Counterview

By Rajiv Shah
An international interdisciplinary journal, “Earth System Science Data (ESSD)”, has raised the alarm that global fossil CO2 emissions in India grew at a rate of +5.2% per year on an average during the last one decade (2008-17), and are expected to grow even higher in 2018. Suggesting that this growth is higher than China’s CO2 emissions, an increase of +3.0%, an article in the journal says, while the global average for the decade was 1.5 % per year, the emissions decreased in the European Union (EU) countries by −1.8%.

Counterview Desk
Several concerned citizens write to the Selection Committee responsible for recommending names of Central Information Commissioners (CICs), expressing strong reservations about the process followed by the government for inviting applications and short-listing candidates for the posts of information commissioners in the CIC.

Counterview Desk
On the third anniversary of notification (December 7) and one year since the deadline lapsed for implementing the emission standards for coal based power plants, a Greenpeace India analysis has pointed out that approximately 76,000 premature deaths could have been averted if the coal power plants in India had implemented the emission standard norms notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC in 2015) on time.

By RK Misra*
The law is an ass unless you propose to ride it. Then it bucks you to spread eagled state! Is the search for truth in the quest for justice a matter of just right or wrong, a matter of bland rules, and just plain guided legality, or does one need to break through the straight-jacket, at times, to dispense it? The question brooks an answer. Here’s a case study.

By Shankar Sharma*
The decision by the Government of India in May 2017 to commission ten nuclear power reactors of the type PHWR of 700 MW capacity, each in different parts of the country, and the proposal to add four more reactors of the type VVER of 1,000 MW capacity each at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (NPP), has given rise to many serious concerns to the communities around these projects, and to the concerned civil society groups in the country.

Counterview Desk
Mumbai's civil rights organization Ghar Bachao, Ghar Banao Andolan (GBGBA) has said that after receiving a number of false assurances of rehabilitation in a safer residential area, the residents of polluted Mahul (#MumbaisToxicHell) have decided to hold a mass rally from their protest site, which they have ‘occupied’ in Vidya Vihar, to Mantrayala on December 15, 2018.

Counterview Desk
A Government of India-sponsored study has raised the alarm that 1.24 million deaths, or 12.5% of the total deaths, in India in 2017 were "attributable" to air pollution, which is one of the highest in the world. Titled "The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden, and life expectancy across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017", the study, funded by the Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says, this suggests India has a "disproportionately high mortality and disease burden due to air pollution."

By Mohan Guruswamy*
2019, like 2014, will be another presidential election year. Not since 1971, when the Congress Party fought with Indira Gandhi as its only face and only reason, will India see such a personality-focused election. Her campaign call then was “I say ‘Garibi Hatao’ and they only say Indira Hatao!” Narendra Modi now cannily implies just that. He says when he promises “development” his opponents’ only chant “Modi Hatao”.

Counterview Desk
In a detailed note, well-known civil rights organization, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), which has taken up the cause of lakhs of people in Assam who are in danger of being permanently declared “foreigner”, has said that, with less than 10 days to go for re-submitting claims for citizenship before the National Register of Citizens (NRC) offices, the future of nearly 32 lakh people is at stake.