Skip to main content

Sea ingress invades Narmada up to 80 km due to 'failure' to address climate change

By A Representative
Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar, launching a youth led campaign, Towards a Better World, has called upon youth to change lifestyle and sources of livelihood for a sustainable and just development, underlining, even though everyone agrees climate change is a big issue, internationally our governments are not acting on climate emergency.
Addressing Fridays For Future, a global movement led by Greta Thunberg, in which several youth activists took part, Patkar exhorted the youth to fight against killing, destruction and exploitation of nature whose damage is irreversible, adding, this happens when rivers are polluted, groundwater is extracted to an extent that aquifers are also emptied, when glaciers are coming down, and even the agriculture land is being diverted and food security is lost.
Referring to the impact of Narmada dam on the Narmada river in Gujarat, Patkar regretted, without the river flowing, the sea cannot be stopped from coming in. Sea ingress has invaded Narmada river up to 50-80 km during the last few years, destroying agriculture and livelihood.
  Asking youth to follow Gandhiji’s path of simplicity for just and sustainable development, Patkar said, if we follow the Gandhian path then lifestyle changes will have to be based upon his conclusion that the earth has enough to fulfill everyone’s need but no one’s greed.
Among those who spoke on the occasion include include Abhay Jain, a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and an aspiring fair-trade entrepreneur, noted socialist Anand Vardhan Singh, Ariadne Papatheodorou and Ayesha Imtiaz16 years old climate activists from Fridays For Future from Greece and Pakistan respectively.

Comments

TRENDING

Tibetan activist’s self-immolation sparks fresh concerns over cultural rights

By Kumar Krishnan*  The question of Tibet has once again entered international discourse, raising difficult questions about human rights, religious freedom, cultural identity, language, and the relationship between political power and the rights of indigenous communities. On 20 August 2026, the Kashag and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile jointly organised a solidarity prayer service and peace march to mark the 49th day since the death of Lobga Rangzen, a Tibetan activist who died after self-immolating on 2 July in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

IMF's policies 'stabilise' external creditors' balance sheets, 'generate' crisis in Africa

By Grieve Chelwa, Vijay Prashad   Across Africa, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) presents itself as the custodian of macroeconomic stability. Its latest Article IV staff reports on Ethiopia . Malawi , Nigeria , South Africa , and Zambia are written for economies with very different histories and institutions. Yet they converge on a familiar prescription: fiscal consolidation, tighter monetary policy, market-determined exchange rates, subsidy reform, deregulation and ‘private-sector-led growth’. No serious economist can dismiss macroeconomic stability.

Gujarat Sachivalaya blacklists, denies entry to woman social activist: Will NHRC probe?

By Kantilal Parmar*  I have approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking an independent, impartial, and transparent investigation into a serious incident that took place at the Gujarat Secretariat in Gandhinagar on August 18, 2026. The matter concerns social activist and women’s rights leader Chandrikaben Solanki, who, according to the information available to me, was denied an entry pass to the Secretariat when she went there to meet Gujarat’s Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Dr. Manishaben Vakil, to raise an issue concerning social justice.