long-duration need; alternatives should still be public and independently tested. The Varahi proposal alone is described as a 2,500 MW project in the catchment around Mookambika and Someshwara sanctuaries. A separate 1,600 MW Saundatti proposal would require forest diversion in the Malaprabha basin.[1] Their status is at the planning and tendering stage, not construction. That is precisely when a comparison of storage options, forest fragmentation and watershed impacts is least expensive to do and most useful to the public. On July 27, 2026, the Centre reissued a seventh draft to classify about 56,825 square kilometres across six states as ecologically sensitive. Previous drafts since 2014 did not produce a final settlement.[1] A region can be valuable enough to avoid casually clearing and still too politically contested to protect. Ladakh's fragile high country Strategic roads and mobile coverage serve Ladakh residents as well as defence personnel. The question is where and how they are built. In 2023 the State Board for Wildlife approved 25 projects in wildlife areas: 20 mobile towers, four security roads and a solar telescope on Pangong Lake's bank inside Changthang sanctuary.[21] The issue is whether separate permissions are assessed cumulatively. A peer-reviewed study of 24 Changthang wetlands found distance from roads and settlements strongly related to the abundance of several waterbird species.[22] This does not mean every road has the same effect. It does show that access and construction are ecological variables in a high-altitude wetland system. The cold desert supports black-necked cranes, kiang and migratory birds, and recovers slowly from disturbance. The black-necked crane is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, and Changthang includes some of its important habitat.[22] This should prompt careful routing and seasonal controls, not a blanket refusal to serve remote settlements. The standard should be transparent mitigation with public monitoring after construction, not a one-time vote by the wildlife board followed by silence. A road may connect a hamlet to a clinic and open a wetland to traffic, tourism and waste. Planning must map breeding grounds, water sources and seasonal grazing, then track cumulative effects. The contractor is visible; the hidden costs are not The phrase 'politician-bureaucrat-contractor lobby' cannot replace evidence. The record does not prove one conspiracy behind every clearance, but it does show incentives. Appraisal is often file by file; a parliamentary review said hydropower relies on only four or five contractors and recommended expanding that base.[25] That is a concentrated market, not proof of collusion. The CAG found mismatches in Rajasthan's extraction and transit records, uncollected penalties, weak weighbridge controls and royalty revenue at risk.[15] Sharma's account of early contractor payments in the Western Ghats raises another accountability issue. Subansiri's cost rise shows how delays can shift costs to the public. Together, these records show activity outrunning financial and ecological controls, even if they do not prove every rupee became profit. One CAG finding was especially revealing: 13 mining leases showed no excavation, yet 5.2 lakh tonnes of mineral were recorded as dispatched using 22,854 electronic transit permits.[15] A well-run licensing and weighbridge system should make such discrepancies difficult. Where extraction proceeds and the state cannot reconcile the records or collect penalties, the gap is not a theoretical externality; it is a visible loss to the public purse and a possible gain to those moving the material. A contractor's work is measured in kilometres and bills. Lost commons are measured in less fodder, longer water walks, fewer fish or wetlands that no longer support birds. Land Conflict Watch maps about 1,095 conflicts; nearly 78 per cent involve commons.[28] Shared landscapes carry economic and cultural value that project appraisals routinely struggle to price. The Forest Survey of India's forest-cover measure includes land of at least one hectare with 10 per cent canopy, regardless of ownership or legal status, including plantations, orchards, bamboo and palms.[30] It measures canopy, not intact biodiversity. CAG audits have found weak monitoring, survival problems and gaps in identifying land for compensatory afforestation.[29] A new plantation may add cover without replacing an old forest's water regulation, soil, species or cultural role. The structural transfer is plain: project benefits are booked at the site and in revenue plans; losses are dispersed among villages, future generations and public budgets. Where rights are weak and ecological costs underpriced, profits can be private while risks are socialised. That is a defensible account of the lobby: not an accusation against every official or builder, but a system where a few decide and many live with the outcome. A different kind of infrastructure The 100 Stories of Commons archive documents communities protecting forests, wetlands, grazing land and village water bodies. It records not only what people lose but what they sustain.[5][28] Dogra's account of Shyampur belongs there, alongside Jal Sahelis who revive ponds and committees that maintain restored tanks.[2] These are not substitutes for every road or port; they show that public interest is not synonymous with scale. India needs energy, transport, flood protection and jobs. It also needs alternatives and community rights to shape projects before sites are fixed. Basin-wide studies should precede clearance. Publish appraisal minutes, forest maps, contractor awards and payments. Test the need against less damaging options. Recognise Gram Sabha rights before costs are sunk, and measure mitigation over time in the ecosystem being changed. For energy storage, that means comparing pumped storage with batteries, demand response, transmission and local storage against the actual duration and grid service required. For roads and security works, it means mapping the habitat first and publishing why a chosen route is necessary. For mines and ports, it means disclosing the full cost of water, restoration, carbon and community access, then auditing those promises after operations start. A mountain is not empty because a spreadsheet omits its streams or sacred paths. A forest is not replaceable because another state has space for saplings. Those facts belong on the first page of a project report, not the last page of a compensation plan. Anita's village rebuilt water bodies and made them work. From the Aravallis to Arunachal, ask before the next clearance: will this project make residents more secure, or will they pay for somebody else's idea of growth.  References: Inline bracketed numbers refer to the sources below. Government and court records are identified separately from reported analysis and advocacy claims. [1] Shankar Sharma, ‘Policy analyst urges PM, Environment Minister to halt ecologically destructive PSPs in Western Ghats,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026. [2] Bharat Dogra, ‘Where water changes lives: My fifty-year journey through thirsting villages,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026. [3] Palla Trinadha Rao, ‘Hydropower projects: How MoTA's one-page memo washes its hands of Gram Sabha consent,’ Counterview, 8 September 2026. [4] ‘Former bureaucrats question forest diversion and post-facto clearances,’ Counterview, 17 September 2026. [5] ‘Sustaining the shared: Lessons in resilience from India's 100 stories of commons,’ Counterview, 19 September 2026. [6] ‘Indigenous and environmental groups stand with Siang anti-dam struggle, raise FCRA concerns,’ Counterview, 22 September 2026. [7] Neha Desai, ‘The Siang divide: Development, indigenous rights and the fight over a mega dam,’ Counterview, 23 September 2026. [8] Lohit Sharma, ‘Submerging dissent: The true cost of Arunachal's hydropower rush,’ Counterview, 23 September 2026. [9] ‘India cleared 215,943 hectares of forest for non-forest use in 12 years,’ Down To Earth, 5 August 2026; analysis of official data reported to Parliament. [10] PRS Legislative Research, ‘The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023.’ [11] Supreme Court of India, interim order in W.P. (C) 1164/2023, 19 February 2024. [12] Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, ‘New Forest Conservation Rules, 2022,’ Press Information Bureau, 28 July 2022. [13] Supreme Court of India, Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd v. Ministry of Environment and Forests, 18 April 2013. [14] ‘31 hills vanish in Rajasthan's Aravalli region in 50 years: CEC report,’ Times of India, 23 October 2018. [15] Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Performance Audit on Illegal Mining in Rajasthan, Report No. 8 of 2022, Executive Summary. [16] Supreme Court of India, order in In Re: Definition of Aravalli Hills and Ranges, 29 December 2025. [17] The Indian Express, ‘Aravallis can't be defined by 1 yardstick: Supreme Court panel seeks extension,’ 4 September 2026. [18] Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Great Nicobar project environmental-impact reply, Press Information Bureau, 2024. [19] Down To Earth, ‘Great Nicobar Project clearances violate constitutional mandate, views of tribals ignored: Experts write to NCST,’ 23 April 2024. [20] Hindustan Times, ‘No good ground to interfere in Great Nicobar Holistic Development Project: NGT,’ 16 February 2026; and The Indian Express, ‘Calcutta HC agrees to hear PILs challenging forest rights clearance for Great Nicobar project,’ 8 May 2026. [21] Administration of the Union Territory of Ladakh, ‘State Board of Wildlife gives clearance to 25 projects in wildlife areas of Ladakh,’ 2023. [22] ‘Influence of anthropogenic factors on the waterbirds in Trans-Himalayan wetlands,’ Global Ecology and Conservation, 2023. [23] Government of India, ‘Hydropower: Powering Arunachal Pradesh's Economic Future,’ MyGov, 2 June 2026; and Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University, ‘Local Response to National Projects: The Siang Hydropower Project in Arunachal Pradesh.’ [24] Down To Earth, ‘Survey tensions: Paramilitary enters Siang villages amid dam opposition,’ 22 May 2025. [25] PRS Legislative Research, ‘National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited,’ summary of Committee on Public Undertakings report, 6 August 2026. [26] The Tribune, ‘Parliamentary panel notes 345% cost overrun in NHPC's Subansiri project,’ 9 August 2026. [27] The New Indian Express, ‘Expert committee flags ecological risks, opposes Sharavathi project,’ 11 July 2026. [28] Land Conflict Watch and Common Ground Initiative, ‘100 Stories of Commons’ archive; database statistics accessed September 2026. [29] Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Performance Audit Report on Afforestation and Social Forestry Programme, Uttar Pradesh, Report No. 2 of 2024. [30] Forest Survey of India, India State of Forest Report 2023, methodology for forest-cover mapping. [31] The Indian Express, ‘NGT clears Great Nicobar project, cites adequate safeguards in environmental nod,’ February 2026. [32] The Indian Express, ‘Calcutta HC agrees to hear PILs challenging forest rights clearance for Great Nicobar project,’ 8 May 2026.   ...Read more

23 Sep 2026

Green labels and statements about being eco-friendly can be seen anywhere. But what if they are not as green as they claim? Explore this article to understand how environmentalism can be used as a marketing tool by companies and analyse how consumers are affected by such actions. Learn about greenwashing and how it can be avoided while shopping and how people are misled into buying products that are not worth the money. SummaryThis article discusses the concept of greenwashing and how companies are using terms like “eco-friendly” and “natural” to mislead consumers into buying their products. The article gives examples from various industries, such as food packaging, clothing, cosmetics, and hotels, showing how easy it is to confuse customers with false claims and images. It also looks at why greenwashing is on the rise in India, what companies, advertisers, influencers, and customers themselves should do to stop it, and what changes can be expected in 2024 – in particular, what new rules have been developed in India (CCPA) concerning “green advertising.” Introduction  Is Everything Green Really Green? Suppose we go to the store to buy a bottle of shampoo. We look at two similar ones, but the second one has pretty leaves and pictures of plants, and words like natural, eco-friendly, sustainable and earth friendly. Our unconscious brain at once tells us that the second possibility is better for the environment. But is it really? This is where the dubious concept of greenwashing comes into play. We live in an age where environmentalism has crossed the threshold from a niche to mainstream. Climate change, plastic waste, deforestation, carbon footprint, and sustainable living are now terms that are not only discussed by environmental activists, but also by the youth who are much more concerned with checking brands’ sustainability than before. As a result, many companies jumped on the bandwagon – realising that the modern customer wants to support those who care for the environment, and therefore, all products now seem to have a green label, use recycled paper for packaging, and mention something about preserving the earth in their marketing.  But What If the Greenest Choice Isn’t Actually Green? Think about the last time we tried to buy something that was better for the environment. We picked a bottle because it had “eco-friendly” written on it, chose a product with minimal-looking packaging, or noticed a clothing brand promoting a new “conscious” collection. At that moment, it feels like we are making the right choice. But then comes the question: how do we really know? Just because a product looks green, uses words like “natural” or “sustainable,” or talks about saving the planet, does that make it environmentally friendly? Most of us do not have the time to investigate every product we buy. We see the label, trust what the brand tells us, and move on. And that’s exactly where things can get complicated. Sometimes, the image of sustainability can be much bigger than the actual effort behind it. That is where greenwashing comes in. What Is Greenwashing? Greenwashing is when a company, product, or service is more environmentally friendly than it is. The term was first coined by environmentalist “Jay Westerveld” in the 1980s, when he noticed that many hotels were encouraging guests to reuse towels to save the environment – even though they continued to engage in other destructive behaviours. Since then, this concept has evolved and now covers a wide range of manipulative practices by businesses. For example, if a company produces a plastic bottle labeled as ‘made with natural materials,’ this can be considered greenwashing. Yes, if some of the components are natural, the statement is not false. However, it does not tell us which ones, which raises more questions than answers. Consequently, any product that has misleading environmental claims, vague statements, unsubstantiated information, questionable certificates, misleading comparisons, unproven sustainability, irrelevant environmental statements, or even an overestimated positive impact can be greenwashed. The main problem with greenwashing is that the appearance of environmental friendliness rarely correlates with reality.  Why Is Greenwashing Difficult to Spot in India? Greenwashing is not always as obvious as when a company is making a false claim. Sometimes it is hidden behind words that sound good but tell us little. Words such as “natural,” “eco-friendly,” “sustainable,” “green” and “conscious” have become so ubiquitous in advertising and packaging that the actual meaning could be lost in translation. In India, these green claims are found everywhere. They can be found on a supermarket shelf, clothing websites, food products, hotel websites, social media advertisements, and e-commerce platforms. While a product can write down that their packaging is recyclable, for example, it does not necessarily tell us anything about the actual product itself. This is where the confusion begins for an ordinary consumer who does not have the time or technical knowledge to figure out how a company arrived at their environmental claim. We see the packaging and stop for the day. That does not mean that every environmental claim is misleading. Some companies do indeed make efforts to cut down on their waste, use recycled materials, or lower emissions. We should focus on whether a claim is specific or has evidence behind it. Greenwashing should therefore not only be about green words but asking what is behind those words.  When One Green Word Hides a Bigger Picture One of the best ways to spot greenwashing is to look beyond one positive feature of a product. For example, imagine a product that writes down that their packaging is made from recycled plastic. This might be a positive and genuine environmental effort, but the claim does not write down that the entire product is sustainable. The same goes for clothing that is made from recycled or organic fibres or hotels promoting a “green stay” that has cut down their plastic bottle use.  While these are indeed positive steps, they are only certain aspects of a larger whole. Instead of asking “Is this product green?” we should be asking “Which aspect of this product or service is being highlighted as green?” This switch in perspective is key.  The Three Questions We Should Be Asking Before Believing a Green Claim Whenever we come across an environmental claim, we like to ask three simple questions that make it easier to process. What exactly is being claimed? Is the company saying that the product itself is sustainable, or only its packaging? Is “recyclable” referring to the entire product or just one part? Compared with what? A claim such as “uses less plastic” does not say anything about what it is being compared to. Less than the company’s earlier packing? Less than a conventional product? And by how much? Where is the evidence? This is the most important question for me. A claim should ideally have some form of supporting evidence such as a study, certification, data, or a clearly explained method of measurement. These are simple questions without the need to become an environmental scientist. These questions simply help us slow down before we accept a claim at face value. A green word is not evidence. The evidence is what makes the claim meaningful.  India’s Greenwashing Rulebook India has also begun to pay more attention to how environmental claims are communicated to a group of consumers. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) introduced guidelines in 2024 specifically dealing with the prevention and regulation of greenwashing and misleading environmental claims. These guidelines are important because they reframe the conversation from simply using environmental words to explaining what those words actually mean. For instance, if a company uses terms such as “sustainable,” “natural,” “recyclable,” “carbon neutral” or similar environmental descriptions, consumers should be able to understand what the claim refers to. Environmental claims should not create a misleading impression through vague wording, incomplete information or visuals that suggest environmental benefits without proper explanation. The most useful way to look at this is through a simple chain: Claim → Evidence → Explanation First, what is the company claiming? Second, what evidence supports that claim? And third, has the company clearly explained the limitations or conditions behind it? This is important because the communication around environmental claims is no longer limited to traditional advertisements. The same claim can appear on a product label, Instagram post, website, marketplace listing or even inside a sustainability report. The responsibility therefore lies not only with consumers to question claims but also with companies to communicate them clearly.  The Boundary Problem Another important aspect of an environmental claim is its boundary. A product does not appear magically on a supermarket shelf. Its environmental impact can include several stages from sourcing raw materials, manufacturing and packaging to transportation, use and finally disposal. This becomes important when companies make claims about things such as carbon neutrality or recyclability. For example, saying that packaging is recyclable tells us something about the packaging. It does not necessarily mean that the entire product has a low environmental impact. Similarly, a carbon-related claim needs to explain what emissions have been included in the calculation and what method has been used. This is why the question “What does the claim cover?” becomes so important. Without knowing the boundary, a consumer may assume that a claim applies to the whole product when it applies to only one part of it.  From the Supermarket Shelf to the Shopping Cart Greenwashing is not only seen in big advertisements but can also appear in everyday situations. Imagine walking through a supermarket and seeing a product that is covered in green colours, leaves, and words such as “natural” or “eco-friendly.” Imagine shopping online and finding a product that is described as “sustainable” without much explanation. The same thing can happen while booking a hotel. A website may highlight an environmentally friendly initiative, such as reducing plastic bottles or encouraging guests to reuse towels. These actions may be genuine, but a consumer may still wonder what exactly makes the entire stay sustainable. The growing use of e-commerce makes this even more relevant. A product description can influence a buying decision just as much as physical packaging can. This means that checking environmental claims should not stop at advertisements. We should also take a closer look at packaging, websites, social media, product descriptions, and marketplace listings. The green message follows the consumer all the way from the advertisement to the shopping cart. India Under the Green Lens Looking at Indian examples makes the issue easier to understand because environmental claims are now becoming a part of many different industries. For instance, in the fashion industry, we increasingly come across terms such as “conscious,” “responsible,” “organic” and “recycled.” These terms can point towards genuine improvements, but we still need to understand what they refer to. If a garment is made using recycled fibres, for example, we know something about the material used, but we may not know about the environmental impact of its manufacturing, transportation, packaging, or disposal. Similarly, in the packaging sector, claims such as “100% recyclable” can sound quite straightforward. But when we look closer, recyclability can depend on the material, the design of the packaging and whether suitable collection and recycling facilities are available. The travel and hospitality sector gives us another example. Hotels and travel platforms increasingly talk about initiatives such as reducing plastic use, saving energy, or conserving water. These can certainly be useful steps, but we need to distinguish between one specific environmental initiative and a much broader claim about sustainability. These examples show us why the aim should not simply be to label a company as “good” or “bad.” Instead, we need to look at the specific claim, what it covers and what evidence supports it. After all, a company can make a genuine environmental improvement and still need to communicate that improvement more clearly. For us as consumers, understanding the difference is what makes it possible to make more informed choices. Who Is Responsible for Greenwashing? Well, this depends on who exactly we ask, but everyone plays their part in greenwashing, from big companies to social media influencers. Companies are naturally responsible for what they write on their product packaging and in their marketing materials. After all, they are the ones who decide what to write and what not to, and if they are intentionally exaggerating their sustainability, they should fix it. However, advertising agencies are also guilty because they are the ones who produce ideas and present them to the public. Meanwhile, influencers and celebrities should do more factchecking before posting a product that they position as eco-friendly. As for the consumer, we handle encouraging companies by buying their products. However, in my opinion, this is where the illusion ends. Because there is no motivation for companies to become genuinely sustainable — only to look good, gain points with customers, and increase sales through manipulative marketing. While it works fine on an emotional level, it does little to help the environment. Why Do Companies Greenwash? So, now we know what greenwashing is and how it works. But why do companies do it? Well, as I mentioned above, companies greenwash to increase sales, attract customers, and look good. But to understand why this happens, we need to look at the bigger picture: the fact that being sustainable is now cool and desirable, not only among the youth, but also among other companies. And the companies that want to compete in terms of sustainability have two options: to genuinely become sustainable and transparent or to resort to greenwashing to make themselves look better without really changing anything. In addition, companies often have an advantage over the competition if they mention sustainability in their marketing, since customers increasingly prefer to buy from organisations that care about the environment. Therefore, even if the company is only ‘a little bit green,’ it still has a good chance to attract customers who are just looking for eco-friendliness in the products. So, why not greenwash? When Did Greenwashing Become Such a Big Problem? Greenwashing has always been around and, unfortunately, it is not going anywhere. The reason for this is simple: companies want to be profitable and popular and therefore find ways to make themselves look better than they are. However, recently, this problem has grown significantly due to two reasons: social media and growing awareness of environmental problems. On the one hand, organisations now have more opportunities to promote their products and services, so they use them extensively to spread information about their ‘eco-friendliness.’On the other hand, people are now much more aware of environmental issues and therefore are better able to identify greenwashing. Consequently, it is now much easier for both companies and consumers to take part in and combat greenwashing. How Does Greenwashing Work? Greenwashing usually works by appealing to consumers’ emotions and presenting information in an attractive way rather than providing specific facts. The most common greenwashing techniques include vague language, green visuals, and misleading comparisons. For example, a company that wants to promote its new product as eco-friendly can do so by writing vague statements like ‘better for the planet.’ Better for whom? For what? There is no specific information – only general, unsubstantiated praise. Another example is using leaf-shaped logos, placing images of forests and fields on the packages, and other tricks to attract the attention of eco-conscious customers. Finally, many organisations try to hide the fact that they are not as sustainable as they would like us to believe by emphasising one positive trait (such as reforestation) while ignoring the rest (such as mass production). Thus, when evaluating an advertised product, it is essential to go beyond the superficial and analyse the facts carefully. Greenwashing in India India is home to hundreds of millions of consumers who are eager to keep up with the latest global trends. Sustainability is now a popular concept not only among environmental activists but also among the youth and influencers. Moreover, social media has made it much easier to spread information – so companies are now competing to be the first to introduce sustainable practices and label their products as eco-friendly. However, as in the rest of the world, this has led to the proliferation of greenwashing in India. On the one hand, this is logical: companies want to increase sales and profits, so they will do everything possible to attract the attention of customers. On the other hand, India is a huge market with many different players, so companies often resort to manipulation to stand out from the competition. Consequently, it is now becoming increasingly difficult for Indian consumers to distinguish between genuinely sustainable companies and those that only want to sell their products by labelling them as eco-friendly. Examples That Help Understanding Greenwashing Better Let us take a closer look at some simple but striking examples of greenwashing. Case 1: Eco-Friendly Bottle Suppose a company produces a bottle made of plastic and markets it as eco-friendly. However, they do not provide any specific information about what makes it sustainable. Meanwhile, we can assume that the bottle contains a certain amount of recycled material, the production of which is less harmful to the environment. If this is not mentioned, it may be an example of greenwashing. Case 2: Made with Natural Ingredients A cosmetic company markets one of its creams as 100% natural. This seems like a safe and eco-friendly choice. However, suppose our curiosity exceeds our trust in the company, and we start looking for information – and we find that the term ‘natural’ means nothing because no specific ingredients are shown. If so, it might be an example of greenwashing: not false advertising, per se, but a statement that is too vague to be considered reliable. How Can India Combat Greenwashing? India has long been taking steps to regulate advertising and hold companies accountable for false or unsubstantiated claims. For example, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) keeps a set of guidelines for advertisers that cover environmental advertising and prohibit deceptive practices. Meanwhile, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued guidelines banning false and deceptive advertising, including misleading environmental claims. Therefore, in India, we will not see unsubstantiated statements on product packaging, such as ‘100% natural’ or ‘eco-friendly’, because companies can be fined for making these claims without providing sufficient evidence. This is a step towards combating greenwashing, because now companies must be much more honest and specific in their statements. Conclusion: We Need Green Action, Not Green Advertising So, what can we take away from this discussion of greenwashing? The main idea is that while a company can look eco-friendly on the outside, it may be doing extraordinarily little to help the environment. Green labels on product packaging, eco-words in marketing, and statements about sustainability may seem nice, but they often conceal a lack of real action. However, it is important to understand that companies may resort to such tactics for many reasons some of which are completely honest. Therefore, instead of judging companies too harshly, we should encourage those who are genuinely striving for sustainability to improve and be transparent about their actions. We should support initiatives that have a real impact on the environment, such as reducing emissions or cutting down on plastic use, rather than rewarding vague statements with our money. In addition, I believe that regulators should continue to impose stricter regulations on those who resort to greenwashing and manipulate consumers. Remember that environmentalism should inspire us to do our part and when we interact with companies, we should ask ourselves what that part might be. We should not reward those who only want to make money by manipulating us and call out those who do not follow through on their promises. After all, the planet needs honest and transparent companies and so do we. References/ Sources : Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India https://consumeraffairs.gov.in/ Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) https://www.ascionline.in/ United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) https://www.unep.org/ Federal Trade Commission (FTC), United States https://www.ftc.gov/ ...Read more

21 Sep 2026

Summary: Charlands of West Bengal have blurred lines of identities, which state claims whom, which country claims whom is under constant change due to fluvial dynamics and ensuing riverbank erosion and flood deluge. Bhutni diara has been ravaged by the worst flood this year and this is the hour when we are left to think about another episode of blurred identity of lives and livelihoods.  Seated in dimly lit auditorium of Jadavpur University, I was greeted by the snap of a forlorn yet mighty Ganga River. The one who engulfs lands, devouring people of their lives and livelihoods and also gifts people a bounty of harvests too. She was flowing whispering about her people - the people with blurred identities, people of chars (islands) divided by rivers, also united by the rivers to share the same fate of deprivation and fight.  Deprived of the fertile agricultural land which used to feed the belly, there stands Rubel who is compelled to smuggle rice to Bangladesh. Rubel, who is entrusted with the responsibility of the entire family wants to continue school but cannot afford such luxury. Rivers change courses and with these capitals change like chessboard, lives and livelihoods are shaped, reshaped even obliterated.  Bhutni Diara: Sandwiched between two rivers with a weeping tale  Bhutni, part of the Manikchak Community Development Block is surrounded by rivers Ganga and Fulhar. This island falls in the physiographic subregion called Diara, which is a relatively well drained flat land formed by fluvial deposition of newer alluvium. The bank of the Ganges between Bhutni and Panchanandapur is the area worst hit by left bank erosion of river Ganga.  Bhutni diara, the largest of the three diaras of Maldah is situated near the point where river Ganga begins to bend south. The river also enters into Maldah district from this point. Ganga previously split into two streams here -  The eastern channel connecting the diara to Maldah mainland. This channel has gradually silted up becoming shallow and defunct. The western channel which is now the primary flow through the deeper channel.  Fulahar joins Ganga below the relict Mara Kosi, forming a spill channel that diverts excess floodwaters away from Ganga, towards Mahananda.  Retracing James Rennell's map shows that Ganges in the first half of the 19th century, after taking a round around Rajmahal hills, flowed past the island of Bhutni Diara, following the eastern channel resulting in considerable erosion on the Maldah bank.    Fig 1: Change of Bhutni char (prepared by author using SOI toposheet and Google Earth  Image)  Geological experts and local authorities are concerned about the impeding danger of flooding impacts which can extend beyond Maldah into South Bengal if a permanent river avulsion occurs due to merging of Ganga and Fulhar rivers.   Since 1922-23, bankline surveys and maps have indicated that Ganga has kept its course stable past the Maldah diara at two sites - Rajmahal and Farakka. Ganga has been scouring a deep path for itself along its left bank as it traverses the Maldah diara after passing the circular embankment protecting Bhutni. This has caused major left bank erosion in Manikchak and Kaliachak II blocks. The diara formations are built on a foundation of sandbanks overlain by colloidal silts and thus they are prone to saturation and bank failure, as the river scours away the base material at flood stage. The water levels regularly cross the Extreme Danger Level (EDL), with the Ganga peaking well over 25.64 meters during peak surges, turning the island into an open sea.  Bhutni: Abode of children of the Lesser God  Life at Bhutni revolves around the cultivation of jute (the golden fibre) but for families flooded every now and then, children turn out to be vital contributors from being mere spectators. By the time the children reach the age of five they become skilled in stripping and jute processing. Children here lack balanced nutrition. Balancing school and work becomes another issue of concern. During harvest, tuition classes are abandoned, school attendance becomes irregular.  However, parents need to rely on the income from jute cultivation for survival. Also prolonged immersion in stagnant water causes skin problems, injuries and other health risks.  If vulnerability among the dwellers by the riverbanks and char dwellers is gauged, char dwellers are found to be more vulnerable. Basic facilities are less accessible due to physical remoteness from the mainland. Facing both floods and riverbank erosion, char dwellers face more health vulnerabilities. Availability of food is another issue. Higher sensitivity for water is found among the char dwellers as most of them use hand pumps as a source of drinking water. Lower adaptive capacity is observed in case of char dwellers as they abound in dependent population more having to fight out inadequate access to financial and social institutions.  Bhutni, literally turned into open sea: 2026 flood  Bhutni char rose first to prominence from the riverbed around 1913 and since then has been losing itself to the erosive claws of rivers Ganga and Kosi, this year being the worst since 1998. 2,00,000 people are marooned across the 3 village panchayats of Bhutni - Uttar Chandipur, Dakshin Chandipur and Hiranandapur with more than 50 villages under water and thousands of families reduced to only the summis of the embankments and tiled roofs of the concrete houses still available.  Protective embankment at Kesarpur, built a year ago, costing over 6 crores, breached within months of construction - second major breach in the Bhutni ring bund since Mid August after an earlier rupture at Kata Dam in Dakshin Chandipur, this rupture led Fulhar gush in.  Photo plate 1: Flood and embankment breaching situation at Bhutni, 2026 (Source: News tap one and The Statesman)  A fresh embankment breach was observed on 2nd September. 3 high schools, 50 primary schools have got fully submerged alongwith Bhutni - Chandipur primary health centre and the local police station. 174 in patients had to be evacuated from the health centre. 5 schools have ceased to exist from Ratua I block, 3 more from Bhutni, 1 from Manikchak. Roadway connectivity to the main block of Manikchak has completely snapped, turning boats into the only viable mode of transport for relief, medical emergencies, and pregnant women. The situation has grown severe enough that the Indian Army (Panagarh unit) has been deployed to carry out mass deep-water rescue operations. Residents are surviving without cooked food, with dry ration which are being supplied by relief convoys.      Photo plate 2: Flood situation and relief convoys at Bhutni, 2026 (Source: Urban acres and Anandabazar)  Deaths due to snakebites and electric shocks were also reported. People of Bhutni are demanding a concrete solution to the repeated flooding and river bank erosion. However, any concrete solution awaits adequate comprehension of fluvial dynamics of the rivers surrounding Bhutni. Until then, let us strengthen the hands of the hapless people of Bhutni by adequate capacity building so that they are able to atleast cope up with the impeding danger lurking in the corner.  References:  Das R and Samanta G (2022): Impact of floods and river-bank erosion on the riverine people in Manikchak Block of Malda District, West Bengal Environment, Development and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02648-1 Majumdar S, Das A and Mandal S (2020): Riverbank erosion and livelihood vulnerability of the local population at Manikchak block in West Bengal, India  Environment, Development and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-02102046-z  Bhaumik I and Upadhyay C.S. (2025): Little Hands in Golden Fibre: Childhood, Work and Hope in Bhutni Island Childhood matters Vol V(3) Char: A No Man’s Land documentary by Sourav Sarangi Char Gang ek Char by Md Sadequl Islam, Barnik Prakashani  ...Read more

21 Sep 2026

Christ’s Child: El Nino and Indian Monsoon examines how El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole can influence India’s monsoon, rainfall distribution and agricultural conditions, with particular attention to the uneven and delayed 2026 monsoon. SummaryThe article examines the relationship between El Niño and the Indian monsoon, beginning with the historical tendency for El Niño years to coincide with weaker monsoon rainfall in India. It explains how the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) can sometimes modify or counteract El Niño’s influence, making the relationship more complex than a simple cause-and-effect pattern. The article then looks closely at the 2026 monsoon, including its delayed progression, rainfall deficits, intense regional downpours, floods and landslides, and uneven distribution across different parts of the country. Particular attention is given to agriculture, where irregular rainfall affected Kharif sowing, paddy cultivation, irrigation costs and crops such as rice, pulses and oilseeds, with West Bengal also experiencing delays before later rainfall helped recovery in some areas. The article highlights the wider chain linking deficient or delayed monsoon conditions with lower agricultural productivity, rural income pressures, food prices and increased dependence on groundwater. It concludes by discussing practical responses including micro-irrigation, wetland restoration, groundwater recharge, improved drainage, crop diversification and shorter-duration, drought-resistant seed varieties to strengthen resilience against increasingly variable rainfall. World Meteorological Organizations (WMO) has assumed on the possibility of an El Nino episode that it may be bad news for the Indian Monsoon. Though experts’ opinion was it would be premature to say anything definitely at the juncture, an El Nino year usually negatively impacts rains during the monsoon.  On 10th March the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted that day temperatures are likely to remain above normal by 5 to 7°C over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, by 4 to 6°C over places of North East India including Delhi NCR, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh during few days in the month .  El Nino refers to the periodic large-scale warming of the ocean surface temperature in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean coupled with changes in the tropical atmosphere circulation including wind pressure and rainfall pattern (Vishwa Mohan, The Times of India, March 11, 2026).  The History:  Since 1980, there have been 14 El Nino years, 9 out of 14 have corresponded with deficient monsoon in India with rainfall at least 10% below the average. The year 2018 experienced deficit of rainfall at 9.4 %.  There is an established connection between the El Nino year and poor monsoon, though there have been exceptions. The notable example is 1997, when the monsoon was normal despite a super strong El Nino.  In 1997, a strong positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), counteracted the El Nino. IOD is a measure of the temperature difference between surfaces in the ocean’s east and west regions. This year it is predicted that the IOD will probably be positive.        Fig 1: El Nino and Indian Ocean Dipole    IMD prediction:  June - September rains are likely to be below normal in South, Central and North West India. Monsoon onset over Kerala expected to be delayed. June is predicted to be hotter than normal.  On 30th June, 2026, IMD confirmed its forecast of below normal rainfall this year.  The 2026 monsoon in India experienced delayed onset and localised deficit, with IMD forecasting overall rainfall at 90% of the long period average.  March -May: pre monsoon showers were 1313mm nationally, close to the normal rainfall of 1306mm. Rainfall in the month of June experienced a deficit. June 2026 faced a slow start particularly across central and western states like Maharashtra and Gujarat due to delayed monsoon progression. August, 2026 experienced active spells targeting Kerala, Coastal Karnataka and south interior Karnataka with heavy to extremely heavy rainfall. Widespread rain is observed across Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Gangetic West Bengal and Odisha, though average rainfall is still below normal for several interior tract. Since July localised floods and landslides affected multiple regions in Himalayan region and North East India, mainly Assam caused more than 200 deaths. Uneven progression impacted Kharif crop sowing schedule. As a result, the cost of irrigation has created a problem. There is regional stress for major summer crops like rice, pulses, and oil seeds. Initial dry spells delayed paddy, coarse cereals and pulses planting in key rainfed areas, forcing contingency plans across nearly 200 vulnerable districts. There are also recovery signs during late July and August. Revival and localised heavy spells in late July and August have helped improve soil moisture and catch up on delayed sowing in several tracts, though regional anomalies persist. In the first week of August, 2026, heavy rainfall took place over Delhi, Haryana and eastern Rajasthan. But this heavy rainfall didn't reduce the overall country's deficits in rainfall. At least 11% deficit in rainfall will persist according to IMD. Many agrarian states of the country including Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh will continue to witness deficient rainfall affecting agricultural productivity (The Times of India, Kolkata, August 10, 2026) West Bengal: Erratic and delayed start across eastern India due to early El Nino impact led to a slow beginning for Kharif crop sowing in west Bengal. But July experienced deep depressions in the Bay of Bengal and subsequent heavy rainfall. This situation eliminated deficits enabling a steady recovery in paddy transplantation. June rainfall deficits and slow progression put initial stress on agricultural pockets postponing nursery bed preparation. Districts of South and West Bengal experienced weeks of delay in the standard Aman paddy schedule as farmers awaited proper soil saturation. During the early days of monsoon, the dry pockets of the state relied on ground water to protect seed beds. In another negative, it rained in many parts of the country at the time when the sowing of Kharif crops had ended in almost 88% of the country's total sown areas. Approximately 52% of the country's net sown area is rainfed and relies directly on monsoon rainfall. During 3 July to 31 July at least 34 places of the country experienced 200mm rainfall or more in 24 hours. Umargram of Bhaldas district of Gujarat experienced 1067mm rainfall on 23 July. It is the highest recorded rainfall in a day in 2026.  Umargram, Gujarat ------- 1067mm----2026  Sohora, Meghalaya ------1563.3mm--1995  Amin div, Laksha div----1168.5----------2004  In general, the rainfall scenario of the country is as follows,  Deficit rainfall in the first week of July,2002 amounting to 35%. On 9 July depression in the Bay of Bengal initiated rainfall throughout the country. July rainfall became normal after the first week. After the second week of July the deficit rainfall amounted to 51%. August,2026 closed out with a sharp 16% nation -wide rainfall deficit. August 2026 is registered as one of India's warmest August months since 1901. Isolated heavy to extremely heavy downpours over West Bengal, Jharkhand, and parts of Madhya Pradesh, while Punjab, West Rajasthan, and the southern peninsula remained largely dry. The first 9 days of September,2002, experienced a deep of 26% deficit affecting cotton, soybean and pulses production. Over 14 states and Union Territories report severe rainfall deficiencies. Heavily affected states include Andhra Pradesh and Punjab (40%), Goa, Kerala (24%), parts of Maharashtra (Vidarbha and Mararathwada), Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Gujarat (20%) Bihar (27%), Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and parts of East and North East India including some parts of West Bengal. The scenario may change as the withdrawal of monsoon is not complete. In the third and fourth week of September the rainfall pattern may change the scenario of the monsoon rainfall in 2026. There are areas of India with above normal rainfall during the 2026 monsoon although rainfall distribution is highly uneven. Gujarat and some parts of central India IMD recorded an isolated extremely heavy rainfall in Gujarat region and northern Madhya Pradesh on 13 September.  Delayed or deficient monsoon ----------- low agricultural productivity -------------low rural income --------------- increased food prices ------------- high dependence on ground water --------- ground water depletion.    The solution:  Micro -irrigation: deployment of Drip sprinkler irrigation can reduce water conservation by 30 -50% and enhance crop productivity. Restoration of wetlands:  Wetlands are the source of water during dry spells for preparation of paddy seed beds. Wetlands can reduce the possibility of flooding during heavy rainfall. Monitoring drainage infrastructure in flood prone urban areas. Strengthening ground water recharge systems to improve water management during extreme weather. Crop switching may take place. In rain deficit areas water -heavy paddy farming may be transformed into low -water, drought- resistant alternatives like millet and oilseeds. Short - duration seeds may be used in some water deficit parts of the country.  Quick yielding seed varieties that mature faster, allowing farmers to save their yield even within a compressed monsoon timeline should be taken into consideration.  ...Read more

16 Sep 2026

SummaryA long-drawn debate still goes on regarding the erosive nature of Indian Sundarbans, precisely the Gangasagar Island. Highly revered for the cultural significance of Sagar mela at makar Sankranti, this island draws its significance from the confluence of main flow of river Ganga through its medieval channel of Adi Ganga with the Bay of Bengal. In the Anthropocene when climate change and sea level rise are gnawing at the spine, what makes Gangasagar Island increasingly vulnerable is the galaxy of geomorphic factors and anthropic interference which play their roles in shaping the erosion accretion pattern of the island.   Highly acclaimed for the world famous Gangasagar mela at Kapil Muni ashram, every year, Gangasagar Island is one of the most vulnerable islands of Indian Sundarban. Located at a distance of 100 km from Kolkata at the confluence of rivers Bhagirathi and Hugli, this island is approximately 30 km in north-south extent and 12 km in east-west.   Premature reclamation was done in Sagar Island like the rest of Sundarban, by embanking the coastline and major tidal channels, completely blocking the smaller tidal creeks followed by deforestation. Sagar Island has been in news owing to continuous coastal erosion, which has compelled to shift the Kapil Muni temple. Most experts have shifted the blame to climate change, ensuing sea level rise (terms which are sure to capture attention within a blink of the eye). Nevertheless, geomorphic uniqueness of Ganga-Brahmaputra delta, Sundarban and the continuous in equilibrium caused by anthropic interference play their roles in carving the erosion-accretion pattern. Reclamation by preventing the tidal spill area also results in loss of morphologic equilibrium. As Hugli estuary is a macrotidal resonant estuary, loss of tidal spill area results in disequilibrium by reducing the intertidal area and increasing the mean depth of the estuary. The estuary then tries to restore the equilibrium by active erosion of embanked channel margins and by in channel sedimentation which reduces the depth (Pethick, 1994).  Erosion accretion scenario of Gangasagar Island:  The progradation and retrogradation of any delta is determined by the occupance and abandonment of the distributary channels. The relative dominance of erosive wave and tidal action and accreting fluvial forces demarcates the stability of the delta. The Ganga Brahmaputra delta is tide dominated and the western part of the delta of which Indian Sundarban is a part, is retrograding in nature due to various factors. The silt trapping ‘Swatch of No Ground’ submarine canyon, subsidence of Bangladesh side due to neo-tectonic movements causing the major flow of river Ganga towards Padma, siltation of the offtake points of river Ganga with its distributaries and sediment trapping by construction of barrages and dams in the upstream by humans have contributed to sediment starvation causing retrogradation of Western Ganga Brahmaputra delta.  Both erosion and accretion can be found sporadically with erosion being the main characteristic. The northern part of Gangasagar Island was observed to be detached from the islet of Ghoramara episodically between 1903-19014. The time span of 1922-1997 saw maximum erosion at Shibpur-Boatkhali area with recession rates as high as 23.8 m/y with 6 m frontal dune and series of embankments being obliterated (Bandyopadhyay, 1997). Erosion at Gangasagar Island has been so frequent that the Kapil Muni temple a shrine of great cultural significance had to be shifted about six times since it was built. The earliest recorded temple (Anon, 1841; Wilson, 1846) was submerged in mid-19th century. A number of temporary temples were constructed subsequently (O Malley, 1914; Mitra, 1954; Ray, 1971). Though a permanent building was constructed in the year 1961 but it too got eroded. The present temple was constructed in 1973, some 1.5 km inside the spring tide line (Bandyopadhyay, 1997).  Interestingly, an erosion accretion cycle got superposed over the dominant erosive pattern at the southern sector between Gangasagar and Basantapur since 1922-23. This region retrograded during 1922- 1942, prograded during 1942-1969, retrograded again during 196869 – 1975 and was almost stable during 1975-1997. Small islands in the Baratala branch to the east of Sagar Island grew and disappeared bearing testimony to the ephemeral nature of Hugli estuary. A fusion of Kabasgadi Island to the left bank of the estuary between 1967-68 and 2001 was observed. The widening of the Baratala river throughout previous 200 years remarked that Sagar was attached to the area to its east sometimes in the past (Bandyopadhyay, 2000). Long term oscillations in the thalweg of Hugli are observed and changes in the islands of Hugli estuary are linked to the changes in its tidal channels and sand ridges. Reworking of sediments by wave action plays an important role in regulating the ephemeral nature of islands in Hugli estuary. Moreover, the islands are characterized by cyclical patterns of erosion and accretion and this strongly discards the model of sea level rise.  Even in the 80s, Muriganga river was accessible, better than the present times. Vessels used to ply regularly from Lot no 8 of Kakdwip to Kochuberia of Gangasagar Island. The journey was hassle free unlike today when vessel service needs to be kept closed for at least 5 hours daily as there is a risk of getting obstructed by bars. Even the coastline was different; one had to walk for about 2 km crossing sandy path. The sandy beach was interspersed with runnels (depressed areas filled with clay) and beach berms (sand dunes). One had to cross a tidal creek to reach Beguakhali to the east from Gangasagar. This path was laden with mangrove patch. A lighthouse was present even then about 500 m from sea. High sand dunes were present in Tapovan area. Concrete embankment which was created in 2022 March breached within September 2022. Even high concrete embankments broke down during cyclone Sitrang of 2023.     Fig 1: Erosion accretion scenario of Gangasagar Island  Previously, during the 80s, Gangasagar creek was surrounded by mangrove patch and to its east, a sand ridge used to block the creek perpendicularly. At some places these sand ridges were 30-40 feet high. Even sand encroachment at Raspur, Basantapur villages were observed previously. Even past remnants of zamindari embankments used to get exposed in these areas along with exposure of tree trunks.  This bears testimony to the fact that there was a forested stretch to the southern portion of these settlements. For the previous 30 years, these areas have been experiencing beach lowering.   Gangasagar Island has lost about 12.982 km2 and gained about 10.244 km2 within 1968 and 2021. Erosion persists more in the north east and south east portions adjacent to Kochuberia, Haradhanpur, Dhablat and Beguakhali to the west.  SL NO ISLAND UNITS     Area (km2)     1920 1968 1978 1988 2006 2019 2021 2023 2025 1 G Plot 57.2 55.7 51.9 50.4 42.4 41.8 41.6 41.8 41.2 2 Mousuni 30.6 30.2 33.3 27.6 29.4 28.1 27 26.7 25.8 3 Sagar  242.9 258.8 248 253.4 236.8 240.2 235.7 231.5 4 Namkhana 154.4 157.4 155.3 156.4 151.9 145.3 147.7 147.1 146.2  Displacement of residents from Ghoramara and conflict:  People of Lohachara and Khashimara (Ghoramara) have been rehabilitated at Dhablat, where at present 267 families reside. Presently, agriculture relies on paddy and khesari (pulses). Freshwater supply has resulted in cultivation of Aman paddy and potatoes in the winter. Watermelon is no longer profitable. Also, people of Lohachara have bought land at Kakdwip. Literacy is high in Gangasagar Island but outmigration is common among the young generation.   Connectivity has increased at Gangasagar Island, which is a sign of development according to the local residents. All small and big tourist resorts, even the government bungalows get filled during Gangasagar Mela. Erosion has increased in the past 4-5 years. People demand concrete Aila bandh (15 ft deep) to be constructed in front of Kapil Muni temple. Gunny bags are provided to protect the area adjacent to Kapil Muni temple just before Gangasagar mela.  Displaced to Displaced from Year Brief description Phuldubi             (80-85 families) Khashimara, Ghoramara 1964 Each family was given 0.533 ha of land from the Government Dakshin Haradhanpur (50                    families approximately) Khasimara 1964 Each family was given 0.533 ha of land from the Government Bankimnagar Lohachara 1972 Each family was given 0.883 ha of land from the Government. Bankimnagar Colony Fisherman Cooperative Society was established. Gangasagar Colony Ghoramara 1981 Each family was given 0.267 ha of land from the Government and one room earthen house was given. Jibantala Kamalpur Lohachara, Ghoramara 1983 Each family was provided with asbestos roof pucca house and 0.2 ha land.      Plate 2: In front of Kapil Muni Temple, 2026 (Photo credit: Dr Kanailal Das)  It is thus of no doubt that Kapil Muni temple awaits yet another shift. However, the timeline may be disputed upon. Wave dashing engulfs the sea facing islands and Gangasagar Island is no exception in this case. Options like offshore breakwater and artificial coral reefs have been thought about but these options are not only exorbitant but also are sure to cause other knock on effects on the natural systems operating here.   References:  Bandyopadhyay S. (1997): Coastal erosion and its management in Sagar Island, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal Indian JournalEarth Sci. 24(3-4) 51-69 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7264120. Bandyopadhyay S. (2000): Coastal changes in the perspective of long term evolution of an estuary: Hugli, West Bengal, India, Proc. Int. Quat. Seminar on INQUA shoreline, Indian Ocean Sub-Commission: 103-115.  Bandyopadhyay S. and Bandyopadhyay M. K. (1996): Retrogradation of the western Ganga-delta, India and Bangladesh, Possible reasons. In. Tiwary, R.C. (ed.), Proceedings of 6th conference of Indian Institute of Geomorphologists, National Geographer, 31(1&2): 105-128. Bandyopadhyay S., Kar N.S., Dasgupta S., Mukherjee D. and Das A. (2023): Island area changes in the sundarban region of the abandoned western ganga–brahmaputra– meghna delta, India and Bangladesh, Geomorphology 422 (2023) 108482, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2022.108482. Mitra R (2013): Need of a paradigm shift in disaster management approach: A case study from coastal Sundarbans presented in 7th Biennial Conference Indian Society for Ecoloical Economics (INSEE) Global Change, Ecosystem Sustainability. O Malley’ L.S.S. (1914): Bengal District Gazetteers: 24 Parganas (Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, Calcutta) 1914. Paul A. K. (2002): Coastal geomorphology and environment published by acb publications. Paul A.K. (1991): Effective management strategies for the coast of West Bengal J. Geogr. Rev. India 53, pp 60-74. Pethick J (1994): Estuaries and Wetlands: Function and form In Wetland Management, edited by Falconer, R.A. and Goodwin P (Thomas Tetford), London 1994, pp 75-142. Ray A.K. (1971): The Gangasagar Fair (In Bengali), In Mitra, A. Ed. Religious Festivals and Fairs of West Bengal in Bengali, 3 (24 Parganas district), Govt of India (Census Operations), New Delhi, 255-271.   ...Read more

14 Sep 2026

A deeply personal journey through the Indian Sundarbans, where grief becomes responsibility and memory becomes action. Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury reflects on education, climate vulnerability, mangrove protection, safer livelihoods and community resilience—arguing that the future of the delta depends not on sympathy alone, but on giving its people the power to remain, rebuild and thrive. SummaryThe article traces a deeply personal journey through the Indian Sundarbans, where memory, grief and responsibility gradually become inseparable from questions of education, climate resilience and community survival. It moves from early encounters with village life to the experience of a cyclone-damaged school, showing how environmental destruction is felt through lost learning, insecure livelihoods, migration and social vulnerability. The piece argues that schools in the Sundarbans must become centres of resilience, equipping children with ecological awareness, disaster preparedness, digital confidence and practical skills rooted in local realities. It also examines mangrove restoration, blue-carbon possibilities, responsible tourism, safer livelihoods and anti-trafficking efforts as interconnected parts of protecting the delta. Throughout, the article insists that the people of the Sundarbans should not be reduced to symbols of suffering, but recognised as active participants in shaping their own future. Its central message is that the region’s survival will depend on turning emotion into sustained solidarity, stronger institutions and practical action that allows communities to remain, rebuild and thrive. A first person journey through memory grief and hope in the Indian Sundarbans Before the Delta I Learned to Listen I grew up between two very different landscapes, and both taught me to listen. I studied in the Ramakrishna Mission at Aalo and later at Narendrapur until I attained adulthood. Those years gave me an education in discipline, simplicity and service. They also left me with a quiet unease about suffering that people learn to accept as normal. I did not have the language for it then. I only knew that a child who had less was not worth less.At Jadavpur University, while pursuing my Master's in International Relations, another education began. The campus opened the door to social realities and to the politics of socialism and social justice. Poverty was no longer a distant picture or a line in a textbook. It had history, power and policy behind it. I began to ask why some children inherit choices while others inherit only risks, why a village is praised for its resilience when it has first been denied safety, and why the poor are so often expected to adjust to conditions that the privileged would never accept.That education did not make me an expert on other people's lives. It made it more difficult for me to look away. The values I had absorbed at Aalo and Narendrapur met the questions I encountered at Jadavpur, and together they shaped a way of seeing. Service could not mean standing outside a community with answers. Social justice had to begin with listening to people who had been living with the problem long before the city discovered it. 1988 I Entered Through a Wedding My first visit to the Sundarbans was in 1988, when I was studying for my Master's in International Relations at Jadavpur University. I did not go in search of a landscape to describe, a report to write or a cause to claim. I went because Geetadi, the rural woman who had cared for me when I was a young man living alone, invited me to her daughter's wedding in a village near Lakhsmikantapur. I went as someone who had been invited into a family, not as a benefactor or a guest of honour.The city gradually dissolved into fields, narrow roads, river crossings and the smell of wet earth. In that village, life moved to another rhythm - slower perhaps, but also harder and more dependent on one another. The wedding was held together by many hands. Neighbours cooked, men arranged chairs, women sang, and children ran barefoot through the afternoon. Poverty was visible, but so was a social wealth that Kolkata often conceals: the assurance that, in a difficult hour, somebody will come and stand beside you.I remember eating a simple meal and feeling richer than I had at many city dinners. The rice was ordinary. The generosity was not. I was meeting the Indian edge of the world's largest delta through a human invitation, and that first welcome has remained with me. Even now, I understand the Sundarbans through people before postcards, through the hands that cook, row, teach, repair and endure. The Delta Stayed With Me I returned many times after that first journey. The number may now be more than fifty, but counting visits does not explain what the place has done to me. Each journey altered the picture I had carried back from the previous one. The Sundarbans was never only the forest, never only the tiger, the river or the tide. It was a mother waiting for news of a boat, a child trying to keep a notebook dry, a teacher opening a classroom after a storm, a family rebuilding a wall before it had recovered from the last one.There is a word for the feeling that makes another person's suffering impossible to treat as somebody else's problem: pathos. It is often described as an appeal to emotion, but in the Sundarbans I have understood it as something more demanding than sentiment. It is the moment when a damaged roof becomes a child's lost school day, when a saline pond becomes a family's shrinking food supply, and when a mangrove becomes the thin living line between a home and the sea. Feeling becomes an obligation to know, and knowing becomes a responsibility to act with humility.That emotional connection is a large part of how I came to own up to my responsibility toward the Sundarbans. I do not own the land. I do not speak for its people. The place slowly entered my moral geography, and its pain began to feel personal without ever becoming mine to possess. My background, my teachers and my education had prepared me to recognise an injustice. The people of the delta taught me that recognition is only the beginning. The Day Maa Said Okay Years later, during the strange half-opening of India after the first lockdown, I asked my mother if she would come with me to a school in the Sundarbans. She had been confined at home for months. I promised a careful drive, no crowds and a slow return. I told her she would see water, forest land and Sundari trees. She listened and said, simply, 'Okay. Let us go.' I did not know that this small consent would become one of the most important sentences of my life.On November 1, 2020, Maa sat in the back seat wrapped in a shawl. She told me to drive slowly and not overtake. 'This is not the time to prove anything,' she said. I still hear her voice when I am impatient. As Kolkata fell behind us, the sky widened. Buildings gave way to fields, water and the long, patient green of Bengal. The Sundarbans seemed to exist halfway between soil and river, with the borders between land and water forever being redrawn.The school did not look like a school when we arrived. Cyclone Amphan had torn away part of the asbestos roof, and the pandemic had emptied the classrooms. There were no children, no laughter and no roll call. Yet a few stubborn people were refusing to let the school die. Jaikrishna Haldar, its founder, spoke quietly: 'This school will start again.' He sounded like a caretaker refusing to abandon a child.Maa walked through the broken corridors and asked how long the school had been shut. 'Since COVID,' I said. 'And Amphan finished what COVID started.' She nodded. Then she gave the tragedy its most exact description: 'Children will suffer quietly. Adults will pretend they do not know.' The sentence has stayed with me because it did not ask for pity. It asked adults to accept responsibility.Next to the school was a small manmade mini Sundarban - six ponds, trees, mangroves and Sundari plants, protected through community labour. Maa touched the leaves, plucked a little flower and smiled. I took a photograph of her in the sunlight, calm and alive. When I look at it now, I see more than a mother enjoying a day outside. I see the last full journey I made with her. We returned to Kolkata, fell ill with COVID, and on November 24 she was gone. A Dying Wish From Maa Became a Promise Before she was taken to hospital, Maa gave me five wishes: travel more, complete my work, look after my health, do not grow old in loneliness, and do something for the school we had just visited. The last wish was spoken without drama. That was its power. A mother who had spent her life caring for others was placing one small unfinished responsibility in my hands.On her first death anniversary in November 2021, I returned to the Sundarbans. I invited nearly five hundred villagers to a feast in her memory. We ate, remembered and allowed grief to become communal. Women served rice with practised generosity. Children ran barefoot between the adults, carrying on with the authority of life. They did not know that, for me, every face in that gathering was part of Maa's final instruction.Out of that grief came the Smt Anu Chowdhury Memorial Educational Foundation. We adopted Vivekananda Adarsha Vidyalaya, run by Vivekananda Sangha in Sankijaan village in the Kultali police station area. The school did not become a monument to my mother, and certainly not to me. It remained what it had always been: a village's claim to its children. The work began with listening to teachers, families and students, and with accepting that a damaged school needs continuity more than ceremony.A school bell in a village announces something larger than the beginning of a class. It says that the children are still here, that learning has not been washed away, and that their future will not be surrendered quietly to poverty, storms or migration. The promise I made after Maa's death has meaning only when the school becomes stronger in the hands of the community. A School Is a Living Ecology At Kultali, I have slowly learned that grassroots education cannot be separated from the ecology and economy around it. A child who learns about water should be able to understand the salinity of the family pond. A child who studies the weather should know what a cyclone warning means. A child who learns digital skills should also know how to use digital finance safely. A young person who loves the mangrove should be able to imagine a livelihood that does not require abandoning home in desperation.The education we are trying to support is therefore holistic and rooted in place. It combines foundational learning with respect for the local language and culture, ecology, arts, sports, digital exposure, community learning and everyday sustainability. It is value-based without being moralising, nature-based without becoming a field trip, and participative enough for a child to ask questions that an adult may not have anticipated. The aim is not to burden children with every problem of the delta. It is to give them knowledge, confidence and choices.Teachers carry much of this work. They need training, professional dignity and the freedom to help children learn beyond memorised answers. A school cannot become resilient if its teachers are left alone after every cyclone to reconstruct both the roof and the learning process. The community, too, must see the school as its own institution. Parents who fish, cultivate land, work as agricultural labourers or migrate for income carry knowledge that belongs in a child's education.The work is now gradually extending from Kultali towards Jhorkhali and Sagardweep, where two more schools are being supported in the process. This is a small beginning, and it remains unfinished. But its direction matters. The purpose is to build a connected culture of learning in which children in different corners of the delta can study, create, stay safer and see dignity in their own surroundings. The expansion is not about spreading a name. It is about widening the circle of children who are allowed to imagine a future. A Delta Negotiating With the Future When I return now, I cannot see the Sundarbans only as beauty. I see a place negotiating with the future every day. The danger is not one dramatic morning when the ocean swallows everything at once. It is the slow loss of a field, a pond, a tree, a home, a village and a memory. Sea levels in the Bay of Bengal are rising, land is subsiding in places, fresh sediment is not reaching every part of the delta, embankments weaken, and salinity enters ponds and fields. Storms arrive with greater force and leave behind years of recovery work.Research projections have warned that roughly 60 to 80 percent of India's mangrove area could be at risk by the end of this century if sea-level rise, erosion and salinity continue unchecked. The range should not be used as a prop for either panic or denial. It should be treated as a summons to prepare. The Sundarbans may drown in pieces before it disappears from a map: a saline pond, a child leaving school after a parent migrates, a young woman lured away when a storm destroys household income. Ecological loss and human loss are one entangled story here.Preventing that future will require more than concrete and more than plantation photographs. Tidal creeks must be reopened where they have been blocked, and mangroves must be restored with native species in the right places. Natural regeneration should be protected wherever mud and water can do the work. Low-cost living shorelines, including silt-trapping terracotta rings, deserve serious expansion. Embankments will still be necessary in many places, but they must work alongside the natural shield rather than replace it.Homes and schools need raised foundations and safe shelters need to be designed into village life. Where land is truly vanishing, relocation must be dignified, voluntary and planned around livelihoods, schooling and social ties. The region needs a Bengal Delta Commission with a long-term resilience fund, transparent data and a strong role for local communities. Kolkata must understand that the safety of the Sundarbans is part of its own safety. The city breathes behind a delta that it rarely sees. Tourism Must Arrive Lightly I think often about the beauty and possibility of Jhorkhali and Sagardweep. Jhorkhali is a natural gateway to the delta, where river routes, village life and mangrove landscapes can meet visitors. Its attraction should not be turned into a noisy picnic spot or a row of concrete resorts. The real experience is quieter: a boat slipping through a channel, a bird lifting from the bank, a local guide explaining the tides, and a meal cooked by a family that knows the soil and river because it has lived with both.Sagardweep carries another kind of beauty. It is where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal, where the Kapil Muni shrine, the beach, pilgrimage and coastal ecology share one fragile island. Birdwatching, village walks, local food, craft and mangrove interpretation can create income beyond a short pilgrimage rush. They can also help visitors understand that the island is not an empty stage waiting for development. It is a lived landscape with its own limits and memory.Tourism should follow the carrying capacity of the place. Boats should be licensed and limited, fuel and noise pollution controlled, sewage treated, plastic refused and sensitive habitats kept out of bounds. Small homestays, community kitchens, boat cooperatives and women-led enterprises can keep money in the villages. Local people should be hosts with rights, not scenery for someone else's weekend. Their music, food, craft and stories should remain living community traditions, not performances stripped of meaning for tourists.A transparent share of tourism revenue should return to mangroves, schools, clean water and disaster preparedness. After more than fifty journeys through Kultali, Jhorkhali and Sagardweep, I am convinced that the Sundarbans can become more secure through mindful eco-tourism, but only if tourism learns restraint. The forest should be allowed to remain a little shy. The most successful visit may be the one that leaves the visitor changed and the village no poorer. Let the Mangroves Earn for the People The mangroves are living infrastructure. Their roots hold mud, slow waves, shelter fish and protect the edge of the land. Their wood, leaves and waterlogged soil store carbon for long periods. When that carbon is measured, protected and independently verified, it can become part of a blue carbon economy. In plain language, the world can pay the people of the Sundarbans to keep mangroves alive, provided the money is honest and the community is not treated as a labourer on its own land.One site-specific study cited in carbon research measured nearly 28 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent being absorbed each year in mangrove stem biomass per hectare. As an illustration rather than a promise, a 1,000-hectare project at that rate could represent about 28,000 tonnes of credits a year. At an indicative 15 to 35 US dollars per credit, the gross climate value might be roughly 0.4 to 1 million US dollars annually before verification, monitoring, market changes, transaction costs and community payments. The figures are meaningful only if the people who protect the forest share fairly in the value.Carbon farming must not become a new form of exploitation. Existing forests must be protected as carefully as degraded areas are restored. Each site needs its water movement, soil, salinity and natural species understood. Planting the wrong trees for a report can waste money and trust. Carbon rights must be clear, communities must give informed consent, and independent auditors must verify claims. Benefit-sharing should be simple enough for a village meeting to understand, with a meaningful share reaching village institutions, women's groups, nurseries, fishers, honey collectors and young forest monitors.The income need not come from credits alone. Mangrove honey, sustainable fisheries, fish and crab value addition, guiding, restoration work and local craft can grow around the forest. CSR can support early research and monitoring; carbon revenue can help sustain long-term stewardship. Built patiently, the mangrove can help finance a school, a clinic, clean water and safer livelihoods. Its economic value should strengthen its moral value, never replace it. Preparedness Is Love Made Practical In the Sundarbans, disaster preparedness cannot begin when a cyclone has already been named. It has to become ordinary life. Every household should know the safest route to a shelter, keep dry food and water, store medicines and papers in waterproof bags, maintain a charged phone or radio, and keep an emergency kit ready. Panchayats should know who will need help first. Every village should know its evacuation boat, vehicle or raised platform before the wind begins to rise.Schools can become the heart of this preparedness. Children can learn first aid, water safety, evacuation drills and how to help a grandparent move safely. Teachers, youth groups, fishers, religious leaders, Anganwadi workers and women's groups can form local response teams. Warnings should travel through community radio, loudspeakers and phones in familiar language. Public buildings must be rebuilt safer, not merely faster. The goal should be zero avoidable deaths, because a poor family should not have to pay for a preventable failure with a life.I want the school at Sankijaan to teach more than examinations. A young person should be able to test soil and water, understand a weather warning, help in a first response, use digital finance safely and find a livelihood without abandoning home. Green skills, financial literacy, digital confidence and disaster readiness protect the same human being. Resilience is a family knowing what to do before the wind arrives, and knowing that the institutions around it will not disappear when the water rises. Breaking the Chain of Trafficking The fight against human trafficking must stand beside the fight against ecological destruction. When a cyclone takes away a boat, a crop or a roof, desperation creates an opening for an agent promising a job or marriage. Male migration leaves many women managing households alone. Remote geography and low awareness can hide the truth until a girl or young woman is far away. Climate pressure can turn a region into a source of trafficking if society looks away.The response has to be concerted and local. Girls must stay in school and gain real pathways to skills and income. Women, teachers, Anganwadi workers, self-help groups, panchayats and youth clubs should learn to recognise recruitment, verify an employer or marriage proposal, record travel details and report quickly. A bilingual documentary, an illustrated Bangla booklet and women-led meetings can make the invisible visible without shaming survivors. Villages must notice unexplained advances, sudden school dropouts and migration that nobody can trace.A safe village is not one where nobody leaves. It is one where people leave by choice, with information, documents, a traceable destination and a way home. Survivors need protection, counselling, legal support and respect. Education, local enterprise and disaster resilience are anti-trafficking measures too. When a child has a school, a woman has an income and a family has options after a storm, the trafficker loses power. The People Who Keep Teaching Me On one later visit, a Class I girl named Sneha ran up with her ribbon slightly undone. 'Baro Sir, you have come again,' she said. I told her I kept coming because she kept showing up. Then she asked whether I also had examinations. When I laughed, she became serious: 'Then you also study, Sir. Otherwise you will fail.' In that salt air, a child reminded me that learning is a mutual obligation. I had gone to the school thinking I had something to offer. She sent me back knowing that I still had much to learn.Debasish Das, one of the young teachers carrying the school forward, once looked at the long list of repairs, attendance, training and donor conversations and said, 'The tide does not ask if we are overwhelmed. It comes. We adjust.' I hear capability in that sentence, but I also hear the exhaustion behind it. The people of the Sundarbans have adjusted for generations. Our responsibility is to turn adjustment from a permanent condition of suffering into resilience with choices, institutions and support.The people who live here are not waiting to be rescued into dignity. They are already producing dignity under conditions that would test anyone. What they need is a fairer share of safety, education, information, opportunity and decision-making power. Any outside effort is worthwhile only when it strengthens that agency and becomes less necessary over time. The Paper Boat I Carry Before I left one afternoon, Sneha returned with a paper boat made from an old notebook page. 'For you,' she said. I asked why I needed a boat. She answered with the certainty of a child who understands the delta: 'When water rises, boat is needed.' I held it as if it were made of iron.I want to carry that paper boat as my picture of the Indian Sundarbans. It is not a doomed landscape waiting for pity, and it is not a resource waiting for extraction. It is a living place where education can reduce vulnerability, mangroves can protect and earn, tourism can learn restraint, women and children can be safer, and people can remain in communion with nature without being punished for being poor.When I look back, the path to the Sundarbans seems to have been made from many small recognitions. The Ramakrishna Mission taught me to value service. Jadavpur University taught me to see the structures behind suffering. The people of Lakhsmikantapur first welcomed me without asking what I could do for them. Maa took me to a wounded school and then left me her dying wish. The children and teachers of Kultali have kept turning that wish into a living question.Today the work is moving from Kultali towards Jhorkhali and Sagardweep, with two more schools being supported. I speak of this only because the journey is continuing, not because it belongs to me. Every school that opens its doors after a storm, every girl who remains in learning, every family that reaches a shelter in time, and every mangrove allowed to grow is a quiet answer to the fear that the delta has been abandoned.I do not know whether the Sundarbans can be saved by our generation. I know what saving it must mean: safe homes, functioning schools, protected forests, honest livelihoods, clean water, preparedness before disaster and a voice for the people who live there. Maa's last wish remains my compass, but the people of the Sundarbans are the ones who show me the direction.If water rises, a boat is needed. Sometimes it is made of wood. Sometimes it is made of a school, a mangrove, a neighbour's hand or a child's stubborn hope. I carry the paper boat because it reminds me that the future of the Sundarbans will not be secured by emotion alone. It will be secured when emotion becomes attention, attention becomes solidarity, and solidarity gives people the power to remain, rebuild and thrive. ...Read more

14 Sep 2026

The Rasuwa disaster was not simply a flood. Climate change increased the mountain’s instability, while human exposure, infrastructure choices, weak warnings, poverty and fragmented governance turned a natural hazard into a human-amplified catastrophe. SummaryThe 26 August 2026 disaster in Nepal’s Rasuwa region began with a massive rock-and-ice avalanche that triggered a destructive surge through the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river system. Climate change may have increased the underlying instability of glaciers, permafrost and mountain slopes, but the article argues that human decisions greatly amplified the consequences. Homes, roads, hydropower plants, tunnels, worker camps and economic corridors had been built in highly exposed terrain, while warning systems were not designed to detect such a rapidly developing cascade. Poverty, seasonal populations, fragmented governance and inadequate investment in prevention further narrowed the choices available to communities. The analysis calls for basin-wide risk planning, stronger early-warning systems, safer infrastructure, better relocation and adaptation finance, and greater accountability in development decisions. It also warns India to learn from Rasuwa, as similar combinations of climate hazards, infrastructure and human exposure exist across the Himalayan region. ANATOMY OF A CATASTROPHEAn analysis by Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury, a noted academic and sustainability warrior.  Climate change primed the mountain. Human decisions placed people, power, roads and hopes directly in the path of the collapse. An evidence-led analysis of the 26 August 2026 disaster, the choices that magnified it, and the reckoning Nepal and India cannot postpone. The first explanation is true, but incomplete. A warming Himalaya helped destabilise ice, rock and frozen ground. It does not by itself explain why a mountain failure became a national catastrophe: why workers were inside tunnels, why homes and markets stood on river terraces, why a border corridor could be cut at so many points, why warnings did not reach people in time, or why one shock could disable electricity, records, communications and rescue routes together. Climate was the trigger. Exposure and institutional weakness supplied the ammunition. On 26 August, a mixed rock-and-ice avalanche high in the Langtang region struck the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli system. The collapse generated a seismic signal of about magnitude 5.2, not from an earthquake but from the mass movement itself. A pulse of water, ice, rock and sediment travelled more than 100 kilometres through a narrow, steep valley. At points, the river reportedly rose as much as nine metres in roughly 30 minutes. The geography was violent. The disaster was also designed, piece by piece, by where society had chosen to build and how it had chosen to govern risk. TriggerPathwayExposureVulnerabilityRock and ice avalancheNine metre river pulse in 30 minutesHomes, roads, tunnels, plants, campsNo end to end warning or safe retreatWarming and permafrost stressDebris amplified velocity and reachSettlements on terraces and banksPoverty, weak buildings, broken accessDevelopment choicesBottlenecks and cascading failuresTrade and tourism corridorsFragmented mandates and thin finance The numbers remain provisional and will change as identification and search continue. Nepal’s official situation update of 10 September reported 1,377 bodies recovered, 5,130 people missing, including roughly 600 foreign nationals, and 13,656 rescued. These figures describe the scale of the emergency, not a final death toll. They also reveal why a single-cause story is inadequate: a rare geophysical event became a mass-casualty event because a densely used development corridor had almost no time, space or redundancy when the river changed character. Name the Event Correctly Calling this “a flood” hides the mechanism. The initiating failure appears to have been a rock avalanche that entrained glacier ice and fractured mountain material before reaching the river. The material may also have interacted with deposits left by earlier failures and briefly dammed or redirected water. The result was not simply rainfall running downhill; it was a high-energy sediment-and-water surge. That distinction matters because a rain gauge can be quiet while an upstream slope is already becoming a missile. Scientific teams are still resolving the exact sequence, volume and source geometry. Preliminary remote-sensing research points to a very large disturbed footprint, a steep descent and destruction across buildings and roads. The honest conclusion is not uncertainty about whether the event was dangerous. It is uncertainty about which warning signatures would have appeared first. Disaster policy must be designed around that uncertainty, because waiting for a perfect forecast is another way of choosing not to warn.A hazard becomes a disaster when a society has made the hazard’s pathway the address of its future. Climate Primed a Mountain Under Stress The climate signal is substantial. ICIMOD reports that glacier loss in the Hindu Kush Himalaya accelerated by about 65 percent in 2011–2020 compared with the previous decade. Its 2026 assessment says the region lost about 12 percent of glacier area and 9 percent of ice reserves between 1990 and 2020, with the rate doubling after 2000. Permafrost is also warming and weakening. Around the high elevations where ice and rock meet, the margin of stability is being eroded from above and below. But attribution must be disciplined. Scientists cannot responsibly say that warming alone “caused” this particular slope to fail without reconstructing the slope’s geology, fracture networks, meltwater pathways and short-term weather. What can be said with confidence is that warming changes the background odds: glaciers retreat, ice buttresses thin, meltwater enters cracks, and frozen ground loses its cement. The same mountain can therefore fail under conditions that once would have been less likely to produce such a connected cascade. That is why climate change is best understood as a risk multiplier, not a complete explanation. It loads the gun. Land-use decisions, infrastructure design and institutional failures determine where the bullet lands and how many people are in the room. The First Human Multiplier Was Exposure The river corridor was not empty wilderness. It carried homes, shops, hotels, customs and security facilities, truck yards, bridges, roads, power stations, labour camps and the daily economy of a trans-Himalayan route. Settlements expanded onto alluvial fans and river terraces because those are the few relatively flat surfaces available in a steep valley. “Flat” was mistaken for “safe.” A terrace is often a former flood path waiting for the next, larger pulse. The 2015 earthquake made this pressure worse. Families displaced by that disaster needed land quickly, and some resettlement and rebuilding occurred close to the Trishuli and its tributaries. In a poor mountain district, the choice is rarely between a safe site and an unsafe site. It is between an exposed site and no house, a roadside shop and no income, a lodge near visitors and no livelihood. Risk maps that do not come with land, credit and services are not plans; they are warnings people cannot afford to obey. The scale of exposure also had a temporal dimension. Hydropower construction brings rotating workforces; tourism brings seasonal crowds; trade brings drivers and loaders who may sleep in temporary camps; roads bring fuel and machinery. A hazard that occurs at dawn on a workday can kill a different population than the same hazard at midnight in the dry season. Emergency planning that counts permanent residents alone will systematically undercount the people actually present. Hydropower Turned One River into a Chain of Targets Nepal’s hydropower ambition is economically understandable. Electricity exports and domestic supply can transform a landlocked, mountainous economy. The problem is not hydropower as an idea. It is treating a high-energy river as a sequence of separate project sites when the hazard operates at basin scale. Reports indicate that at least 12 hydropower plants were badly damaged; more than 430 megawatts—over 10 percent of national capacity by some estimates—went offline. Those numbers are not just an energy story. They are evidence of concentrated exposure. Run-of-river projects are engineered around expected flows, sediment and floods, not necessarily a sudden cryospheric surge carrying house-sized boulders. Intakes can choke with debris. Desanders can be overwhelmed. Surface powerhouses and switchyards can sit on low benches because that is where construction is practical. Tunnels can become traps when access roads and portals fail. Worker camps, often temporary and poorly protected, can be the most vulnerable assets of all. When several projects occupy one narrow gorge, the failure of one bridge, intake or power line can block the rescue of the next. There is a second-order danger: infrastructure can amplify flow. A bridge or diversion structure may trap logs and boulders; a breached temporary obstruction may release a secondary pulse; spoil heaps may be remobilised into the river. It would be wrong to declare that every plant “caused” the flood. It is equally wrong to pretend that project siting and construction debris are neutral when a natural surge enters an engineered corridor. The right test is cumulative: what does the entire basin do when its most extreme plausible event arrives? The Road to Prosperity Became a Channel of Destruction Mountain roads are lifelines, but cut slopes and spoil dumps can become failure surfaces. Excavation removes toe support. Unlined drains concentrate runoff. Muck tipped near a stream is a ready-made load for the next surge. Quarrying and sand or boulder extraction can lower banks, destabilise crossings and remove the roughness that once slowed water. In a narrow valley, a road is not merely beside the river: it can redirect it, constrict it and then be carried into it. The flood damaged bridges and long stretches of highway, severing the very routes needed to bring in fuel, food, excavators and forensic teams. This is a classic infrastructure paradox: the more a remote region depends on one corridor, the more valuable that corridor becomes—and the more catastrophic its failure. Resilience means alternate alignments, stockpiles on safe ground, breakaway structures where appropriate, and rescue logistics that do not assume the road will still exist. The Warning System Was Looking for the Wrong Disaster Nepal has invested in flood warnings, but a sensor is not a warning system. A functioning chain needs detection, interpretation, a decision rule, communications that survive the first failure, trusted messengers, evacuation routes and a population that has practised what to do. In Rasuwa, the event moved too fast for a conventional rainfall-triggered alert. If the upstream catchment has no real-time seismic, acoustic, camera, lake-level and river-stage integration, the first unmistakable signal may be the wall of water itself. The reported nine-metre rise in about half an hour illustrates the brutal arithmetic. A message that takes ten minutes to verify, five minutes to translate, five minutes to relay and another ten minutes for people to decide may arrive after the safe window. SMS alone cannot solve this. Sirens, radio interruption, satellite links, local volunteers, marked vertical evacuation sites and drills are needed. The alert must say where to go, not merely that a river is rising. The neighbouring border adds a governance problem. The headwaters, glaciers and observation points do not respect administrative lines. Nepal needs dependable, rapid, machine-readable data from upstream territories, with agreed protocols for an alert that can be issued even when the science is not yet complete. Diplomacy over data is life-saving infrastructure. Delayed information is not a technical inconvenience; it is lost evacuation time. Tourism Pilgrimage and Labour Added Seasonal Density The Himalaya’s tourism economy brings jobs, foreign exchange and a reason to keep remote corridors open. It also places lodges, tea houses, kitchens, guides, porters and transport workers close to unstable banks. Seasonal visitor numbers can make a settlement several times more crowded than the census suggests. A building permit that counts only local households misses the people who sleep, work and travel through the valley during the hazard season. The answer is not to criminalise tourism or freeze mountain communities in poverty. It is to regulate the footprint: no new accommodation in mapped flow paths; structural retrofits and clearly signed vertical refuge in existing clusters; occupancy registers; multilingual alerts; and evacuation exercises involving visitors and operators. The safest hotel is not the one with the best view of the river. It is the one whose guests know the route uphill before the lights go out. Poverty Made Relocation Almost Impossible Disaster vulnerability is income made visible. A family with savings can move stock, reinforce a wall, buy transport and wait out a warning. A labourer in a tunnel, a small shopkeeper, or a farmer on a river terrace may have no second plot and no insurance. Informal housing is not evidence of ignorance; it is often evidence that formal safe land is unaffordable, unavailable or blocked by tenure rules. This is also why “just move uphill” is not a policy. Relocation must preserve schools, water, health care, markets, land rights and access to work. Otherwise people return to the hazard, as they have after many mountain disasters. Managed retreat is a social contract, not a bulldozer. Its cost should be compared with the price of rebuilding the same road, bridge and home after every extreme event. Finance Funded Concrete Faster Than Safety The asymmetry is stark. Commercial infrastructure can often secure a loan because electricity revenue is legible. A community siren, a glacier camera, a safe relocation site or a cross-border data protocol produces benefits that are diffuse and difficult to monetise. Funding therefore arrives faster for concrete that earns a return than for public systems that prevent a loss. This is a market failure disguised as development momentum. Nepal’s glacier-risk resilience project was approved through the Green Climate Fund after a lengthy, roughly seven-year pipeline; the verified project grant is about $36.1 million and implementation began in 2026. The programme is valuable, but the timing exposes a structural injustice: adaptation money can take years while a slope can fail in seconds. Climate finance must be judged by time-to-protection, not only by money pledged. International lenders and donors should fund the monitoring, zoning and maintenance that make their roads and power investments safer. Ages-long Governance Failed Before the Water Arrived The deepest man-made cause is fragmented responsibility. A glacier is watched by one institution, a road licensed by another, a hydropower intake approved by another, a municipality responsible for land use, and a district administration expected to coordinate rescue. Each decision may pass its own checklist while the combined system becomes unsafe. Environmental impact assessments that study projects one by one cannot see a basin-wide cascade. The missing instrument is an independent, conflict-free cumulative risk review with the power to say no, slow a project or require redesign. It should audit existing dams, tunnels, worker camps, spoil sites, bridges and settlements against updated cryospheric scenarios. After the 2025 flood in the same watershed killed 19 people and damaged infrastructure, a serious post-disaster audit should have treated the valley as an active warning, not as a closed chapter. Memory is a safety system; institutions keep deleting it. The Current Government Deserves Credit and Must Now Raise the Standard The Nepal government’s response deserves clear recognition. The Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, NDRRMA, provincial bodies and local governments mobilised under extraordinarily difficult conditions. Helicopters, drones, tunnel teams, medical responders, forensic specialists and foreign search-and-rescue support were brought into a corridor where roads had vanished and debris-filled tunnels remained dangerous. India, China, the Republic of Korea, the UAE, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and Israel were among those contributing specialised capacity. The rescue of thousands—including more than 300 foreign nationals—required persistence, not headlines. The financial mobilisation is also significant. Official reporting on 11 September put deposits in the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund at NPR 13.23 billion, alongside $23.28 million in designated dollar accounts—together more than $100 million equivalent at prevailing exchange rates. The government has released NPR 1 billion through NDRRMA, while assessments and identification continue. The responsible reading is that this is a measure of funds mobilised or held, not a claim that every dollar has already reached every affected household. Transparent district-level dashboards, beneficiary lists and independent audits will turn solidarity into trust. The government has also been right to demand climate justice. Nepal has contributed little to the cumulative emissions driving global warming, yet it is paying in lives, infrastructure, debt and lost development. Asking larger emitters to provide loss-and-damage compensation is not an attempt to evade domestic accountability. It is a demand that those who benefited most from carbon-intensive growth help finance protection and recovery for those facing the sharpest consequences. The two duties are simultaneous: Nepal must govern its hazard honestly, and wealthy high emitters must stop treating Himalayan loss as a humanitarian footnote. What Nepal Must Focus on Now First, secure survivors before rebuilding the old exposure. Complete identification with dignity; restore food, water, health care, schooling and livelihoods; and provide cash and legal help for families whose documents disappeared. Every reconstruction decision should be tagged to a hazard map. “Build back better” must mean build somewhere safer, or build in a way that can survive the credible event—not rebuild the same shop on the same fan because the land title is convenient. Second, create a whole-mountain observation and warning architecture. Combine satellite radar and optical imagery, seismic and infrasound sensors, glacier and permafrost measurements, cameras, lake levels, river gauges and trained local observers. Monitor not only known glacial lakes but unstable rock slopes and new lakes formed by the collapse. Use layered alerts: automatic local sirens, radio and satellite messaging, police and community runners, and pre-agreed evacuation triggers. Test them at night, in monsoon weather and with power and mobile networks switched off. Third, impose a basin-wide safety reset. Map red, amber and green zones; halt new construction in flow paths; relocate the most exposed homes and camps with compensation; and require independent cumulative assessments for hydropower, roads, mines and tourism. Audit every intake, powerhouse, switchyard, tunnel portal, bridge, spoil dump and access road. Require emergency drawdown, shutdown and worker-accounting protocols. A project that cannot explain how it will warn and evacuate its people is not resilient, whatever its concrete strength. Fourth, build redundancy into the state. Store land, health and identity records in protected, replicated systems. Pre-position excavators, fuel, bridge components, drones, body bags, DNA kits and communications equipment on safe ground. Train municipalities to operate for weeks without Kathmandu. Create a permanent recovery authority that can coordinate housing, compensation, infrastructure and ecological restoration beyond the news cycle. The first rescue saves lives; the recovery system determines whether the next disaster finds the same people in the same place. India Must Read the Same Warning India should not read Rasuwa as a foreign tragedy. The same Himalayan arc crosses Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh. The country has already seen the cost of compound mountain hazards: the 2013 Kedarnath disaster, the 2021 Chamoli rock-and-ice event and the 2023 South Lhonak glacial lake outburst flood in Sikkim. Each case carries a different mechanism, but the policy lesson is shared: a high-altitude trigger can meet roads, dams, tunnels, pilgrims, workers and settlements that were designed for yesterday’s climate. India’s first lesson is to stop treating project-by-project clearance as basin planning. Before approving another hydropower cascade, ask what happens when a debris surge removes the road, blocks the tunnel, overwhelms the intake and cuts the evacuation bridge at the same time. The second is to count transient populations: pilgrims, tourists, construction labour and military or border personnel. The third is to integrate the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Central Water Commission, GSI, NDMA, state disaster authorities and local communities into one operational warning chain rather than a shelf of reports. The fourth lesson is cross-border realism. Rivers, air masses, glaciers and seismic signals cross Nepal, India and China. India should support a standing Himalayan data-and-alert compact with shared thresholds, rapid exchange and joint exercises. It should help Nepal with drones, LiDAR, bridge logistics, forensic capacity and training while also making its own mountain infrastructure safer. The fifth is political: climate justice is not only a diplomatic phrase used by Kathmandu. Indian states in the Himalaya will increasingly need loss-and-damage finance, insurance reform and adaptation grants that do not arrive after the next catastrophe. The Mountain Fell Human Systems Chose the Exposure There is a seductive comfort in blaming climate change alone. It makes the disaster feel inevitable, global and therefore beyond local responsibility. There is an equal and opposite error in blaming poor planning alone, as if better engineering could freeze a warming mountain in place. Both are evasions. The truth is harder and more useful: climate change enlarged the hazard; development decisions enlarged the population and assets in its path; weak warnings shortened the escape window; fragmented governance multiplied failures; poverty narrowed the choices; and slow international finance left prevention underbuilt. Nepal’s rescue effort shows what the state can do when it is forced to concentrate its full capacity. The next test is whether that urgency survives the cameras. The country should accept help without surrendering public scrutiny, demand compensation without excusing unsafe domestic choices, and rebuild with the courage to move people and cancel projects. India should do the same before its next Himalayan warning becomes an obituary. The question is no longer whether the mountains are dangerous. The question is whether our institutions will keep making danger profitable, normal and occupied. Sources and Evidence:The article distinguishes official situation figures from early media estimates and from preliminary scientific interpretation. Casualty and rescue numbers are provisional. The physical sequence remains under investigation; where evidence is preliminary, the language above says so. [1] Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs Daily Situation Update 10 September 2026. official casualty, missing, rescue, response and international-support update Open source [2] Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Briefing 3 September 2026. official account of mobilisation, specialist teams, reconstruction and climate-justice position Open source [3] Radio Nepal Report on Prime Minister Disaster Relief Fund 11 September 2026. reported rupee and dollar deposits and NDRRMA release Open source [4] Scientific American Why Glacial Collapse Likely Caused the Nepal Disaster. early scientific explanation of the rock-and-ice avalanche and climate context Open source [5] The Guardian What We Know About the Link Between Nepal’s Flash Floods and Our Climate Crisis. reported fall height, travel speed, river rise and exposure context Open source [6] Nature News on the Nepal Disaster. scientific context and expert interpretation Open source [7] Kathmandu Post Rasuwa Flood Science and Risk Reporting. bedrock failure, preliminary volumes, monitoring and early-warning needs Open source [8] ICIMOD Himalayan Climate and Water Atlas Updates. glacier loss, permafrost, dangerous lakes and monitoring gaps Open source [9] UNDP Nepal and Green Climate Fund Glacier Risk Reduction Project. verified $36.1 million grant, seven-year programme and risk-reduction measures Open source [10] Reuters Nepal Flood Search Rescue and Rebuilding Reports September 2026. reported national toll, hydropower damage, rebuilding needs and rescue logistics Open source [11] Associated Press Nepal Flood Aftermath Report 8 September 2026. reported infrastructure damage, blocked routes and preliminary reconstruction costs Open source [12] Stimson Center Analysis of the Rasuwa Cascade. preliminary cascade reconstruction and monitoring lessons Open source [13] University of Reading Expert Comment on the Rasuwa Avalanche. expert interpretation of slope failure, permafrost and warning-chain limits Open source [14] When a High Mountain Slope Failure Cascades Downstream. preprint with uncertainty-explicit remote-sensing reconstruction Open source [15] Counterview Climate Change a Trigger Not the Whole Story. human drivers, hydropower force multipliers and climate-justice framing Open source [16] India National Disaster Management Authority Sikkim Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Materials. Indian comparison and early-warning lessons Open source ...Read more

11 Sep 2026

Ahmedabad, once seen as a pioneer in urban climate adaptation, has been ranked the least climate-resilient major city in the world in a new AlphaGeo study. The finding exposes a widening gap between the city’s climate-risk exposure and the effectiveness of its adaptation measures.  SummaryA new AlphaGeo study has placed Ahmedabad at the top of a global ranking of cities facing the highest residual climate risk, raising questions about whether existing adaptation measures are keeping pace with worsening hazards. The study assessed 72 major cities using its Climate Risk & Resilience Index, which considers both physical exposure to hazards and the level of protection provided by adaptation measures. Ahmedabad recorded a resilience-adjusted risk score of 41, largely driven by extreme heat, while several other South Asian cities also featured among the higher-risk locations. The ranking is particularly significant because Ahmedabad has long been presented as a climate-adaptation pioneer. Following the deadly 2010 heatwave, the city introduced South Asia’s first Heat Action Plan, with measures including heat alerts, public-health advisories, cooling interventions and reflective roofs. However, the AlphaGeo assessment suggests that such interventions have not been sufficient to close the city’s wider adaptation gap as climate threats intensify.  The study also highlights a broader South Asian problem, where cities face substantial exposure to heat, flooding and other hazards while adaptation investment remains comparatively limited. Hyderabad, Multan, Dhaka, Kolkata and Lahore were among the other cities with high resilience-adjusted risk scores. In contrast, Chicago recorded the lowest score among the cities studied, while Beijing, Tianjin and Shenzhen were highlighted for relatively strong adaptation efficiency.  For Ahmedabad, the challenge extends beyond heat. Rapid concrete development, limited tree cover in several neighbourhoods, heat-retaining surfaces, shrinking natural drainage channels and waterlogging during intense rainfall can increase residents’ exposure to climate extremes. The risks are also unevenly distributed, with poorer communities often having less access to shade, cooling and reliable infrastructure.  The study therefore raises a larger question about what climate resilience should actually mean for a city. A heat action plan or adaptation policy can provide an important framework, but resilience ultimately depends on whether those measures translate into safer neighbourhoods, functioning infrastructure and protection for people most exposed to climate hazards. For Ahmedabad, the ranking is a warning that climate leadership cannot be measured only by the existence of policies; it must also be judged by how effectively those policies reduce risk on the ground.  Original Writer & Courtesy Original writer: Rajiv Shah  Original article: “Ahmedabad world’s least climate resilient major city: AlphaGeo study”Courtesy: Counterview.net Counterview.net ...Read more